‘Lagori’, a popular street game player, is live in the city today. In a treat of eclectic music reflecting varied influences of each band member, the boys come up with fresh and honest sounds. Thy were featured in the Indian music documentary and travelogue show ‘The Dewarists’ on national television. They have been inspired by the rich diversity of Indian culture.
To name the members Vinyl Kumar plays the drums, shakers, cajon and backing vocals; Tejas Shankar on vocals; Geeth Vaz on electric, acoustic guitar, backing vocals and Edward Rasquinha playing acoustic guitar and vocal support. The band is performing at Phoenix MarketCity in Velachery this evening.
The band members share some of their experiences with DC.
What does Lagori mean? How was the band formed? How did the band members meet?
Lagori is a game of 7 stones or 7 tiles. It is called ‘Lagori’ in south India and ‘Pithu’ in North India. It is a game where one team would try to stack 7 stones and the other would try to destroy it. It is a popular regional game in various parts of country. We named our band ‘Logori’ because we all liked the number 7. Number 7 had been really lucky for us and the name really caught onto us. Whether people liked the game or not they definitely remembered the name. They could never forget it. That sounded like a very interesting name for the band. We were formed in 2011 and we started playing live in 2012. Edward, Vinyl and I had been a part of the band called ‘Fahrenheit’ in college and were playing Rock and Metal. Then we decided to do something in regional languages and that is how we formed the band. And Tejas joined along.
Out of different genres, how did you mix the western style with the regional classical music?
So we have various influences and each of us bring in our influences when we sit together on the table to write our music. Which is why we try and make our music very unique and different. That has helped us in writing our music. This is something that makes us stand-out in the way we write our music.
What has been your most memorable project so far?
We collaborated recently with a very popular artist/actress from Hyderabad, Shalini Pandey. We did a Telugu original song with her and that has garnered close to about 900k views on Youtube. And that is the most memorable project we have worked so far.
Tell me about your current project?
We are working on releasing our second album, which should be out in a couple of months. The dates are not finalised. And a lot of collaborations are in store as well. So a lot of content is definitely coming from Lagori in the next couple of months.
What do you wish to convey to aspiring musicians?
Stick to your music. Do whatever you think is right. Do whatever you want to do. Don’t get walked down by all the stuff that is happening around you. Focus on your music and focus on spreading it.
What’s the best appreciation for your works?
The best appreciation is the number of shows that we do. We do about 60-70 shows a year. And that really explains how the audience have accepted us. When organisers come back and want us to perform again, it really makes us happy. For instance, this is the third time that we are performing at Phoenix MarketCity in the past 6 years. Similarly, we do this at multiple places.
