Be it their posters with the members sitting and chilling on green lawns, stage shows with yellow beaming lights in the background or even the obvious influence of banjo in their music, the two-year-old band, When Chai Met Toast, is likely to remind listeners of the four-piece British folk-rock act, Mumford and Sons.
In fact, that is one of the first things I asked them—and Achyuth Jaigopal, one of the founding members and guitar/ banjo artiste of the outfit, admitted, “We listen to quite a lot of bands including Mumford and Sons, Bears Den, The Lumineers and The Alabama Shakes, so our music is influenced by all these artistes.”
After their debut EP, Joy of Little Things, released last year, these indie-folk-rock musicians have garnered a huge following across India. About stumbling upon this name, while sitting in a cafe, vocalist Ashwin Gopakumar states, “We thought the name would perfectly sum up our kind of music. Chai being something very local and toast being something Western — that name would convey the story of how four South Indian boys met English folk.”
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Simple and sweet
Ashwin and Achyuth met each other at a studio in Kochi and that was the beginning. They eventually started jamming, and made a couple of songs with no intention of forming a band. Ask them about the most important career milestone in their journey so far, and Achyuth says, “The decision to move away from our two-piece setup to what we have right now is what changed the whole game for us.”
The ensemble now has Pai Sailesh on drums and Palee Francis on keys. Together they create what they call ‘happy music’. “We write about the little things in life, which include the casual stories shared by our friends.
Once, a friend told us that her three-year-old son goes around cycling, thinking that he is travelling the world, and we wrote a song on that,” says Ashwin, adding that all four of them are from different musical backgrounds, and that helps them understand music from different perspectives.
Comic tuning
The group recently worked with stand-up comedian Kenny Sebastian on his Netflix show, Die Trying. “We spent almost two months discussing the scenes and the mood of each song with Kenny and worked in the studio with him for an entire day, to record the vocals,” Achyuth shared.
After their single, Fight, the ensemble is now working on their new song, Believe. “All our songs aren’t plain happy. We do talk about issues in the society. Believe talks about depression, and how we can effectively tackle that with love and self-belief,” says Kishan John, the band’s manager.
The band is presently preparing for their first international show in Singapore, followed by Bali next month. After that, two of their newest music videos will be out by August.
As for what to look forward to for their performance in Chennai, they say, “We would suggest the crowd listen to Fight before the gig, as we are going to bring that level of energy to our show in Chennai.”
At Phoenix MarketCity. March 24. 7 pm. Entry free.