In conversation with guitarist Chandresh Kudwa about his new album, Free Spirit 

Chandresh Kudwa’s new album, Free Spirit, with songs like Disco Chicken, Pink Star and Cappuccino Queen, shows off the guitarist’s dexterous skill. Although it would be classified as rock, the Mumbai-based artiste says inspiration stems from many genres. “It has elements from blues, funk, pop, metal and jazz. When you listen to them back-to-back (which most people do not do anymore), you don’t feel fatigued, since every song has a different groove,” he shares. Chandresh plays in Bengaluru this weekend as part of his Free Spirit Tour. 

The musician has played in many bands over the years including Freedom, Dream Out Loud and the collaborative project Axe-tortion. While he says newer genres may have crept into his music, at its heart, his sound remains the same. “I feel music has to be hummable, whether it’s an instrumental or a vocal track. That’s the core of my way of writing music. I may have a lot of shred, heavy, tricky, complicated pieces of music, but if you look at my melodies, almost all of them are hummable,” he adds. 

This album is the culmination of a year’s worth of work and it also features drummer, Gino Banks, and bassist, Mohini Dey. “Both of them are very creative so they brought in many ideas and rhythmic patterns which otherwise, I wouldn’t have thought of. Gino, with all his experience, would play stuff that sounded so good that I had a hard time trying to figure what to keep and what to eliminate. And I always wanted a bass player to double certain guitar parts and Mohini was able to do that,” he tells us. 

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