BAND NAME: Junkyard Groove
FORMED : June 2005
LINE-UP: Ameeth Thomas (lead vocalist and acoustic guitar), Craig Maxworth (bass) and Siddharth Srinivasan (back-up and lead vocalist)
WHAT THEY CALL IT: Alternative funk rock, now heading towards more accessible pop sounds.
THE ROAD SO FAR: “Chennai didn't really have a big band, except Moksha,” recalls Ameeth. “We wanted to build a big band that will tour the country. Today, we have a fan-base all around the country; we have had over 30,000 album downloads.”
It all began in June 2005 after a year-and-a-half of not playing music. Craig and Ameeth say they were “sick of the music scene and the lack of commitment from the boys.”
“We watched our ex-bandmates who were considered the top in the Chennai circuit and decided that we can do better than them,” Ameeth adds.
Ameeth's brother Arjun Thomas of Molotov Cocktail is one of the city's most popular vocalists. “I got into rock music because of my brother. But I got sick of classic rock because of him too. I knew every song, every note because I had heard them a thousand times,” he laughs.
In 2007, Junkyard Groove played at the Desert Rock festival, Dubai on both days. “That was the most massive gig we ever played. We hung out and caught up with Prodigy and Incubus… even now when we think about it, we're in a daze. That and Saarang 2007 at IIT-Madras where we played for a 10,000 strong crowd are our two biggest gigs.”
Apart from these big shows, JYG had played at NLS twice, toured Mumbai regularly and have done all the Hard Rock Cafes in the country.
“In January 2009, we released our first EP ‘Nicer in a minute' with five songs and two months later, we released our album, ‘11:11' with a producer from LA who worked with Alanis Morissette, Bruce Springsteen, Snoop Dogg... When the recession hit, the record label backed out. But we created a grassroots level marketing strategy and made money of it too by putting it online. Gimmesound.com splits half their ad revenue and we are still No. 2 on the site. We made Rs. 1.5 lakh from that alone.”
The band's now looking for a fourth band member. “Our drummer left a year ago. We've been using sessions drummers since. We work much better with full intensity and high pressure. If anyone wants to audition, they could email junkyardgroove@
gmail.com”
MUSIC: “Most of the first album was from my personal life experiences when I was 25. I was a little restrained then. Now for the second album, we are all out, touching subjects we are not comfortable talking about. A little more honest, so that it makes sense as art. Songwriting is an art. Once you create a part of art, it can get translated in 300 different ways. We are into making the song that will have a life of its own. It has to be part of my world or I can't sing it.”
TUNE IN:
http://www.gimmesound.com/JunkyardGroove
junkyardgroove.net
www.youtube.com/junkyardgroove1
myspace.com/junkyardgroove
