We chatted up with the band Mrigaya on their music, formation of band, about the band members and much more.
Tell us how the band was formed?
The band was initially formed as a jam band project for a music club called “Friends of Music” and was originally christened “Mrigaya” (Sanskrit for “hunt”). A misprint in the promotion flyer named the newly formed outfit as “Mrigya”. The band decided to retain this new name born out of that amusing incident.
What makes your band unique amongst other bands?
Mrigya is an Indian World fusion music band . Ours is a fusion of Hindustani and Carnatic Classical Music with Blues, Folk, Funk, Rock, Jazz and other Global forms like Latin, Celtic and even African Music. But what makes the band Unique- is the seamless Fusion of these various musical influences. All forms merge into one another to become – A “Mrigya” sound!
How did the name Mrigya come about?
Answered in the first Question…
Tell us one unique aspect of each of the band members.
Every Member is extremely well versed at his or her craft… and instrument. To get into the details of each person’s uniqueness… would need a book ! But what we can say is, that each one of us, inspite of being fiercely individualistic, compliment each other beautifully. It is this individuality that adds to the colour of our sound. Each one can hold an audience on their own… but also have the discipline to fall back and hold up a song or a sound as a band… when required. A sense of, where to play, how much to play, when to play, what to play…in a song, that is the mark of a true musician! So we all are musicians first and instrumentalists later!
Which has been your best performance till date? and why?
Very hard to point one performance as the best, each performance gives us a high and we feel that we give our Best each time we are on the stage. And by the Grace of the Almighty..every gig is the Best one!
How do you write music for your band?
It is a team effort! Anyone person can come up with a motif and then the whole band takes it forward. Also, sometimes individual members do come up with near complete compositions and the band gets in to make it a song tweaking it as required to bring out the best compositional values. More often than not, interesting ideas come up while Jamming at practice or even at sound-checks. If we like it, we keep it!
What inspires you guys as a band the most?
Music and Life, inspire each other and we are no exceptions to that rule… our friendships, travels, collaborations, life experiences, musical preferences.. inspire us!
Any artist you guys would like to collaborate with? and why?
If given a chance…We would love to collaborate with Greats like John Mc Laughlin, Ustad Zakhir Hussain, Trilok Gurtu and L Shankar for sure!! Shakti and Mahavishnu have had a huge influence on our music… And Trilok Gurtu is just awe inspiring! We were lucky enough to also have Shakti member and Ghatam maestro Shri Vikku Vinayakram join us for a collaborative project a few years back…Also, we regularly feature artists from across the globe in some gigs and even our last album featured guest artistes. We would love to do something like this again!
Tell us about your upcoming projects.
As of now we are focused on doing what we do best… Perform live! We are also in talks with ICCR for another international tour.
Your message to readers of the magazine.
We would like our readers to actively promote independent music by going to live concerts and legitimately downloading music of Indie Artists. The Music Industry is going through tough times across the Globe, so music lovers need to support artists in everyway they can, Most importantly, there are a large no. of talented musicians coming in the scene who might not be ” commercial” but by expanding our listening choices, we can help infuse better music into the world. God knows that the World NEEDS Music now more than ever! Peace and Love 🙂
