Why the band is called Non Violinist Project? Is there a story behind it?
A friend of ours after seeing Shravan’s very peaceful demeanour compared it to Gandhi’s, in the context of a rather silly joke, where Shravan was a violinist and Gandhiji being a non-violinist!
How would you describe your band’s sound?
All of us bring in each of our sounds and inspirations and that’s why it’s a little hard to pigeon-hole the sound/genre of the band. But if we had to use a term it’d be Neo-Indian Classical-Fusion.
Tell us a little bit about your tech set up while recording music
Our guitarist Naveen Samson, has an extremely well equipped home studio setup where we lay down the initial ideas. From there we go to bigger studios and execute them!
What’s your take on social media and YouTube taking over how music is shared and received by audience?
Social media may be the biggest boon and bane of the current musical landscape. The obvious advantage being that, anyone has the power to compose/record/release any song/piece of music from the comfort of their own bedrooms, while the disadvantage is EXACTLY the same thing. With literally anyone being able to do this, you obviously have a massive dilution of quality content taking place and thereby it becomes much more of a challenge to cut through the noise. We believe at the end of the day that good music speaks for itself!
What are the challenges you face as a band while putting music together?
Right from the outset, to get 5 individuals who are already musicians in high demand playing for various different bands/projects was definitely a challenge. But the commitment towards pushing the boundaries of what was possible is what is driving us everyday.
Tell us about your best performance and why do you choose it?
We’ve been fortunate to play at some astounding venues in the last year since the inception of the band. We’ve played some great concerts to thousands of people at different colleges around India, but in a way the most special concert is still the VERY first one, where we performed at Kamaraj Arangam Auditorium for Isaignani Ilayaraja Sir’s birthday, in front of the genius himself! To actually watch him sit in the front row and appreciate our interpretations of his musical masterpieces was a blessing indeed!
Your influences from the music space
Like we mentioned before, all of us have drastically different musical inspirations and thats what we feel makes the band unique. Right from Raja & Rahman to Snarky Puppy & Bruno Mars to Ganesh & Kumaresh, its quite a journey of sounds!
An artist you would love to collaborate with and why?
We would love to work with someone like Karsh Kale, who’s in fact a pioneer in taking Indian Classical music and putting a super-modern spin on it. There are thousands of artists who play “fusion” music but very few do justice to the roots of each respective genre like Karsh.
Upcoming projects
We recently concluded a tour of various cities, playing some of the biggest college festivals in South India. We plan to release a series of concert videos from those shows in the coming months. Aside from that we’re also working on a ton of original material, an album may on the horizon very soon!
