What’s the story behind changing your name from This Little Question to Skytrip?
Our drummer and lyricist, Calvin usually bunked Sunday mass and would come chill at Jovith’s place. We were sitting and deliberating on band names for this local band competition. One of us said “What do we name this little adventure of ours?”, the other went ”This Little Adventure!”. We agreed that sounded good but decided to change it to This Little Question. Over time with all the ordered chaos and the constant change in the sound of the band, we decided to change the name to something that suited the musical direction that we were headed to. We always liked the reality of how beautiful and limitless the sky is and with our music we wanted people to feel this endless certainty of bliss. So we stuck with the name Skytrip!
Name some artists you’re looking to collaborate with and would love to work with
Katy Perry would be nice. On a more serious note, we look up to independent bands and artists like Bryden Lewis, Paarth, Jai Row Kavi, Shalini Mohan, Thermal and a Quarter, etc. Fellow bands like Vocal Rush, Excelsior, Sounds Fishy, and Raindown Playbutton are also among our favourites. With the sheer plethora of talent in the Bangalore local creative and performing arts scene, we’d like to collaborate with any creative artist from any walk of life.
Describe your tech set up. What are the gears you guys use?
Jovith and Neha use Schecter Damien 7 and 6 string electric guitars respectively, both with Active Pickups with Line 6 HD500X multi-effects processor. Viyan uses synth tones from a variety of digital VST and plugins using the Nektar Impact LX49+ MIDI Controller. Clyde uses an Ibanez GSR200 electric bass guitar. Calvin’s drum gear includes Mapex drums, cymbals from Zildjian, Sabian, Meinl, Istanbul and Paiste, and the Pearl Demon Drive double bass pedal.
In a scene with new artists and bands emerging so often, how do you ensure that your music stays alive and loved?
We are always on a quest of finding that balance between what we love playing and what the audience would enjoy listening to. At the end of the day, music is about making people connect.
We have always been working on the unique sound for the band, that sound when you listen to it you’d go ‘Hey, that’s Skytrip!’. That’s our goal. We hope to find it along the way.
You’ve mentioned about being inspired by Dream Theater and Coldplay, how have you incorporated their styles into your music?
Honestly we never really chose a genre to play. We’ve always wanted to play any kind of music we like. We have phases where we listen to a plethora of music ranging from metal to jazz to hip hop. Our early inspirations were bands like Haken, Between The Buried And Me, Leprous, Dream Theater and Porcupine Tree from the progressive scene. We absolutely love Indie artists like Coldplay and Imagine Dragons which blur the line between what is conventionally pop and rock. Progressive metal usually tries to encompass the entire sonic range, so we include stuff like the double bass drums in the verses of Cold Rain and low-end ambient guitar riff in the bridge to Spaces. All of these in mostly indie pop synth-based arranged songs.
Upcoming projects
At the moment, we are planning on releasing singles every month. There’s also an EP planned over the second half of the year, with the shooting for music videos. We are also looking forward to playing live this year to promote our originals.
