KOCHI: The lines are raw and rustic, the music soulful but not without traces of peppiness and unconventional vocal - music band Thakara has everything to rock the music scene.
They might be just building a base (as frontman James Thakara claims), but the band is already an Internet rage, thanks to its popular singles ‘Puttu pattu..’, ‘Podi Penne..’ and ‘Koran’s Anthem...’ .
As the band readies to perform before a live crowd at JTPac, frontman James Thakara along with band members Sreekanth Bhasi, John Joel and Aswin Nath, are upbeat about the four new singles they will perform. James Thakara shares with ‘Express’ their musical aspirations
What’s new?
At JTPac we will perform our four new singles ‘Ammachi’, ‘Painkili’, ‘Padilla’ and ‘Ananthaparava’. All the songs are new and this is in a way our first performance. As usual we have stuck to ‘laymen lyrics’, the one thing we are popular for.
Originals rather than covers
Though ‘Thakara’ is not particularly averse to the idea of singing covers, we prefer originals because that is where we can create an identity. We have over nine originals and would like to do covers sometime. As people say there is no shortcut to fame.
Laymen lyrics and language barrier
There is a conceited effort to pen lyrics that are more relatable. It is just that when we are into it, we coin words that people can relate too. And, I think that is the one reason for the success of ‘Puttu Pattu’. Since we are a Malayalam rock band, the songs should naturally contain the flavour of our language. The lyrics are penned by Abru Manoj, Joseph Vijeesh and me.
And, no we don’t think the tag of a Malayalam rock band is in any way a hindrance to us.
Genre of Music
When people ask me what our genre is, I ask them to listen to us and judge for themselves. We do not want to bracket ourselves but our new singles have traces of ambient music, electronic and rock. Since we are in a phase where we would like to explore and experiment a lot, we do not want to be bracketed into any genre
On subtle messages
We do believe in conveying a message through our songs and ‘Thakara’ has something to tell the world. ‘Koran’s Anthem’ was known for how it had a sarcastic view of Indian political system and our new single ‘Padilla’ has a message against fascism subtly woven into it. Likewise, ‘Ammachi’ is about how the elderly are often neglected.