CHENNAI: Remember the captivating music of Captain America: The Winter Soldier’s trailer, or the high-octane background notes in that of X-men: First Class? The man behind it, Alex Sokolov, along with his band I Was Waiting For You Last Summer, gave a taste of their music to city’s party goers at Moon and Sixpence recently, as part of their Asia Tour.
The Russian band, which has given performances in various reputed international stages chose Chennai as its first destination in Asia to kick start their tour. “We had heard quite a bit about the city’s love for food, culture and music. We love to play in cities where people have energy and Chennai seems to have it all,” says Alex, who defines their music as rock and high-energy.
While they “do not know much” about Indian music or movies, the band seems to be well informed about the Why this Kolaveri fever that got the world a couple of years ago. “We love the Why this Kolaveri song. We later came to know that this was a genre called ‘koothu’,” says Alex.
During their two-day stay in the city, besides treating music lovers to some mind-blowing music, they went around enough to observe that “the people here are friendly and helpful.” According to Alex, Chennai is not that different from Russia, except the weather and traffic. “The people here are friendlier than we thought. And we loved the smoked salmon very much. We would love to come and perform here in the future,” he says.
Band performances apart, would Alex be seen doing music for any big Hollywood flick? “No comments,” he says with a laugh. The two projects he worked for just happened to him, he says. “I was working with a Russian producer based in Moscow and one day, he just called me and asked, ‘Do you want to do music for Hollywood?’ I first worked for Captain America: The Winter Soldier and then X-Men happened. It was a great experience, and it has given us a lot of exposure. It has helped I Was Waiting For You Last Summer get international acclaim,” he says.