Music
Rock genre with a melodic twist!
Thaikkudam Bridge is an 17-member band. Yes, you heard it right. With 8 vocalists, 6 instrumentalists and 3 sound engineers, the band rose to fame with their song ‘Fish Rock’. Before the release of their album ‘Navarasam’, we caught up with Govind Menon, the violinist of the band to footprint how these friends started on their musical journey together.
1. What is the story of Thaikkudam Bridge?
We never started out as a band, per se. Friends just got together near this place called Thaikkudam Bridge (in Kochi) for a TV show called Music Mojo on a Malayalam channel called Kappa TV. We did covers of some legendary songs we grew up listening. And since the ‘friends circle’ had people from all over India, the songs ranged from MJ's 'Beat it' to a very old Malayalam folk song redone in a rock version! We also did an OC called ‘fish rock’ that created a big buzz. We never saw it coming.
The song had to do with my love for fish. It was fun doing the show and then once we performed, everyone went their own ways. When these videos came out on YouTube, things just started to get out of hands. Praises and love and mad fans from everywhere started pouring in. We couldn't believe it. We were being approached for shows left right and centre and we had no idea what to do. We were not a band! There were 17 of us including the sound engineers! But then, we gave in. One thing followed another and soon we were travelling non-stop playing in colleges, public and private functions!
Piyush Kapoor, one of our vocalists was in Kerala for the first time. The only place he knew was ‘Thaikkudam bridge’. He was hell bent on it when we were thinking of a name before going to the TV show. That's how the name came about! No fancy story to it!
2. We've heard that your line-up has 8 vocalists! What is your present line-up?
Yes. We have 8 vocalists. 6 people handling the instruments. 3 sound engineers!
Anish Krishnan, Govind Menon, Siddharth Menon, Peethambaran, Vipin Lal, Christin Jose, Nila Madhab Mohapatra and Krishna Bongane are our vocalists.
We have Mithun Raju on lead guitars, Anish on drums, Govind Menon on violin, Ashok Nelson on rhythm guitars, Vian Fernandez on bass guitars and Ruthin Thej on keyboards. Rajan K.S., Hemanth and Amith Bal are our sound engineers.
3. How would you define your style of music?
Bracketing our music would be defeating the purpose because these 8 vocalists handle different genres! Having said that, if you take our original compositions, they are essentially rock in nature but has folk, Carnatic or Hindustani elements it. For the Hindustani element, we have Nila sir and Krishna sir, for Carnatic and melody we have Vipin Lal, Christin and Sidharth. For folk we have my father, Peethambaran and myself. For rock we have Anish. These are not serious demarcations though.
4. What is the process of producing a track?
Music and tune comes first. Then the lyrics. We make songs in Malayalam, Hindi, Tamil and English. It's always a team effort. It can't be otherwise. It's mostly spontaneous and we go with the mood of the tune. A lot of our perspectives on life, society mirror in our songs.
5. Talk to us about the song that is the closest to your heart. Its musical journey, the lyrics and the arrangement.
Chathe is very special to me. The basic tune of the song is folk in its truest sense. True to my roots in Kerala. I grew up listening to some magical folk songs that my mother and father used to sing to me. I would go to bed listening to them. In Chathe, the arrangement has a metal rock influence. The song is about death and the vagaries of life. The tune came in first. It was done in less than 5 minutes. The mood of the song turned out to be very dark and that is how we came up with the theme of Death!
6. What does the way ahead look like?
We are working on our debut album right now. We are totally stoked about the album and have tried to make music that is socially relevant. With the release scheduled for next month, we have studio recordings, production work, merchandise, and just about everything going on simultaneously. We are super excited and can't wait to hit the road with the album tour!
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