Bangalore has always been known as the music capital of India and praised for the standard of original music coming out of it.
To a large extent, this trend has even percolated to the college circuit — college bands have an equal number, if not more, originals than covers in their set-lists.
Robin Srivastava, the vocalist and guitar player for '30ton Capacity', a band that was formed by musically-inclined students of Jain College, feels that the covers are only used tactically as a crowd-puller.
"Normally, college bands only play at competitions, where originality is given more points. I don't think any band plays just covers any more if it is interested in
winning," says the young
musician.
"When we started off as a band, we had to do covers to fill up the playing time on stage, since we had only two or three of our own compositions. But our choice of
covers was different from the rest — we'd pick songs from bands like 'Rage Against The Machine' and 'Deftones'. The fact is that any musician would like his own music to be appreciated over how well he plays other's songs," he adds.
Akhil Sahdev, frontman of 'Djentle Symphony' — a band comprising of three students of PES Institute of Technology and two from M S Ramaiah College — shares his opinion.
He notes, "Doing covers is a trend of the past. The case with our band, along with any upcoming band, is that originals are the way to get recognised. Any band can do a cover if they practise enough; it doesn't speak of the musicians' talents."
'Strawberry Fields', an annual music competition by the National Law School of India University, has been known as one of the best platforms for college and semi-professional bands to make their mark. According to Nerswn Basumatary, an organiser from the college, the trend is changing.
He says, "If you look at the last few years — both in the indie and metal scenes — there's been a lot of improvement.
While some college bands may predominantly play covers, the ones we see at 'Strawberry Fields' mostly have their own material to showcase."
Bhoomi, one of the biggest bands to have come out of Bangalore, also started off as a college band.
However, they chose to take the daring route and did originals right from their
early days in 2002.
"When we started off ten years ago, it was much
harder to do originals. There's a lot less work
involved in learning a structured song than writing your own music. But if a band wants to stick around, originals are the way to go," expresses Sujay Harthi, the band's vocalist.
"We never wanted to play covers. We consciously worked at being the band that fest-goers would recognise as the one that made its own music. I guess it paid off because we ended up winning almost all the competitions we took part in," grins Sujay. "It's not a crime to play covers, but it will stall you in the end," he concludes.
To a large extent, this trend has even percolated to the college circuit — college bands have an equal number, if not more, originals than covers in their set-lists.
Robin Srivastava, the vocalist and guitar player for '30ton Capacity', a band that was formed by musically-inclined students of Jain College, feels that the covers are only used tactically as a crowd-puller.
"Normally, college bands only play at competitions, where originality is given more points. I don't think any band plays just covers any more if it is interested in
winning," says the young
musician.
"When we started off as a band, we had to do covers to fill up the playing time on stage, since we had only two or three of our own compositions. But our choice of
covers was different from the rest — we'd pick songs from bands like 'Rage Against The Machine' and 'Deftones'. The fact is that any musician would like his own music to be appreciated over how well he plays other's songs," he adds.
Akhil Sahdev, frontman of 'Djentle Symphony' — a band comprising of three students of PES Institute of Technology and two from M S Ramaiah College — shares his opinion.
He notes, "Doing covers is a trend of the past. The case with our band, along with any upcoming band, is that originals are the way to get recognised. Any band can do a cover if they practise enough; it doesn't speak of the musicians' talents."
'Strawberry Fields', an annual music competition by the National Law School of India University, has been known as one of the best platforms for college and semi-professional bands to make their mark. According to Nerswn Basumatary, an organiser from the college, the trend is changing.
He says, "If you look at the last few years — both in the indie and metal scenes — there's been a lot of improvement.
While some college bands may predominantly play covers, the ones we see at 'Strawberry Fields' mostly have their own material to showcase."
Bhoomi, one of the biggest bands to have come out of Bangalore, also started off as a college band.
However, they chose to take the daring route and did originals right from their
early days in 2002.
"When we started off ten years ago, it was much
harder to do originals. There's a lot less work
involved in learning a structured song than writing your own music. But if a band wants to stick around, originals are the way to go," expresses Sujay Harthi, the band's vocalist.
"We never wanted to play covers. We consciously worked at being the band that fest-goers would recognise as the one that made its own music. I guess it paid off because we ended up winning almost all the competitions we took part in," grins Sujay. "It's not a crime to play covers, but it will stall you in the end," he concludes.