A casual talk with ARTHA!

2010 has truly been the year of North East rock bands. Fried Eye is always taking the initiative of talking to the North east bands from time to time. I happened to talk to the band members of Artha last weekend. My first question to them was as always “How did Artha happen to you?”

Shivaji replied instantly “The five of us- me, Rahul, Pranjal, Fredi and Prashanta are good friends. We used to jam and play on weekends and started to play for competitions and small shows in the malls of NCR Delhi region. Then we thought we could really be a band and tried out thinking of a band name and came up with Artha – the meaning.”

True rock is not about the noise drowning out everything else. Artha doesn’t play a particular genre. It is simply soft, rock music but they are inspired by artists like Led Zeppelin, Classic Rock, Creed, Coldplay, Alternate rock, U2, Post Punk, Progressive, and Pink Floyd. They even like to listen to Zubeen Garg, Jitul Sonowal and Jayanta Hazarika. All the band members are techies and working in different MNCs based in Delhi. The band comprises of Rahul Buragohain, the lead Vocalist who also works on the rhythm of the songs, Shivaji Bora, the Bass Guitarist who provides Back vocals as well, Pranjal Gogoi, another Guitarist, Fredi Roy who plays both the guitars and the keyboard, and Prashanta Talukdar who plays the Drums.

Pranjal had been playing guitar since his school days. Apart from that, he can also play the mandolin. He is the one who finalizes the overall tone of the songs for the band now. Fredi used to play the keyboard during his childhood and gradually developed an interest in rhythms that made him start playing acoustics which he now likes doing the most. He creates magic with his fingers on the keyboard. Fredi now plays the rhythm in the band and along with Pranjal, creates the tunes as well as the melody of their songs. Rahul is a great listener and poetic by nature. He works on the concept and lyrics along with Shivaji and all the other members. Lead vocalist Rahul was a top ranking tennis player in Assam. He plays the rhythm guitar and the drums as well. Prashanta manages the technical part and finalizes the songs.

When I asked, what message the band wants to give to their listeners and why the crowd should listen to Artha, Prashanta replied- “We want to present them with lyrics, which are related to life, with which they can identify themselves, about social issues and the most important thing in life that is love. If the crowd wants to know more about life and how things turn up by simple changes they can find that in our lyrics. Moreover, the variant music and that we are trying to bring up with our songs and the melody in it, we think, could interest the crowd. Expectation and appreciation from the crowd is applause, and I guess everybody needs that.”

Artha is releasing their 1st Assamese album in January, 2011 and they want people to enjoy their music in their own way, with their hearts open.

Fried Eye wishes good luck to Artha for the album and future shows.

We welcome your comments at letters@friedeye.com