The story of Angel and Girish And The Chronicles. Why Girish and The Chronicles? The real story behind it: Well, before anything, the question is, how did I come up with the name The Chronicles in the first place? It must have been in between 2008 - 2009. I was based out of Kathmandu, Nepal for about a year. I was there mainly because the pub music scene was so rich that I decided that I stay for sometime and learn a thing or two from the musicians out there. There were internationally touring rock bands such as Cobweb, Strings, Robin and The New Revolution, Axe band, Emergency, Anuprastha and many others as the very heart of the rock music scene. It was a privilege to be a part of the whole thing. I had never seen so many bands playing simultaneously in one area, in different bars. It was like you walk into Thamel, you would be dead confused as to which bar to enter because every bar had great bands performing in them. Even I had a small act of my own named Revolving Barrel (which was supposed to mean the revolving barrel of a revolver). That didnt last much though. However, I must say that it was the best time I ever had in my life. I used to stay in a small hotel room, which I called home, along with my girlfriend at that time. I payed a monthly rent for it and ofcourse it was only because the manager of the place himself was highly interested in music and had a brother, who was the bassist in a famous band at that time, Anuprastha. I was good friends with them too. So, they were just helping me out. Who would give you a hotel room for renting? I had even created a kitchen right inside it. It was around that time, my previous band Revolving Barrel had disbanded and I was doing solo acoustic gigs in various pubs. a few months passed by, the one day, I was approached by Sharad, the ex-lead guitarist of Axe Band. He had already gathered other musicians, all with pretty big names in The rock scene of Nepal. The idea was coming up a group with just one purpose: playing regular gigs in heart of the pub rock scene of Kathmandu, Thamel. Though it didnt see the light of the day, as each one of the members had other commitments and the idea was dropped. However, the interesting thing is that Sharad had named the band The Chronicles. I liked the name and moreover had respect for it, since it was named by a well known guitarist, that spoke to a whole generation of that time. Well, the other side of me at that time, was my YouTube channel. I had become very passionate about uploading videos online. My Youtube history and my story in Nepal goes hand in hand. I still remember uploading my first video, taken inside a college room with a phone camera on the 5th of December, 2008. I had covered I dont want to miss a thing by Aerosmith. Ofcourse, I started this after my college friends suggested me to do so and someone had already put it up online. When I started reading the comments and got quite a lot of views (which was a lot at that time for an artist from Sikkim), I got encouraged to keep that up. So one by one in the course of the years 2008 - 2009, I put every video I could get my hands on. They were mostly videos taken by people through their phone cameras and I would literally request a lot to get those videos from them. I succeeded in pursuing some, while failed in a lot of cases. (I still wish I could get those videos. They were some of the best performances I had ever delivered in my life). Anyway, it was during this time that I spent in Kathmandu that I started it all. I couldnt believe that my name was being recognized in a lot of places. Maybe it was in a small scale, but it was happening. By the time I decided that I wanted to go back to Gangtok, the ground work had already been done for me to kick start my career in my own Country. I always knew I would have to come back to India to take the whole thing further. Finally there came a time, when I had to leave the beautiful country, that was Nepal. I came back to Gangtok, my hometown. My brother, Yogesh had also come on a vacation from his college, where he was studying sound engineering and had just bought Pro Tools. He told me that we should record a demo while both of us were there. I had already come up with the riffs, the chords and the name of a song. It was called Angel. I just had to finish up with the song writing, which came up beautifully with a huge argument I had with my dad back at home. I was in my room with my girlfriend, at that time. It was a sad day for me. I started to hum and sing Angel, wont you smile on me, wishing that the bad times were over, then she added Im feeling down you see and then Because Im lost. I must give credit to her for this as she did contribute to half of the song writing. It was kinda complete that day. Then Yogesh and I started working on the drum sequence, the guitars, bass guitar, piano, strings and the finally the vocals. It was done inside my room in Gangtok. I still remember it was quite late at night and my mom was very irritated with me because I was not going to the dining room for dinner. I was just very excited on recording the second song of my life, the first being The Golden crown. Ofcourse that version of Golden crown, no one has heard. Anyway, coming back to Angel, the song was complete and it took a few weeks to compose and finish the whole arrangement including the strings, guitar solo etc. If you hear the first released version of the song, which you can find in reverbnation, thats me playing the guitar solo and everything. (Believe me, now that I have a lead guitarist, it feels like youre giving your girlfriend to someone else, everytime). Anyway, coming back to the pre-GATC times. Angel was ready and it was at that time a really good friend of mine, wrote to me, saying that she had a friend who owned a magazine named The NorthEastToday and he had a section which was called the Great Eastern Rock (GER) in which he released a CD containing music by various artists of the whole nation. It was around that time he was about to come up with GER -Volume II. Soon, I thanked her and sent the song to the magazine. They were kind enough to accept it for featuring it in the Magazine. It must have been one of the most exciting moments of my life. I somehow felt like the wish I had made in my song, was actually coming true and this was certainly a gate opener. Angel was liked a lot by the listeners. Seeing the title Angel -Girish Pradhan on the CD was such a great feeling for me. We had recorded 3 demos by then. Namely, Golden Crown, Angel and I wanna get that lovin again However, things were still not moving much. To the point that I had to go and get a job as a solo performer in Cafe Live and Loud, Gangtok. Yogesh accompanied me as a lead guitarist, while he was in town. So it was just the two of us. Ofcourse I now realize that it was one of the best decisions I made in life. For the first time in my life, my name had been acknowledged in my hometown. I am still thankful to Cafe live and loud to this day because the poster outside the place said Girish Unplugged Live. It was truly a great feeling and it gave me the courage I needed, to finally decide that I would come up with a solo album. Soon, Cafe live and loud released Angel as a single at their own expense and was featured in the magazine Talk Sikkim. Also, during this time, some good people from the local Television channel recorded some of the songs that we had performed, which again I uploaded in my YouTube channel. I had already started getting calls from a lot of fests asking me if I could participate. However, I never had a vision of becoming a solo artist with an acoustic guitar in my hand. It was around this time, one fine day, as I was performing, an old friend of mine showed up in the pub. He was Nagen. He invited me over to his place, in Darjeeling. He told me that he had just been out of his previous band Alive and needed a new venture. He asked me if he could join the set. I liked the idea as I was in need of a percussionist in my acoustic sets and would really add more to the music. Soon, another friend, who also happened to be an ex member of A-live at that time, came by. Noel. I always knew him to be an excellent bassist, Moreover he was was also an ex-member of a band named Crab/Route 66 of gangtok, with my guitar idol, Steven as the founder of those bands. I had big respect for these guys. At the end of the day, I had only one thing in my mind - A complete Hard Rock/Heavy Metal band and why not take in a member, whose band had influenced me to get into it in the first place. So there it was - The first line up: I was in the vocals/leadguitars. Yogesh - Lead Guitars (had to leave soon to complete his course). Noel - Bass guitar and Nagen on the Drums. We started playing some crazy gigs in live and loud. Even the owner of the place told us that we should just continue with that, and skip the unplugged part. It was all Rock n Roll after that! However, Yogesh had to leave soon as he had to complete his sound engineering course. Thanks to him, all of the demos were possible to record. Things changed after that. All of us shared one thing in common - Ambition. As much as I was not so great with lead guitars, I still loved doing it all the same. I soon talked to both Nagen and Noel and told them that I had a name in mind The Chronicles, which an old friend from Nepal had left me with. Ofcourse I didnt want to let this whole thing go away by removing my name out of the equation. I guess I was too scared to lose a band after I already had for more than three times. Moreover every venue was inviting us on the basis of my YouTube channel and the release of Angel. Giving a new band name at that time meant starting the whole thing from the scratch and giving up everything I had done so far, which ofcourse would have been stupid. So I proposed that my name be there,in the band for two reasons. a) It had become a Brand in its own. b) Two long years of struggles and Hard work was involved. It was great to know band members had no problem with it and also it was a practical thing to do at that time. Anyway, it was a three piece band now, with me as the lead guitarist/Vocalist. I was already planning on hiring someone much more skilled for the task. Then there was a twist in the story. I got a call from the representative of the Rock - Fest, Rockophoenix (Alcheringa) that used to be held at IIT Guwahati, asking if I was interested in participating in the competition. I was game and sent them the demo of Angel. They soon responded back saying that we were a part of it. Then I read the terms and conditions of the competition. It mainly focused on originals and we needed to have atleast three originals (Dont remember exactly though). We had only three originals ofcourse and I was not really in a shape to play my songs such as Golden crown or even I wanna get that lovin again for that matter and even the covers we had chosen would have been tough to perform all alone. Thats when, out of the blue once again an old friend/ex-band member of mine, Suraz, called me up and he just told me one thing. I heard you guys are going to IIT Guwahati and Im also joining you guys. I was like Okay and Bingo. My pressure was over. I now had a lead guitarist who could play his guitar just like ringing a bell. We also had included a great Keyboardist Mischael at that time. So there it was. The complete set of GATC, which took a long time in the making. Suraz, Noel, Nagel and me. This was what Girish and The Chronicles was all about. Ofcourse now that a lot of new people know us, they wouldnt understand the name, unless the know about the bands history. Now that I am thinking of changing the bands name. Believe me, it feels like letting go off your own child that you nurtured and raised. Anyway, whatever fate decides for Rock n Roll! Will update this message as a description in this page.
Posted on: Mon, 13 Oct 2014 08:32:43 +0000
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