At 22, Achyuth Jaigopal is living a dream. As one of the founders and songwriters of the neo folk band When Chai Met Toast, he is riding a high with their melodies being compared to the bigwigs of contemporary music — Mumford & Sons, Ed Sheeran and Coldplay. The youngest member of the band, he playfully describes the group as four brown boys trying to play English folk.
The band was recently in the city and had performed at The Leather Bar, The Park as part of The Road to Believe Tour. Currently on an 11-city tour that kicked off last week the band that was formed in January 2016 is promoting their latest EP Believe .
Their first song titled ‘The Joy of Little Things’ dealt with the simple and ordinary things in life. With Believe the theme gets deeper and intense, rendered in a breezy way — which also seems to be their USP.
“The title song is around self discovery,” says Jaigopal of the album that has been among the top 50 pop charts in India since its launch.
“Our music is considered positive and happy. It is something people can fall back on when they are going through something difficult,” says Jaigopal adding that Believe is for “mothers and grandmothers” as much as it is for the millennials.
With simple lyrics in English interspersed with Tamil and Hindi, their trademark — the sing-along melodies — have garnered a huge fan following; thanks to the 200 shows they have done over three years.
The band started off with Achyuth and Ashwin Gopakaumar jamming together. Ashwin from Thiruvananthapuram who was playing with a metal band there, met Achyuth at a music studio in Kochi and formed instant rapport.
Sailesh Pai, a drum tutor who keeps the groove of the music, and Palee Francis, a keyboardist and music programmer who helps with the instrumentation of the songs joined in.
In its short period of success, the band has redefined itself from being indie folk, alternative to neo folk.
Achyuth says, “We all grew up listening to Indian music but were influenced by American country folk and rock.” Sound wise, he feels that it is the banjo, which he plays, that gives their musical arrangement the edge.
Achyuth was also the lead guitarist for The Raghu Dixit Project for a year-and-a-half, an experience he treasures as one of the best.
“We are fortunate to have so many people come for the shows.We believe this will go on,” concludes Achyuth.
