Two students from Madras Christian College were looking for a guitarist who could accompany them for an intra-college audition, back in 2015. They did find one — Enoch Charles. But the audition wasn’t spectacular, and neither did they hold any great ambitions for a career in music.
Cut to 2020. The group has evolved into Alarté — a four-piece contemporary alt-rock and pop band based in Chennai. It has released its first EP ‘Living The Dream’ across all major streaming platforms. The band comprises Enoch Charles on lead vocals and guitar, Roshin Das on vocals and guitar, Joel Royce on bass, Lawrence Ramesh on drums and Philip, the curator.
The band was named Alarté back in 2016, when it had six members. “We were in a hurry as we needed to come up with a name while registering for a cultural event at Women’s Christian College. I quickly took the initials of all our names and combined it, and Alarté was born,” says Enoch.
Influenced by Green Day, Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Coldplay, their music is a pure alt-rock treat to the ears. Their songs are motivational and uplifting, and their choice of subject is love. The band wants their music to be relatable and provide emotional support to students, and so writes about the quintessential college experience.
Starting out as a college band participating in cultural fests, they were only performing covers. “At Christ University’s cultural fest in Bengaluru, most bands had come prepared with an original set, while we had prepared only covers. That night, we tried to write a song. Though the first try wasn’t impressive, that was our watershed moment and we started to write songs,” he says. While most bands have a structured songwriting process, for Alarté it was experimental. “We did not have a knack for writing songs professionally, so we just kept jamming until we came up with something new,” he says.
The title for their EP, Living The Dream , was decided at a gathering with friends. Like every college musician, they used to look up to bands like When Chai Met Toast and Junkyard Groove. “Recording original songs, playing them at big stages and getting calls for gigs was just a dream and by 2019, we felt like we were living the dream.,” he says.
It has four songs: ‘Love will remember’ is a modern-day rock song based on heady first love; ‘Sly’ is based on a classic college love story; ‘Blue jay’ talks about a boy who has just 12 hours with his friend before she leaves the city; and ‘Mayadhey’, is a Malayalam song which talks about Roshin’s take on life. However, they are changing their sound in their upcoming single ‘Threat’, a heavy hard rock song. “We wrote this song back in college, however, we decided to experiment by arranging the music differently,” says Roshin.
The band can be followed on Instagram at @alartetheband
