Dodos, the flightless birds from Mauritius, became extinct centuries back.
In 2014, an Indian-origin girl from that country, who calls herself a ‘dodo’, visited Thiruvananthapuram. It was around the time an intense wish to make a musical album in her mother tongue Tamil took root in her.
Vaanu.C. Pillai, a vocalist who had been active in the music scene in her adopted country, started looking around the city for her crew, musicians who could join her in that endeavour.
Her search ended in guitarists Babu Vivek and Fahadh Najeeb, drummer Rohit, keyboardist Joe Johnson and bassist Balu, all of whom have been active as session artistes with various bands in the city. Thus was born ‘Dodo crew’, a band which plays Tamil pop-rock, with a dash of electro thrown in.
Debut album
After a year of writing and composing, the band is ready with their debut album ‘Parakkiraen’ (Flying).
The album contains six own compositions, one theme music and a remix version of one of the tracks.
The lyrics of the six own compositions have been written by Lawrence Ramu, vocalist of the popular Tamil band ‘Jhanu’. The album has been produced by ‘Avial’ guitarist Rex Vijayan.
Also playing with the band in live sessions are guitarist Arun Dutt, bassist Vishnu, vocalist Shafnaz and percussionist Arun Kumar.
It was to Mauritius itself that Vaanu first took her new band’s music.
Last month, the band had a seven-city tour of that country as part of the album launch.
“In Mauritius, the most popular genre of music is Sega, a kind of dance music. Rock is something they are not familiar with and our type of bands does not exist there. So, we got a warm reception at most venues.
An association of Tamils there had organised the shows as part of the Tamil New Year celebrations.
We were also fortunate to play in front of the Mauritian Prime Minister at a festival there.
Now, we are getting more enquiries from there.
The CDs of our album has also been released there,” says drummer Rohit, who organises the annual ‘Uthradachintu’ rock concerts during Onam in the city.
Kerala tour
As part of the album launch here, the band is planning a tour of Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
The music video of one of their songs will be out next week and the album will be available online after the tour.
