City-based band Junkyard Groove releases impersonal ‘personal’ song

CHENNAI: Ameeth Thomas, frontman of Chennai-based alt-rock band Junkyard Groove, in a conversation with DT Next discusses his latest single You Give Me, how he was approached to sing for Kamal Haasan-starrer Vikram and his other projects and shows.

Ameeth belongs to a family with an interest in music and wanted to turn the hobby into a profession. Being consumed by his passion for music, he quit his job and got in touch with his friends and friends of friends and formed the four-member band, Junkyard Groove in 2005. After having recorded several EPs and singles, the only member in the band is Ameeth himself.

“I think I have outlasted everyone (chuckles). All of them are abroad. Few are working and few joined other bands there. It’s all me now. I produce, write, record, mix and have even gotten a little into marketing. I wouldn’t say I’m an expert or doing great, but since I’m a DIY-kinda-guy, I’m getting better (laughs). However, I do have musicians with me whenever I do live shows,” he says.

Through his emailing list, his subscribers funded him for the post-production of his EP, Beacon. “I receive a lot of support from the subscribers. One guy gave me 50 grand, dude. I was shocked, but at the same time grateful,” he recalls.

Ameeth says he is trying to get more people to subscribe to his emailing list for his upcoming project. “I’m working on a three-song EP which has only piano instrumental and my vocals. Only the people on the list will be able to stream the EP exclusively. It is getting a little difficult to orchestrate the logistics, so as of now I’m focusing on other singles and will definitely circle back to this whenever I’m able to,” he says.

Talking about his latest single You Give Me, he says, “I had an acoustic guitar and wanted to do something with it for a long time. It so happened that I got the idea for the song while watching a film. I took a dialogue from it and built a tune and slowly began writing the chorus and verses.”

On asking if the song is personal to him he says, “All songs cannot be personal and it’s not necessary for them to be so. If I were to write songs only on personal accounts, there would be days I would just have to sit. I believe there is scope for more creativity when you are inspired to write from a movie, a book, a muse or even an incident. But if I had to pin it, it’s on hope and life.”

Talking about how the scene of indie music has changed, he says that the city is very welcoming of indie music, but the scene is still tricky for English bands. “Tamil and Hindi bands are getting a lot of traction while English bands are struggling to be relevant. It’s good to see the initiative taken by the Tamil industry to collaborate with indie musicians.”

Opening up on whether he would take up a movie project, he says, “I definitely will. I actually was supposed to sing Wasted in Vikram. Ani (Anirudh Ravichander) approached me and sent me the demo of the song. I told him I’d send it back in a day’s time. But because of scheduling issues and the team running short of time, it didn’t work out. But, I’m definitely open to such projects.”

What’s next for Ameeth? “I’m also working on producing at least one song every month. I’ll also be performing on October 14 at Gears and Garage. I’m very excited to perform live after two and a half years! Other than that, I’m working on shooting the music video for You Give Me and it will be out next week, hopefully.” he announces.

The single You Give Me is available on all streaming platforms.