IMR: Okay, for those of our readers who haven't encountered you guys before, can you please give a brief rundown about ALOBO NAGA & THE BAND?
Alobo Naga: ALOBO NAGA & THE BAND comprises of five musically talented youngsters, hell-bent on creating good music from a very small hilly state of Nagaland. A Contemporary/ Progressive Rock Band, the band was formed in the summer of 2010. To know more of our music please find us on FaceBook and our Official Website.
IMR: On your Facebook page, you guys have mentioned your influences to be "all the musicians around the world" and your band interests as "trying to make different kind of music". What in particular "influences" and "inspires" ALOBO NAGA & THE BAND (musically and lyrically both)?
Alobo Naga: Speaking of FaceBook page, well since all of us are influenced by different genre of music, for instance our Axe-man Akum came from a Metal band MELODRAMA, I was a Pop artist and was more into acoustic & piano (soulful), the Turntablist DJ Sumika was totally into Alternative and House, Electro, the Bassist Fung Walling was into Classic Rock, Jazz & Blues, the Drummer was totally into Progressive Rock, so now I hope you know what I mean, well we respect all genre including Folk music, so what we do is we listen almost all genre or kinds of music and gets inspirations or ideas from them and try to put them into our compositions, we used some Folk/ Pop tunes with sound of turntables and contemporary guitar riffs so definitely it do sound different from the rest.
We like bands & artist like INCUBUS, THE SCRIPT, KINGS OF LEON, 30 SECOND TO MARS, BRUNO MARS, John Mayers, Jason Mraz, Steve Vai etc. And when it comes to lyrics we are influenced to write by the scene around us!
IMR: Who's idea it was to actually introduce a turntablist (DJ Sumika) to the band and why?
Alobo Naga: Sumika & we were the best of friends from childhood days, so when he came back from Pune, I approached him to play with me for a show as experimenting, but after that show I really liked the effect on my music, and also the other band members were happy with the music, so we decided to stick together.
IMR: Your video PAINTED DREAMS became a hit even before the E.P was released and recently been declared as one of the top videos of 2011 on VH1 and was also selected as the Theme song of the prestigious International Short Film Festival 2011 –Guwahati. How does it feel when things start moving in the direction you wanted? Could you tell us more about the music video and your debut E.P?
Alobo Naga: It all started, when our song PAINTED DREAMS was selected as the theme song of “International Short Film Festival 2011 –Guwahati. CREOVAENT PRODUCTIONS & SPIRIT UNDERGROUND came forward and helped us to make our music video to be screened at the festival, that’s how the music video was made and the next moment we saw our video was aired in VH1, which was because of Prithish and his CREOVAENT PRODUCTIONS who manages our band. Then our song was in the VH1 Top 10, along side MAROON 5, RCHP, Jay Z & K. West (OTIS), Lady Gaga etc and we were like a dream come true for all of us to be featured among all these artist, and the blessing still continues.
After our song became hit we decided to release our EP titled PAINTED DREAMS and so on 16th Dec 2011 we released our EP and here we are still struggling, rolling and working harder to live the dream.
IMR: You guys recently signed up for a Bollywood movie called "Beyond". Which other projects are you guys currently working with?
Alobo Naga: Yes, we did composed and sang the title song for the Bollywood movie BEYOND and we were also offered to do for few more Bollywood projects.
Besides this we are working on our debut Album. We are also in a process to sign some International contracts so keep us in your prayers. But our main focused right now is to play live gigs and visit places and meet & make new friends.
IMR: You guys must be busy making new music for your "debut album", right? So, how is the progress so far and should we expect some more experiment with the band's sound on the upcoming release?
Alobo Naga: Indeed, we are working on songs for our debut album, and the progress has been very fine since after our recent success we are pumped up and very much determined to work harder since we know that now the expectations are very high, which is scary also but we are so happy atleast by now we have identified our genre and our strength so you can expect something that is so "US".
IMR: You are a successful solo artist yourself, so what inspires you to form the band? How will you differ or I should say compare your "solo music" to that of the band?
Alobo Naga: Yes I was going as a solo artist for a very long time, I wanted to experiment and try my vocals on some new genre since my solo projects were mostly soulful acoustic and piano pop oriented, so here I am with a band that plays Contemporary/ Progressive Rock with some Folk elements.
I enjoy both the form since I can express myself in different kinds of music with different Vocal techniques..
IMR: In the year 2011, you have won the "Best Folk Fusion" song award in the Nagaland Music Award for the song KUMSUJULO but are you of the opinion that there is a definition set for "folk music" that is has to be "strictly like this" or do you believe there is whole lot to explore, still?
Alobo Naga: Yes, my song KUMSUJULO won the best "Folk/ Fusion” song award in the Nagaland Music Award 2011. There is lot & lot to explore since it is very rich & vast, I was always keen and very much interested with our Folk music, But one thing I found was the younger generation did not like it much if it was purely Folk, so in-order to preserve our Folk music, I started collaborating Folk music & instruments with Western Contemporary music touch and made fusion out of it which was well received by the younger generations so I am still experimenting & working on it in my spare time.
IMR: Is composing and writing something you are obliged to do either from within yourself or through the outside world?.
Alobo Naga: I usually write from my life experience and the scene I face around me. It is like a testimony sometimes, since I pen down all my life in my songs.
IMR: There are always topics being raised about the diversified music scene of North-East India. What are your views? Which are your favorite bands from the region and how do you compare them with the bands from other parts of the country?
Alobo Naga: I do agree that we as a north-eastern are so much blessed with diversified music scene, I feel like it is inborn and runs in their blood because everybody loves music and most can sing or play atleast one instrument. We are indeed a blessed people when it comes to music. There are so many good artist and bands from the region but amongst them I like bands & artist like SOULMATE, Guru Reuben Mashangva, Nise Meruno, DIVINE CONNECTION, MAGDALENE and many more. I have seen the music scene in the other parts of India too, and there are awesome bands and artist who are very talented and ahead in many ways but we are also not behind, the competition is very stiff, I can’t say we are better or they are better but all I can say is don’t underestimate us. All for the glory of Indian Music scene \m/.
IMR: So finally we come to an end of this Interview, it was pleasure talking to you Alobo Naga and I would also like to wish the band a huge success in the future. Do you have anything to say to everyone reading this?
Alobo Naga: Pleasures all mine, thank you for having us & for your wishes. To the readers, thank you for taking out your time reading this and we hope that you will go through our page or website and check our music too, please keep supporting us we are nothing without your supports. To all the musicians there, don’t stop believing we have to take Indian Music scene ahead and keep creating positive music and try to bring a change in the society through music. God bless!
