The band has released an official statement that Ramanan Chandramouli aka Rama will be taking over guitar duties alongside Shri.
BLIND IMAGE’s chief spokes person Kirsh says:
“We are really happy to have Rama on board. He is an amazing guitar player and most important of all, a down to earth guy. I’ve known him for over 6 years now and we’ve been friends for over 6 years now. He was my first choice to try out and it worked like magic. He exhibited great sense of professionalism during his audition. He walked in well prepared and nailed the songs. With his knowledge on different styles of guitar playing I am sure that he will add a new dimension to our music. And he is absolutely easy going and I am glad we have another awesome band mate now. Oh and he just finished his first gig with us the day before at VIT when we supported SUIDAKRA.“
Rama is a graduate from LA Music Academy, before which he was playing guitars for the band SIXTH ELEMENT – a Progressive Rock band from India.
Shri - the chief song write of the band says:
Rama enthuses everything we have ever looked for as both a guitarist and a member of the band. He is more than capable, honest and professional as hell and yet funny in his own way. Although his humour comes at the expense of the rest of us here at BLIND IMAGE many a times. Haha. But jokes aside, Rama is a wonderful addition to the band and we hope to work with him for a long long time to come. So from now on the chandramouli foundation will be handling the guitar section for BLIND IMAGE.
Rama is based out from Bangalore and also teaches guitar at the TAAQ Academy – Bangalore along side Bruce from TAAQ. We managed to extract few words from him on this:
We heard that you are primarily in to Jazz and you studied music in LA. What was your initially reaction when Krish spoke to you about the possibility of playing for BLIND IMAGE?
I wouldnt say I am primarily into Jazz or call myself a Jazz musician. I feel I still have a long way to go before I can call myself a Jazz guitar player. I did my associative arts degree in guitar performance at LA music academy where I was exposed to a lot of Jazz, Contemporary, Funk and Reggae. The last band I played for was a Reggae band which consisted of people I met at the school. So when Krish first approached me with the idea I thought he was kidding as I hadn't played Metal in ages and the only Metal I listened to were bands like Tool, Karnivool etc. So we decided that he send me the songs, I'd take a listen to them and see if I could pull it off. It took quite a bit of effort to get the technical proficiency that the music demanded and i took it up as a challenge to get to where these guys were. I think after a couple of jams its safe to say that I am getting more accustomed to the music and its starting to get a lot more comfortable for me with the genre.
How long you've known these guys? How it all happened?
I met Krishna and the previous guitar player of the band Prashant, 6 years back when I used to live in Chennai and we became really good friends. I did loose touch with him after I left to Los Angeles. I ended up bumping into him at the Metallica concert last year and we got talking about what each of us were doing with our music careers.
How do you feel about joining BLIND IMAGE? Are you looking forward to jump in to the writing process for their upcoming third album by bringing in your own influences?
After getting to know the people in the band, jamming it out and playing a gig with them, I am happy to say I am a part of a musical family again and I am excited to see whats in store in the future for me with them and the band as a whole.
BLIND IMAGE is all set to rock Dubai on 24th February 2012 where they will be headlining the Global Metal Bash Festival.
For more information, visit BLIND IMAGE's FaceBook page.