Joe' to the world

Joewin Shamalina has always been adept at multitasking – in school, it was a variety of athletics, football, throwball and music with academics. Things haven’t changed much since then. Now in her final year of biotech engineering, the 21-year-old not only started an all-girls acapella team at MS Ramaiah Institute of Technology, but juggles a solo career and croons for a rock band, Spaghettify. All effortlessly at that. Come August 4, she’s all set to take centre stage, with her voice in the limelight at Windsor Pub.

“There will be covers by a lot of contemporary artistes like Amy Winehouse, Duffy and Lady Gaga and some by Metallica and Scorpions,” she tells us. She may count her influences in the likes of Celine Dion, Christina Aguilera, Nina Simone and Beyonce, “But they didn’t really inspire me to sing, I look up to them now for perfection,” she says with quiet confidence.

A powerhouse of energy, the self-taught singer who enthralls audiences with pop rock, pop and jazz, has been doing harmonies for over seven years now, and her transition from singing in a choir to a rock band was exhilarating to say the least. “I had participated in a Western acoustic solo event and placed first, and Spaghettify, which had been formed a year before, asked me if I’d like to be their vocalist and I readily accepted,” she says about her journey. Now, the band is taking a break and working on their album, while Joewin is paying attention to her solo singing career by mixing Bollywood and regional music with English songs to create powerful acapella.

Her acapella group in college, No Treble was founded only in January this year, but they’ve swept up most awards across engineering college fests since. “Music is more than just the fame and excitement that it brings. It’s about the passion and feelings. It’s about making those around you feel what you feel. First thing to do is to enjoy any music that’s around you and make that music your own, and everything else will follow,” she advices. “Channeling every difficulty into an opportunity that you can learn from is the only way,” she says. Joewin is also quite the dancer, and aside of cracking “lame jokes” and loving boiled vegetables, she confesses to teaching her brother math and science in her free time. It’s all in a day’s work for her.