For Bengaluru boy Akhilesh Kumar, music is what keeps him going. While the full-time musician has given a shot at several other things, he believes it is his unflagging focus which makes all the difference.
After having shared the stage with Vineeth Vincent, Ananth Menon and Sujith Abraham at the start of his career, this city-based alternative folk rock artiste and song writer has also been making waves in the Bengaluru music scene with Aki Roti, which offers collaborations with aspiring musicians. In a candid interview, he gets chatty...
“I first started playing in 2004 with my twin brother, Nickhilesh Kumar as my drummer. I started playing professionally only about six years ago,” shares the artiste who also moonlights as a mixed martial arts instructor and a closet bike builder. Though pursuing music was always on the cards, this enterprising 28-year-old had to fight many odds before treading the path.
“Well there was this incident with my father that changed everything! I was on the phone with him, we were talking about how interesting I found playing on stage. During that conversation, he was very dismissive about music and turned around and commented about my ‘phase’ and I don’t think he realised that voice emotes over landlines! Being a typical frustrated just post-puberty teen, I got angry and told him to wait and watch me make this my career! That didn’t go down well because my whole family had me pegged to join the Indian Air Force!” he reveals. About 220 gigs later, the musician is glad to have stuck to his guns.
“I’ve always loved playing in the city. Windsor Pub is my favourite haunt. In general, there’s a dearth of good management and representation for artists. People should work on this! The music scene is improving and people need to wake up to this!” he adds.
Akhilesh also stresses on the importance of making time for community driven social initiatives, “I am a part of the Rotaract in Kalyan Nagar. We do a bunch of projects for communities in rural and rural urban.” Additionally, the adventure enthusiast also makes time for interesting escapades. “I love a good trek and visiting places with adventure sports. I just recently started scuba diving and its a whole other world I’m in love with!” he says.
With his first-ever debut album titled We’re all mad here set to release early this October, Akilesh is quite stoked about the road ahead despite some persisting glitches. “It’s a great feeling to have your debit album all slated to launch with my band One Girl Shy. I want to focus only on music and make it big. I know this is a cliche but five years down the line, I want to run with the big dogs! Just tour the world, singing songs and writing new ones, making new experiences,” he ends.
He will be performing at Indigo Live on September 22.
