Girish And The Chronicles
Steeped in the hard rock sounds of the 70s and 80s, they aim to be India’s premier metal band.
It’s not that unusual for modern metal bands to pay shameless homage to the turbo-screeching, double-denim, balls-out sound of 70s and 80s hard rock. But Girish And The Chronicles are hardly your typical metalheads. Born and raised in the Indian border state of Sikkim, the quartet are a living testament to the indestructible power of head-banging music; a universal force that transcends all cultural and racial barriers.
GATC’s second album, Rock The Highway, is steeped in that classic 80s Sunset Strip sound. The band’s charismatic, operatically voiced frontman Girish Pradhan is a Steel Panther fan, but his love for vintage melodic glam-metal is certainly not some ironic joke.
“We grew up with this kind of music,” Girish tells Classic Rock. “Everybody knows Mötley Crüe, Guns N’ Roses… We didn’t want to let go of what we grew up listening to as kids. Another factor was suddenly, around 2014, bands like Winger started putting out new stuff. I started listening to Def Leppard again. All this stuff suddenly started becoming big again.”
Formed in 2009 by Girish and his bassist brother Yogesh, GATC are part of an Indian metal boom that has blossomed over the past decade, with bands such as Demon Resurrection, Millennium and Inner Sanctum making waves internationally. Some local commentators cite Iron Maiden’s debut Indian show in Bangalore in 2007 as a major catalyst for this movement, helping to elevate a scattered underground scene into nationwide industry. “All of us have Iron Maiden in common,” Girish says, “all the metal and hard rock listeners in India.” Indeed Maiden was one factor in why GATC relocated from Sikkim to the bustling southern metropolis of Bangalore in 2013. “Iron Maiden, Megadeth, Deep Purple, all our favourite bands have all come to Bangalore over the decades,” Yogesh explains. The brothers were raised in a musical family, their mother a renowned, classically trained singer (Bimla Pradhan). “We had a hard rock band in school named Anarchy,” Girish says.“We did big shows in our home town back in the day – five thousand, six thousand people. The whole thing was being managed by our dad.”
GATC’s decade-long musical journey has included gigs in Thailand, Vietnam and Dubai, plus various detours and side projects. In late 2019, most of the band played a short Indian tour with Megadeth/Lamb Of God drummer Chris Adler. Girish later did vocals for Adler’s upcoming studio project.
Girish insists that GATC remain outsiders even within the Indian metal scene, which currently favours a more technical, progressive sound. “We are always the underdogs,” he says. “Because as soon as it’s polished and becomes really good and nice, it’s no longer metal. Of course, we are fans of that stuff as well, but right now we are totally going against the odds.” SD
Rock The Highway is out now via Lions Pride Music.