Thayir Sadam Project
Let’s start with the clichéd question of how the name came about
Bindu: Curd rice, or thayir sadam as it’s called in Tamil, is a favourite South Indian comfort food.
Thayir Sadam is integral to our identity in more ways than one. We believe that what’s traditional is cool, and we bring that element into every piece we write. We embrace musical styles from around the world while staying rooted in Indian classical music. And yes, we love our thayir sadam. We wanted to wear this identity on our sleeve, and so we decided to call ourselves The Thayir Sadam Project.
The band consists of very popular and talented musicians.How did you all meet and come together?
Ambi: It was actually a few things that happened in parallel. I first found Mahesh’s cover of Adele’s Hello – it was amazing and I just had to share it online. Around that time, our friend from BBC, Ashanti Omkar, also suggested we collaborate with him.
Mahesh: Our first song together was an Indian mix of Something Just Like This by Coldplay and The Chainsmokers. We recorded it remotely between Dubai and Bangalore! The first time we met in person, it was midnight and we had to shoot the video at four in the morning.
Bindu: We were having a great time working together and wanted to collaborate together, but we felt like we needed to add another musician to this mix. That’s when Akshay came in.
Akshay: Mahesh and I had collaborated before, so he introduced me to Bindu and Ambi. Just like that, we were meeting more frequently to create new content, and traveling for live performances. It’s so hard to believe it’s been over a year since we’ve been doing this!
You guys collaborate with legendary musicians in the industry. What has been your biggest learning experience through this?
Bindu: We’ve been extremely fortunate to have collaborated with some amazing musicians – Aruna Sairam ji, RanjaniGayatri, the Trichur Brothers, and others. They are all talented artists and wonderful people – and have really taught us to explore newer creative paths for ourselves, musically.
Ambi: I’ve always believed in the power of exploring different elements of music. In collaborating with some of the music industry’s biggest legends, I saw this idea coming to life. I’ve been blown away by the way these different styles of music came together – and this was because every musician we’ve worked with is overwhelmingly talented and very open-minded.
Mahesh: For me, the biggest learning was to work with multiple artists from diverse musical backgrounds for one common vision. I can safely say it’s been one of the most rewarding experiences we’ve had.
Tell us about your typical jam session and how long you guys jam for
Ambi: Honestly, we don’t really clock it. We meet very often, and end up jamming together all day.
Akshay: We don’t keep them very structured. Sometimes we spend time discussing and coming up with ideas, sometimes we’re just in the flow of making music so we allow it to take its own direction. Because of that, we don’t usually have a typical amount of time that we plan to set aside.
Take us through your tech set up of making music
Mahesh: We produce and record all of our music on Logic Pro, using a UA Apollo Twin as our interface. On stage, apart from acoustic instruments, we run our backing tracks and loops through Ableton. We use it to trigger different sections of the songs we play.
Upcoming projects
Bindu: We have a few new releases in the pipeline. We love working with kids, so we will continue doing that. Apart from that, we’re also very excited about our upcoming US tour next year!