Coimbatore’s Aditya Veera on interviewing Grammy-winning musicians

The name of Aditya Veera’s band, Thayersadum Blues, belies his taste in music somewhat. there is nothing thyresadam (Curd rice) About it. He grew up listening to Harry Belafonte with his grandfather, who had worked at Harvard and MIT. His father, he says, was into jazz, blues, funk and rock. He was fond of heavy metal when he was doing his pre-university course in Bangalore.

Then why Thayersdam?

“We were three individual musicians attending an open mic for fun. The emcee present there took us to the spot. They asked us to name a band,” Aadiya says, recalling this memory of her college years, “So, we tussled and tried to figure out what we had in common. And, we realized that we are all Tamil people who love curd rice. But one of us was a sax player who was into blues music.

Hence, Thayersdam Blues.

The Pune-born band performed over 200 shows, featured in radio shows among other platforms. It moved to Bengaluru in 2018 after Aditya moved there after college. In addition to his band, he also began managing other independent musicians. All of this has to do with his day job as a software architect.

When the pandemic hit, he returned to his hometown Coimbatore. He did a few online shows with his band and a COVID fundraiser featuring some popular musicians like Usha Uthup and Lydian Nadhaswaram. Then, in late 2020, he came up with a new idea for a talk show. “I wanted to connect with music industry professionals from different parts of the world to get their ideas that would benefit Indian independent artists.”

And, the people he had in mind were not just any music professionals. He was an award-winning artist and producer who has worked with stalwarts of Western music. The list included Grammy-winning musicians such as Eric Walls and Lee Rittenour; American guitarist Robben Ford, who has worked with KISS, Miles Davis, Chick Correa; Sherrill Bailey, assistant chair of the guitar department at Berklee College of Music.

The interviews have been published on Aditya’s Instagram page, which has just over 1,800 followers. How did these big names agree to talk to him?

“They’re all super grounded,” replies Aditya, “it’s so easy to communicate with them. They have no broadcast of Grammy Award winnings or whatever recognition they have. So when I asked some of them questions, Like ‘How do you want to be remembered?’ They tell me ‘I want to be known as a good person.'”

However, Aditya had no way of contacting him directly. Therefore, they had to reach out to him through their record studio or agents. He explains the process, “I just google to check who manages this person. Say, it’s Universal Records. Then, I check that it’s best to talk to Universal Records.” Who is the person. Then, I send them a mail with my portfolio. If they’re interested, they’ll come back. They’ll have a few interviews to make sure it’s legit. And then, we forward it increase.”

“You need a lot of patience. Some of them may take weeks to respond. But once they respond, it is a smooth and simple process,” he adds.

Aditya’s Instagram interview is now being broadcast through Big FM Aizawl. A podcast is also in the pipeline. In his own way, he is doing for aspiring Indian musicians what his grandfather did to him as a child: bringing world music home.