Californian rock band Chon finds India progressive musically
Be it the "crazy musical rhythm" of taxis in India or the little sounds of Indian culture, Californian rock band Chon feel everything is a little more progressive in India musically.
The band performed in India for the first time at Vh1 Supersonic music festival. The festival was held at Mahalaxmi Lawns, Pune from February 7 to 9.
Chon comprises guitarist Mario Camarena, bassist Esiah Camarena, drummer Nathan Camarena and guitarist Erick Hansel.
Talking about their stay in India, Mario said: "When we landed here in Pune, we heard a taxi backing up and the sound of the taxi backing up was like a crazy rhythmic pattern. We're like yo! That's actually like crazy musical rhythm. Like you don't hear stuff like that where we're from. When we take taxis, the music we hear is such cool rhythms. You don't hear such stuff in the states. From the tiny bit of exposure, we've taken so much already. I have some friends who are from India, one of them he plays guitar and he plays crazy progressive guitar. Everything is a little more progressive in India musically."
On the performance, he said: "We played a lot of music from our newest album and it was cool, I saw a bunch of people that we could tell were our fans and then I see a bunch of people that I can tell maybe hadn't heard of us before but they're like vibing out which is cool. That's exactly what we want in a festival. Like we loved to see people who know our music and we love to see people who don't know our music at all."
Looking back at the band coming together, Mario said: "We started performing together in 2008, it was a long time ago! When we first started, it was the end of 2007, that's when me and Erik started writing songs together and then we realised, we should maybe play some shows with this music, it is pretty cool. So, we started trying to meet musicians from around San Diego, our area but no one could keep up honestly. No one could play our stuff so I just made my little brothers work on it, I have 3 little brothers.
"I could at least make them practice. We need a drummer, I made my little brother Nathan play it and I would sit with him for a whole summer - 3 months, 6 hours a day, just teaching him CHON and teaching him how to play drums. I actually started on drums and then I switched to guitar so I knew drums so I was helping him learn and then my other brother, he's already played bass so he just like joined too and yeah that was the move. We're making songs. It is too hard to find people who will play this music so let's just make my little brothers play it, it'll be easy."
