Four ‘Fireflies’ set to bat their wings to B’wood, talk about doing Farhan Akhtar’s Jee Lee Zara

Indie boy band When Chai met Toast talks at length about their journey and open up on doing Farhan Akhtar’s ambitious project Jee Lee Zara.

In January 2016, indie boy band When Chai met Toast was created. Six years later, the band has its own niche audience and is set for a rebranding. “The year will be a flow of releases and that’s what we have been excited about,” Pai Sailesh (drummer) mentions. About the rebranding, Ashwin Gopakumar (vocalist) explains, “We just wanted people to know about the new song and the new image that we have. A lot of people, I have heard of the band, but they don’t know who we are as people. We’ve never put ourselves out there as well. So, this is a new maze we want to bring in.”

When Chai Met Toast band

For the unversed their song Firefly was featured in the official announcement of Farhan Akhtar’s highly anticipated movie Jee Lee Zara. While the movie is all set to go on the floors, Achyuth Jaigopal (guitarist and Banjo player) says, “it’s too early” to say if they would feature in the movie. “I don’t think we’ll be a major part of the movie for sure,” he clarifies. Talking about their collaboration with Akhtar, Ashwin recalls, “I think Farhan’s manager got in touch with our manager and it kind of happened overnight.” Achyuth chimes in, “Farhan has been listening to our music for a bit. He was aware of the music, then he found it a good fit (for the movie) and just got in touch with us. We didn’t think too much about it. At that point we didn’t know, it was something of this scale.”

Ask when what has kept them away from mainstream music, and Achyuth reasons, “We just try to be honest with our songwriting and there have been Bollywood projects that have come to us, a couple might materialise in the coming months. So, we are not averse to doing more mainstream things.”

Coming to their music, the band recently released the song Sushi, which Ashwin calls is “very personal” to him. For the same, the band has been touring and videos of the same are quite a fun watch on their social media. Ask them what’s it to be a boy band of four, and Achyuth says, “In the last three years we’ve sort of come to a point where we all have enough experience of each other’s flaws and strengths to be at a common ground where we understand each other. We are best of friends in and out of the studio or a live gig. We’re always there for each other.” Ashwin calls Palee Francis, the Keyboard player and producer as the “fevicol” of the group. “We need the fourth person for the explosion. He is the man that takes his group by storm,” Ashwin says. To this Palee replies, “I try to act serious but I don’t know why these guys feel funny. I’m trying to be as serious as possible, but they are taking it in a very fun way.”

Amid the banter, the band hopes for more tours in the coming year. “We are planning something big for India, which will be an experience of one hour 45 minutes, with visuals and audios,” Pai signs off.