Goldspot band to perform in Mumbai

LA based singer-songwriter Siddhartha Khosla doesn’t mind telling you that he learnt to sing by mimicking Mohammed Rafi. “When my parents moved to the US in the late seventies, they brought along mixtapes of Kishore Kumar, Rafi and Lata Mageshkar. And that’s the only music I listened to for the first fifteen years of my life. It was only in my late teens that I started listening to The Beatles, REM and other bands,” says Khosla, who founded and fronts the alternative rock band, Goldspot.

Even though the band performs mostly in English, they take you by surprise with their unusual covers of old Hindi tunes. Take for example, their 2011 single, Ina Mina Dika, which not only innovatively recreates the 1968 tune immortalised by Kishore Kumar, but also grips you with its quirky video. Featuring Khosla and dancer Payal Kadakia, the video shows the duo dressed in desi costumes, dancing around some stereotypically American outdoor locations like a bowling alley, gymnasium, supermarket aisle and a graffiti wall among others.

“Our director, Nick Collett came up with this idea of juxtaposing typically Western outdoor locations with our performance,” he says. The song was initially a part of Naseeruddin Shah-starrer Today’s Special, before the band released it as a single last year.

He also believes that the Indian element in their music adds to their uniqueness. “The Western audience is not aware of the influence of the covers we perform. For them, it is niche, original and exotic. So, that makes our music so successful. But since the Indian audience knows where it is coming from, they like it as they can relate to it,” he explains.

As Khosla takes to the stage tonight at Blue Frog, he will be backed by Jacob Owen (guitar and keyboard), James Gabbie II (lead guitar), Adam Chilenski (bass) and Darren Beckett (drums). “This is our third gig in Mumbai and we are really looking forward to performing here because we’ve performed most gigs here in India. Also, the venue is great,” he says.

About his current recording project, he says: “We are working on our new album, which should be out by the end of the year.” Any cover of retro tunes we can look forward to?
“We don’t really plan. So there might be surprises in store,” he smiles.

Catch Goldspot tonight at Blue Frog, 10 pm onwards. Entry: Rs 300