Purple In Green is an interesting band with an interesting name. In founding member Mayurath Gupta’s words, Purple In Green is influenced by ambient passages and phrasing with intricate guitar work, pounding drum parts, soaring vocals, groovy basslines and lyrics that deal with politics and teenage problems. They do justice to the word ‘experimental’ by calling themselves that. They have played shows at venues like Cafe Morrison, Tryst, Turquoise Cottage, Rockafella, India International Centre, Attitude, The 567 to name a few and have bagged themselves prizes at a few competitions. We recently caught up with the busy teenager and had a little chat.
How does it feel to be one of the youngest bands in the scene?
It’s safe to say that it feels great to be one of the youngest bands in the scene and it is an amazing experience to learn from bands and musicians in the scene.
How did Purple In Green begin?
Purple In Green began as my studio project back when I was thirteen or fourteen years old. I never intended on transforming it into a complete band setup till my friend and I started jamming together on the riffs I kept coming up with and then we took it forward from there.
How did the name come into being?
The colour combination was very strange and for some odd reason pleased us. We initially started as a psychedelic/rock/experimental band and felt the name suited our usage of ambient passages with distorted riffing.
How did you come to decide on your genre?
As a musician, I have been heavily influenced by bands like Hammock, Meshuggah, SikTh, Periphery, Cloudkicker and Monuments and so it wasn’t too much of a surprise to me that when I formed a band, a lot of my initial song structures sounded like those of the above mentioned bands. The will and desire to form a band influenced by the ‘djent’ wave of bands came to me naturally as I have been listening to these bands for a long time and some of them have affected my playing style quite a bit.
What is your basic song writing process?
Our song writing process is a little different from what most bands do while writing material. I write and record ideas that I come up with at home, Yash writes vocals to them and then all of us keep working on the ideas till we feel that it’s evolved into a full-fledged song structure and can be played/showcased to an audience.
What is the band’s plan of action?
The band as of now is writing and working on more material for a possible EP but more importantly, we will be releasing our new single ‘Wavewalker’ sometime early 2014. Wavewalker is a glimpse of the band’s new sound and musical direction after I started using an 8 string guitar as well as the overall sound of the band which has evolved and matured quite a bit. We have a few surprises in stock!
How do you guys gel as a team? What keeps you all together?
We’ve always been good friends and have had similar musical tastes which brings us together as people and more importantly as musicians. The feeling of being able to express ourselves through our music and being able to put across a message to other people is what keeps us going.
Listen to their single ‘Pallida’ here
– Wild Child and Quiet Boi
8 E I G H T 8 M U S I C 