The Creators | Apartment Upstairs

Devika Jamkhedkar and Sumantra Sen, Class of 2021

The Creators is a fortnightly series of artist profiles of Ashokans who are actively involved in different creative fields including music, photography, creative writing, and visual or performing arts.

The distinct throng of drums, energetic riffs and resounding lilt of ‘R U mine’ echoing through the atrium walls into the evening air got everyone wondering what exactly what was going on upstairs. Further inquiry introduced one to the aptly named ‘Apartment Upstairs’, jamming away diligently before their breakthrough performance at OP Jindal’s Biswamil. Ashokan music culture has proved conducive to creators of various genres, with Rohan Pai (UG 20), Shourjo Chatterjee (UG 20), and Angad Trehan (UG 21) offering an exciting new addition to campus culture, keen to flourish in the Delhi music circuit as well.

An embodiment of young talent, Apartment Upstairs was initially founded in the previous semester by Rohan Pai, Shourjo Chatterjee and Bharat Srinivas. As first years, each of them recall being immensely inspired by fellow Ashokan band Shorthand. This spurred them to seek out fellow aspiring musicians, and eventually unite to form a medium of expression. Bharat left in the second year. However, the other two were quick to recruit a keen first-year guitarist, Angad Trehan. The trio became a close-knit unit relatively quickly, influencing each others’ music tastes and playing styles. This resulted in an amalgamation of genres coalescing to constitute their whetted sound- alternate rock. While snippets of their tunes on Instagram will invigorate rock enthusiasts, the band is focussed on musical variety and ideation. Their individual interests revolve around various orbits of the rock universe, ranging from John Mayer, Red Hot Chillie Peppers, and even Shawn Mendes – all affecting their artistry. We sat down with Apartment Upstairs to garner details on their personal backgrounds, experimental outlook, supposed rivalry with Shorthand, and the story behind their name.

Sumantra- Tell us a bit about your musical histories. When did you start playing music and how did it go?

Angad: I started playing in 8th grade and started taking it seriously from 9th grade. I began with the bass guitar to classical. Now, I play acoustic and electric as well.

Shourjo: I’ve been playing the drums for quite a while now. It started around the same time as Angad like around 7th grade. My parents knew the founders of my music school and that helped me start learning drums. However, it was a very on and off thing due to boards and it hasn’t been consistent throughout. Honestly, I didn’t think I’ll be playing the drums in college or would have much to do with music, but then I met Rohan and Bharat and that made me start thinking seriously about music.

Rohan: I actually started playing in the 12th grade and I started learning online. I started off with acoustic, but in college, switched to bass because that’s what the band needed. I prefer playing the bass now but there’s a lot more to learn and improve on.

Shoujo- I think it’s amazing how much Rohan has improved. He started playing bass in the beginning of second semester, and you wouldn’t be able to tell the way he’s improved this year.

Sumantra- What were your musical influences early on?

Angad: I have a lot of guitar influences. I listened to a lot of John Mayer and Steve Vai and Joe Satriani. I listened to Tarrega- not many know him, he’s a classical guitarist. Favourite bands? Green Day, Slash, Dire Straits, and Eagles are the ones that come to mind right now. I also listened to a lot of jazz. They’ve influenced making my own music as well.

Rohan: My influences have shifted rapidly since last semester. I mostly listened to a lot of mainstream music and indie, like Ed Sheeran and John Mayer, stuff like that.

Shourjo- (interjects) Shawn Mendes.

Rohan (laughs)- Yeah, I had a phase. After that, it has shifted a lot to bands like John Mayer Trio, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Vulfpeck. A lot of alternative music like Arctic Monkeys, Bon Iver, and Childish Gambino.

Devika- That’s quite a variety!

Rohan- Yeah. I’m mainly into alternative and funk right now. I think I encountered that mainly after meeting Shourjo and Bharat — the band wanted to take that route and considering that it was music that wasn’t like Ed Sheeran or Shawn Mendes. Red Hot Chili Peppers and John Mayer trio were what helped us forge a common interest.

Sumantra- I think as an alt-rock band, there are so many genres within it, like britpop, indie, grunge. Do you think you’ve figured out what your genre is?

Rohan- I think we’re still exploring how we sound as a band. Until we have three or four originals that we have jammed to, we’re going to keep working and see how it goes. For now, it feels like we’re moving towards an alternative genre — in between rock and a sort of a studio feel. I think we can’t classify that just yet.

Shourjo: I think a lot of the music that I was influenced by comes from the music I listened to before I started playing the drums which include a lot of classic rock, like 70s – 80s stuff. Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and Dave Matthews Band. All of these bands have drummers that had the most impact on me. I’m also influenced by a lot of jazz drummers who I’m extremely influenced by. Jojo Mayer, Dave Weckl, They’re not old school rock drummers, so it’s a nice change to include them in the music I listen to. Love what drummers do for fusion jazz. Apart from that, it’s mostly rock, like Angad. I’ve recently started to include funk and alternative stuff, that’s impacted me.

Devika- There’s often a distinct dynamic that develops between members as you’re playing together and making music together. So what’s it like practicing together, and what’s it like performing?

Angad: It varies a lot, honestly. Sometimes you have amazing practices and you come up with stuff like that (cue in energetic snapping sounds). Sometimes you have really really really bad practices, and you’re still recovering from them. Like, we just had a pretty bad one recently, but a good one a few days ago. But then the next day you will have a better practice. So it really varies a lot. I would say it’s a two way street — practices are affected by the way you interact with each other and the way you interact with each other affects your practice. Working with these two guys is so much. It’s way too much fun! Performing with them is even more fun. We just performed at Biswamil, and that was a really good one.

Shourjo: As Angad said, in practice sessions, we tend to fluctuate a lot but I think that’s true for anyone who practices music because every day can’t be good and filled with new ideas and great practice sessions. I think what helps us is that at a fundamental level we connect with each other really well and since we’re good friends. That really does help us with our band dynamic. It helps us concentrate on the music and not let anything else get in the way.

Angad- There’s also times wherein we’re just sitting in the room being like, “What do I play?” “What do I play now?” There’s literally ten minutes of silence, because we don’t know what to play then.

Rohan: Mainly, it’s the fact that our friendship is stronger than being bandmates right now. That pushes us a lot, gives us a lot of boost because there is no tension between us. We easily open up and we have no problems with what the other person wants to play. I think that’s rare in bands, because you often see the band members getting angry at each other for not letting them play what they want, and I think we’re sorted in that way. That’s quite impressive?

Devika- What’s your group dynamic like? Is there a leader?

(All shake their heads)

Rohan- There really isn’t, we don’t really let one person lead the band. I think that’s rare.

Angad- (indicates Rohan) Though the de facto logistics manager is this dude.

Rohan (laughs)- I mean, as long as booking music room sessions go. But what we do during practices isn’t affected by anything like that.I don’t think we follow any concept of band leader as such.

Devika- That’s interesting, especially since bands often have frontmen.

Shourjo: I think even though Rohan’s a natural frontman, there’s no clear cut leader of the band even in the music room. It’s very egalitarian, which I think is a good dynamic that we share.

Sumantra- How was your first live performance in Biswamil? How is it different performing live when compared to a studio?

Shourjo: Regarding our performance, it was our first live performance and it was relatively soon after we started playing. But as soon as we stepped on stage we weren’t nervous about it. It went well. It felt like we’ve been playing much longer than we have been- The way we knew each other and performed. Everything just fell into place and we didn’t even experience any first performance nervousness. That was a very pleasant experience and it was promising for our future performances, that we could have a good first performance like this, without any inhibitions.

Angad: It was a great learning experience for me. We want to get there between the studio and the live vibe and see how that fits. This was a great testing ground for that. It did work, as we learnt that a few things that work well live may not work well in the studio. Great experience at Biswamil, overall.

Devika- What’s the story behind the name ‘Apartment Upstairs?’

Rohan- So basically we had performance coming up last semester, and we thought it would be the best opportunity to establish our name.

The three of us were watching our favourite show ‘How I Met Your Mother’, and we decided that we’d put one or two words that really fit together as a band name, and that would stick. In that episode, the name ‘apartment upstairs’ came up. We thought that was a great name, because when we say ‘the apartment upstairs’, it’s like we’re taking you to ‘our space’. The apartment upstairs is always making noise, always ‘out there’ in some way. It’s like we’re taking you from wherever you are, to our place.

Devika- I always thought it sounded quite mysterious. Gets me wondering ‘what’s going on at apartment upstairs?’

Shourjo- Come, find out at the performances!

(everyone laughs)

Devika- Many artists have some sort of mission statement that defines their creative purpose. Black Sabbath had one describing how they should be constantly pushing themselves. What would you consider you creative mission for the band? What sort of artistic goal do you hope to achieve?

Rohan- As far as I see it, we want to come up with as many original compositions as possible, while also working on covers and making an original setlist. This is so that we can perform at Delhi and play gigs. Other than that, we’d like to perform at Battle of the Bands competitions mainly for exposure, and see how we’d compete against other bands that are in the circuit right now.

Shourjo- As for our artistic and creative vision, again, since we haven’t had that many original songs come out yet, it’s very hard to set a specific direction as of now. In terms of originals, it’ll take us a while to figure out what kind of sound we aim for, and the kind of sound that comes out our playing. So currently, it’s sort of hard to say that we’re set on ‘this specific way’ of music making. I guess it’ll take some more time.

Sumantra- You guys had mentioned yourselves as a ‘Delhi band’ and follow many bands in that area. Are there any concrete projects you’re working on to impact culture in Delhi and Ashoka?

Angad- Honestly, I think that’s the aim of every band, to make an impact. That’s why you form a band.

Rohan- It’s a Delhi band mainly because we’re in Ashoka, that’s close to Delhi. So Delhi’s gonna be our biggest hunting ground, in terms of gigs. That’s why we want to call ourselves one, because most of gigs will be there.

Devika– (pseudo-serious) Not Sonepat?

(everyone laughs)

Rohan– (laughs) Sonepat? I hope!

Shourjo- (with some dry wit) Unless we start doing Punjabi music, I guess there’s more scope in Delhi.

Sumantra- Any concrete plans or projects so far?

Rohan- We haven’t planned that as of now. In the next four-five months, there’s gonna be a lot of battle of the bands, so we’re gonna prefer that over doing any gigs. That’s because they require you to do fewer songs than gigs. I think at an early stage when we have a smaller set, I think battle of the bands is a better

option. It’ll help us get used to performing on stage, and then we can professionally perform at gigs and stuff.

Devika- How would you describe your creative process as a group? What strikes each of you with ideas, and how do you write and compose? How do you go about putting it together?

Rohan- We have one original completely composed. It came about in the summer. It was just a very simple bass line that I had over the summer and added vocals and chords over it. Once I was done, I took it to these guys and they transformed it completely. They added some amazing electric guitar parts, he [Shourjo] added some amazing drum parts. It took us just two-three sessions to get done with the verse, because we were still thinking of what sounded best. After that phase, we started thinking of which part comes next and started jamming in the music room and seeing musically what was cohesive, and what part could come after the verse. Stuff like that, and it just happened. We ended up with three and a half, to four minutes of a song.

Angad- We started the song off the bass and Pai had a melody. He used to sing it off the top with nonsense lyrics. After we were done with the song, he wrote the lyrics.

Rohan- We’re in the process of recording it in the studio, but we’re performing it at Jashn-e-Jazba. We might live-track it there, and see how it goes and if we can put it out.

Angad- That’s not the concrete structure though, its not always bass then guitar. The one we jammed to recently, I was just messing around with the amp and playing four notes, but sounded like I was playing sixteen. After that Shourjo started playing some drums and Rohan added something with bass. It sounded pretty cool.

Rohan- So it’s mainly when you’re in the music room and you’re jamming that there’s one small idea that you end up jamming to for 5–10 minutes straight without stopping. We always have our phones recording it so that maybe later we can maybe pick up the best parts for it later. I think that leads to some great songs.

You never know when the next new idea is gonna come. It’s also not like we depend on one person to do it. Maybe he can do something on the drums, and then I can think of something on the bass line, or he does something on the guitar, and we both can add to it. So it always starts with one simple track and adding tracks over a track is quite simple for us.

Devika- Quite an experimental process. So lastly, I wanted to mention — Ashoka appears to have a thing for bands. First there was Shorthand, now it’s you guys. What do you think Ashoka has that fuels this ‘up-and-coming band’ scene? And how can it affect the culture on campus? How were you particularly influenced by Shorthand and their releases?

Rohan- For us, Shorthand has been our biggest inspiration. I know a lot of people might think that we look at them as ‘competition’ and whatnot, but it’s really not like that. We really are close to all of the members. When I first came to college and saw them perform in my orientation week, I was really just shell-shocked and thought, “Yeah, this is what I want to be.” They were my biggest inspiration, I went to some of their gigs and watched them play at The Piano Man in Delhi. I didn’t know Shourjo that well, but the other guitarist who was with us earlier, we were in the same school. We watched them perform together, and thought that we should be in a band too, but were really not at that level yet.

We really wish we can compete with Shorthand one day, not in a competition kind of way, but in a friendly way. It inspires us a lot to go into the music room every day, and come up with better music and music that is not just technically good, but good to listen to for an audience. I think they’ve nailed that.

Shourjo- I think one of the good things about Ashoka is that it makes it quite easy to find other people they wanna play with, like how we started out. That’s how they influence band culture, the way you were talking about. Another thing is that, as musicians, they’ve always been very dependable, always willing to listen to our stuff, give us constructive feedback and help us out in any way they can. They been a great overall example for us, in terms of professionalism, hard work and even sound- They’re a model we’d like to follow. The path they’re taking now is also something we’d like to emulate in the future.

Devika- Musically as well?

Shourjo- Yeah, a lot of the times we find ourselves in the music room saying, “Oh, that sounds like something Shorthand might’ve thought of.” Musically we’d love, love to be like them, because we love their sound. Sounding like them won’t be a bad thing at all.

Angad- Yeah, it’s tough to break out of that shadow in way, because we’re in their shadow, right? Shorthand is a GREAT band, and we really don’t mind being in their shadow. We really do wanna come up to their level. See, you can’t jam with someone you’re not as good as. If you’re a shitty guitarist, and you’re trying to jam with someone who’s really good, you’re just gonna be there wondering, “What do I do next?” We want to reach the same level, so that we can sit in the same room, and talk music with them — jam with them.

Rohan- I think if there’s anything promoting band culture in Ashoka right now, for us at least, it’s how supportive shorthand have been. Our first performance at the club showcase, they were there, and came and talked to us about our performance and what we could have done better.

They’re the most humble people, really down-to-earth, and always willing to help. I think that this really helps you look past all this talk of competition- You see them as people who can help you break out into the music scene.

Sumantra- Thanks a lot for talking to us, and all the best for your upcoming work!

Catch ‘Apartment Upstairs’ performing their first-ever original song ‘In Pursuit’ at Jashn-e-Jazba next week! Grab more tunes on their Instagram and check out one of their performances on Youtube and subscribe.

The authors are staff writers for the Arts & Culture column of the Edict.