Apollonian Quest
Apollonian Quest
In every sphere of life there comes a time when change becomes the need of the hour. Apollonian Quest was born out of a desperate need of exactly such a movement spurred by the stagnation of the Indian music scene, both underground and commercial. There was no dearth of good musicians and bands, but the lack of creativity was brazenly evident. It was during these trying times of 2006 that fate brought together 2 musicians Jerson (bass) and Raj (lead guitar). They understood the problem and set out to remedy this disease of copy cat imagery that had taken over the Indian music scene.
In every sphere of life there comes a time when change becomes the need of the hour. Apollonian Quest was born out of a desperate need of exactly such a movement spurred by the stagnation of the Indian music scene, both underground and commercial. There was no dearth of good musicians and bands, but the lack of creativity was brazenly evident. It was during these trying times of 2006 that fate brought together 2 musicians Jerson (bass) and Raj (lead guitar).
They understood the problem and set out to remedy this disease of copy cat imagery that had taken over the Indian music scene. They hunted for a rhythm guitarist with both creativity and aggression and found it in Arjun. As the hunt for other musicians continued Raj came across Ananda who had put up an advertisement on the RSJ forums. This led to a casual meeting and eventually led to Ananda taking the position of the front man of the band.
It was around this time that Raj asked Joshua (Trinity grade 8, classical pianist), his batch mate at IIT to join as the keyboardist of the band since it was more than evident how he could add to the personality of the band. Finally a drummer with the caliber to pull off this daunting project was filled by Vikas Reddy whose blistering speeds added to the aggression of the band. The band was set to hit the scene hard and awaken it from its stupor. Since creativity was what brought these formidable musicians together, no simple theme would do for an album.
The idea behind the band was to push the limits of creativity right over the edge. This task was brilliantly accomplished by Ananda whose literary skills were honed by years of competitive creative writing. A concept album was penned to which music would give girth and substance. The final touch that needed to be added was a name.
This long and difficult task which bore fruit at three in the morning, when the name Apollonian Quest was agreed upon by everyone, gave a name to this hereto unnamed musical force. The compositions started in earnest original compositions being the highlight of the band. The first view that the scene got of Apollonian quest was on the livewire competition stage on the 27th of December 2006. Though they failed to make it to the finals the reviews were very good and positive indeed.
It was after this gig that Apollonian Quest started facing internal problems. Vikas graduated and left to pursue his career abroad. Jerson had personal issues and he too relinquished his position in the band. The loss of 2 members was a huge blow to the band and left a gaping hole in its creativity.
But Apollonian Quest was not ready to close shop and pack up yet. The hunt for musicians began for the second time and took almost a full year. No gigs were performed at this time and it looked as if Apollonian Quest had taken a hiatus from the music scene for good. After 10 months of relentless searching Apollonian Quest came across Hamza and Tapas at an Eggless Lovecake show.
The sheer brilliance of their creativity and technicality impressed the members of Apollonian Quest so much that in a week’s time they became the permanent drummer and bassist respectively of Apollonian Quest. After nearly a full year the band’s lineup was finally complete. Compositions began anew and finally their first demo tracks “Connoisseurs of Tragedy” and “Progenies of Death and Havoc” were recorded. This line up except Tapas (who couldn’t play because of job pressures) played at livewire ’07.
The base duties for this gig were filled by Abhishek who was the guitarist of the disbanded brutal death project Blasphemy from Chennai. It was after this gig that Apollonian Quest started gaining a loyal fan following and with the lineup concretized Apollonian Quest is finally ready to take on the daunting task of taking creativity to heights that few can parallel. To understand the music of Apollonian Quest one must first know about the members that form it and what they contribute to the band. Raj is a neoclassical guitarist who plays blisteringly fast yet soulful solos with ease and panache.
Arjun is completely influenced by brutal death and raw black metal. This shows in his intensely aggressive and technical riffs. Joshua is heavily classically inclined and brings in all the beauty and technicality of western classical music in his orchestrations. Hamza is very progressive metal influenced and has a penchant for playing extremely complex drum patterns.
Tapas’s base lines are very jazz oriented and hence add melody, tightness, and technicality to the band. Finally Ananda is heavily influenced by symphonic black metal, goth metal and metalcore giving him a lot of room for experimentation. With 6 members with 6 different musical styles fixing a genre becomes a difficult process, but after much contemplation we can safely say that till now Apollonian Quest has been a symphonic progressive metal band. But Apollonian Quest has no compunction to stay in any particular genre (except for being metal of course).
This is because Apollonian Quest follows the mood and story in the lyrics and accentuates it. Since Apollonian Quest only makes concept albums the composition process is approached with a mind frame of creating a background score for a movie. This is one of the things that make Apollonian Quest unique from other bands because its music will continuously evolve disregarding any genre barriers. Furthermore it tremendously increases the creative potential of the band.
It has been a year since Apollonian Quest began its journey. It has faced many hurdles but has finally overcome them all and risen from the ashes more mature and united as a band than ever before. It is a phenomenon that needs to be witnessed live unleashing their sheer musical force upon a world that stands awe struck and slack jawed every time it plays. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License and may also be available under the GNU FDL..
They understood the problem and set out to remedy this disease of copy cat imagery that had taken over the Indian music scene. They hunted for a rhythm guitarist with both creativity and aggression and found it in Arjun. As the hunt for other musicians continued Raj came across Ananda who had put up an advertisement on the RSJ forums. This led to a casual meeting and eventually led to Ananda taking the position of the front man of the band.
It was around this time that Raj asked Joshua (Trinity grade 8, classical pianist), his batch mate at IIT to join as the keyboardist of the band since it was more than evident how he could add to the personality of the band. Finally a drummer with the caliber to pull off this daunting project was filled by Vikas Reddy whose blistering speeds added to the aggression of the band. The band was set to hit the scene hard and awaken it from its stupor. Since creativity was what brought these formidable musicians together, no simple theme would do for an album.
The idea behind the band was to push the limits of creativity right over the edge. This task was brilliantly accomplished by Ananda whose literary skills were honed by years of competitive creative writing. A concept album was penned to which music would give girth and substance. The final touch that needed to be added was a name.
This long and difficult task which bore fruit at three in the morning, when the name Apollonian Quest was agreed upon by everyone, gave a name to this hereto unnamed musical force. The compositions started in earnest original compositions being the highlight of the band. The first view that the scene got of Apollonian quest was on the livewire competition stage on the 27th of December 2006. Though they failed to make it to the finals the reviews were very good and positive indeed.
It was after this gig that Apollonian Quest started facing internal problems. Vikas graduated and left to pursue his career abroad. Jerson had personal issues and he too relinquished his position in the band. The loss of 2 members was a huge blow to the band and left a gaping hole in its creativity.
But Apollonian Quest was not ready to close shop and pack up yet. The hunt for musicians began for the second time and took almost a full year. No gigs were performed at this time and it looked as if Apollonian Quest had taken a hiatus from the music scene for good. After 10 months of relentless searching Apollonian Quest came across Hamza and Tapas at an Eggless Lovecake show.
The sheer brilliance of their creativity and technicality impressed the members of Apollonian Quest so much that in a week’s time they became the permanent drummer and bassist respectively of Apollonian Quest. After nearly a full year the band’s lineup was finally complete. Compositions began anew and finally their first demo tracks “Connoisseurs of Tragedy” and “Progenies of Death and Havoc” were recorded. This line up except Tapas (who couldn’t play because of job pressures) played at livewire ’07.
The base duties for this gig were filled by Abhishek who was the guitarist of the disbanded brutal death project Blasphemy from Chennai. It was after this gig that Apollonian Quest started gaining a loyal fan following and with the lineup concretized Apollonian Quest is finally ready to take on the daunting task of taking creativity to heights that few can parallel. To understand the music of Apollonian Quest one must first know about the members that form it and what they contribute to the band. Raj is a neoclassical guitarist who plays blisteringly fast yet soulful solos with ease and panache.
Arjun is completely influenced by brutal death and raw black metal. This shows in his intensely aggressive and technical riffs. Joshua is heavily classically inclined and brings in all the beauty and technicality of western classical music in his orchestrations. Hamza is very progressive metal influenced and has a penchant for playing extremely complex drum patterns.
Tapas’s base lines are very jazz oriented and hence add melody, tightness, and technicality to the band. Finally Ananda is heavily influenced by symphonic black metal, goth metal and metalcore giving him a lot of room for experimentation. With 6 members with 6 different musical styles fixing a genre becomes a difficult process, but after much contemplation we can safely say that till now Apollonian Quest has been a symphonic progressive metal band. But Apollonian Quest has no compunction to stay in any particular genre (except for being metal of course).
This is because Apollonian Quest follows the mood and story in the lyrics and accentuates it. Since Apollonian Quest only makes concept albums the composition process is approached with a mind frame of creating a background score for a movie. This is one of the things that make Apollonian Quest unique from other bands because its music will continuously evolve disregarding any genre barriers. Furthermore it tremendously increases the creative potential of the band.
It has been a year since Apollonian Quest began its journey. It has faced many hurdles but has finally overcome them all and risen from the ashes more mature and united as a band than ever before. It is a phenomenon that needs to be witnessed live unleashing their sheer musical force upon a world that stands awe struck and slack jawed every time it plays. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License and may also be available under the GNU FDL..
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