Behind the Scenes with Attic
Starting off with just casual banter about becoming renowned rock stars during their routine middle-school hangouts, this group of 5 took their dreams and made them a reality. Comprised of members namely Shadab Shams, Sharar Shayor, Tauhid Shamsuddin, Gaurov Nandy and Sayem Chowdhury, Attic is an Indie rock band that is creating unique sounds for national and international audiences, writes Tunajina Islam.
Never knowing where their passion might lead them to, they formed in 2012 a band called Attic which they pushed for even further after the immensely positive feedback they met upon releasing their first song. The song “Love or Hate” prompted encouraging responses from, not only the general fans but the biggest rock stars on the scene at the time like John Kabir and more. “It didn’t matter HOW many people appreciated your music, but WHO,” one of them says. It’s hard to narrow their style down to one, but it would best be stated as sub-genres of Indie rock. With their newest member Gourav who plays the electric keyboard, they’ve been serving to a more EDM and Pop feel. Currently working on their studio album, they feel this one will hit a home run and capture their true sound.
Like most bands, they started off as a cover band, mostly covering Nemesis’ songs. Nemesis was initially their idol back in middle school. Particularly considering how Nemesis started off as a student band practicing in the nearest garage and now made it to the very top, these young boys of Attic could not have been more inspired. Eventually, they started to get on board with writing their own songs. They stated just how great it felt releasing original songs that were appreciated more than they expected. But their biggest spotlight moment so far has been the aftermath of the release of “Echoes in Your Attic” music video. Five to six months of toil and effort was put into this single video which they spontaneously decided to bring to life. Without fixating on the minor details and touch-ups, they finished the video and just wanted it to be out and published. They took a huge leap of faith as they uploaded their video, with absolutely no promotion backing them up, at 2 pm on a September’s day. Reaching a remarkable number of views of 10k each day for the first week, the boys were overwhelmed. Now, a year later, they stand at 200k views. Their hit music video really took them to new heights. Calls from media companies rolled in and so did the Facebook memes. The admiration was incredible. Shadab even shares a little story where he was crossing a bridge and two passers-by saw him and immediately started singing the song, fans over it. This shocked and moved him. Adding on to this victory, the band took part in the Battle of the Bands 2015 in ISD (International School of Dhaka) where they stole the show and took home the trophy in pride. With that being said, the band states that their target reach is more of an international audience. The whole music culture in Bangladesh is different and tastes vary, but Attic’s taste is certainly more suitable for an international scene and within the next 2-3 years they believe they will be touring different countries. “We don’t want to change our style for the mass audience’s taste, but rather play for our own selves and whoever shares our taste,” he says. The support both nationally and internationally has been tremendous so far and we can’t wait to see what Attic has in store for us in the coming years. Till then, we can only hope for the best and stay inspired.
