Meet Alobo Naga and the Band from Dimapur, who are just a year old and have already hit the fourth spot at the International top 10 chart at VH1.The band was in the city recently for the 100 Pipers Free Bird 2011, a music festival.One surprising fact, the band members are neither college friends, nor common friends or not even people with a common taste of music. The band's vocalist Alobo Naga, an already established pop singer in Dimapur came across his other four band members Akum Jams (guitar), Fung Walling (bass guitarist), Yangkum Jings (drummer) and DJ Sumika Yepthomi, at one of his shows during the summer of 2010.“All my fellow members are from a rock background, which is completely different from my genre. They were helping me with one of my shows.Through the course of the show, all of us were very happy with the balance we struck and then decided may be we should unite together for the sake of music,” recalls Alobo.The band has an interesting mix of a pop-rockish singer, a metal guitarist, a bassist, a drummer and a DJ. Though the members come from different music backgrounds, Alobo says it was not difficult to start off as one band.“We all have been into music for quite sometime now. All of us follow all genres of music and we definitely love each other's technique and this is the part which becomes really interesting.Instead, it helps in adding more vibrancy into the music we create.” Yet another surprise, the musicians of the band are into music, full-time! “If we are not singing or jamming, we are teaching,” Alobo explains. Apart from being a grade eight certificate holder in contemporary vocals from Rock School, Trinity School of Music, London, he is also a vocal trainer at Furtados School of Music, Dimapur.Also teaching at the same school are bass guitarist Fung Walling, drummer Yangkum Jings and DJ Sumika. DJ Sumika is definitely an added flavour to their band. On the DJ effect in their music, Alobo Naga says, “The presence made felt by DJ Sumika is definitely a wow factor. I guess, our's is the only band in Nagaland or even North-East to ever have a turntablist playing alongside.And yes, the effect overall gets very Linkin Park-ish and Incubus-ish.” Known for fusing a bit of Naga flavour into all their compositions, the band believes in retaining their culture in their music. “We always want to be humble to our people.We try doing something different everytime, but the Naga flavour will always make its place in the song. That's the USP of our band.” Their song “Painted Dreams” was selected as the theme song for the International Short Film Festival 2011 in Guwahati.The song also won the best Rock song, best producer and best mixing at the Nagaland Music Awards 2011.The band lend their song for a Bollywood Movie "Beyond" under Golden Eye productions and are currently working to release their first extended play of “Painted Dreams” Talking about their Hyderabadi experience, Alobo says, “Free Bird was amazing.It was my first time in Hyderabad and I fell in love with the city and its people.The best part of our gig was that the crowd knew all our songs and they were singing along. It was a great feeling.” He then goes on. “This was our best gig this year. Hyderabad has great music lovers.”
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