‘They are incredibly humble’: Coimbatore’s Aditya Veera on interviewing award-winning musicians

Aditya’s list of high-profile interviews include Grammy Award winner Lee Ritenour, American guitarist Robben Ford, and French drummer Manu Katché

The name of Aditya Veera’s band, Thayirsadam Blues, somewhat belies his taste in music. There is nothing Thayirsadam (curd rice) about it. He grew up listening to Harry Belafonte with his grandfather, who had worked at Harvard and MIT. His father, he says, was into jazz, blues, funk, and rock. When he was doing his pre-university course in Bengaluru, he was into heavy metal. 

Why Thayirsdam then?

“We were three individual musicians who were participating in an open mic for fun. The emcee there put us on the spot. He asked us for a band name,” Adiya recalls this memory from his college years, “So, we got into a huddle and tried to figure out what’s common for us. And, we realised we were all Tamilians who loved curd rice. But one of us was a sax player who was into blues music.”

Hence, Thayirsadam Blues.

The band, born in Pune, did over 200 shows, was featured in radio shows among other platforms. It moved to Bengaluru when Aditya moved there after college in 2018. Apart from his band, he also started managing other independent musicians. All this alongside his day job as a software architect.

When the pandemic hit, he returned to his hometown, Coimbatore. He did a few online shows with his band and a COVID fundraiser featuring some popular musicians like Usha Uthup and Lydian Nadhaswaram. Then, sometime towards the end of 2020, he came up with a new idea for a talk show. “I wanted to connect with music industry professionals from different parts of the world to get their ideas that would benefit Indian independent artists.” 

And, the people he had in mind were not just any music professionals. They were award-winning artists and producers, who have worked with the legends of western music. The list included Grammy-winning musicians like Erick Walls and Lee Ritenour; American guitarist Robben Ford, who has worked with KISS, Miles Davis, Chick Corea among others; Sheryl Bailey, who is the assistant chair of the guitar department at the Berklee College of Music.