Anish Nadh’s Blog

 I was working with yahoo but now and suddenly I feel ill. I had swelling on my joints and couldn’t play the guitar! I felt really helpless and decided to quit work. I moved to Kerala and decided that if I get up again, I will only do music and never a stalk job and I looked for options that I had to make a living out of music. 

 BSM increased their fee and I couldn’t afford it all of a sudden. They had changed their location as well, it got a lot more difficult to continue lessons.  But my guitar teacher Kenny agreed to teach me for free at the new BSM. Later, the management had some problems with this arrangement so we shifted our lessons to Arul’s guitar shop. We continued this for about a year, then we had to stop lessons as the shop was not available as he had to shift. 

 I started listening to a lot of Thermal and a quarter, I loved the band as they were musical, groovy and the lyrics were thought provoking. I heard this at work on repeat! They had this streaming on their website. I also started listening to Tommy Emmanuel! This was all I listened to for about 2 years straight. I know little nuances of the songs that I heard repeatedly, this even helped me learn to play these songs or atleast parts of what I heard. 

There came a time in my life when all the rehearsals and my day job and classical guitar lessons took a toll on me. I got a little annoyed I couldn’t focus on all three. So I needed a break from the band as it got a lot more tedious, so I decided to not play a show I was not told about earlier. The guys played the show without me, and at that time, the band was not paying me anything I was losing money and energy on it, so I left. I was called back again, where I met all the boys, and Judah on the way back felt I wouldn’t take the burn out again. So, I decided to call Manek, who was a fan of the band at that time, and I called Manek and told him, that the band needs him. This was the end of the band.  I take responsibility for my action, I did regret not playing that show! Also, my girlfriend at that time cheated on me and I was completely broken down! This started deteriorating my health a lot! I was depressed, the band was doing really well without me, I had failed. So I decided, to

Slain eventually became one of the headlining bands in the Independence Day Freedom Jam, the music festival organized by the guys at Sunday Jam. This was held at Palace Grounds and this was the biggest show I have ever played! I knew my band was awesome as the crowd loved it! We played Angel in the sky, Gates of Hell, More than Conquerers and the band title song Slain.  There’s a video of this on YouTube! Link here:  https://youtu.be/tdPOqxpa1sI?si=t8rcGSWfa_6hQTJ7 https://youtu.be/zxRFI1eoWxw?si=3-fx7O2M_F79HSXr

 Jared was in our band slain when he was just thirteen years old. He is an amazing drummer! We used to call him karadi as it rhymed with Freddy, his nick name. Freddy wasn’t a drum machine, he could get any beat, on any subdivision and had a thorough knowledge of beat subdivisions and poly rhythm. He could drown the guitars down and break ear drums with his drumming! It was strange playing with a child. Most venues didn’t allow kids, but Freddy was an exception, they never asked. 

 Slain was the first band that worked regularly. After an 8 hour shift I went to Judah’s dad’s studio for rehersals, we would practice each song with harmony, stance and everything! We were one hard working band. By the time I was done with rehearsals it would be 8:00 or 9:00 pm and this would repeat. I never had the time to practice and the only time I got was with the band rehearsals. I still have no clue as to how I found the energy to do this!