JOIN USThermal and A Quarter’ has grown from being just a college band in 1996 to a full-fledged band that’s known across the globe for churning out some original music.
The band has been around for a long time but it is perhaps for the first time that the band has made a 40-minute film titled ‘WFW/DFD’. This is the band’s first foray into movie-making.
The video screening at BFlat in the City recently was accompanied by a special gig. The band members believe that the film is about artists, musicians and other ‘crazy’ people. They say that the movie is about triumph and tragedy, rebirth and resilience.
“It’s a story, it’s a song and a statement,” the band members assert.
Talking about the making of the movie and how the idea came about, Bruce Lee Mani, the founder of the band says, “We never set out to make a movie, it just happened by chance. We went on a 60-day European Tour during which we performed more than 50 gigs.
There was a photographer accompanying us and he clicked a lot of pictures and he ended up taking a lot of videos as well. When we scanned through the videos, we realised that there were a lot of interesting moments that could be made into a movie and that’s precisely what we ended up doing,” states Bruce.
Bruce feels that it’s only hard work, dedication and commitment that have kept the band members together.
“It’s passion that has brought thus far. I think if you enjoy what you are doing, then there’s nothing that can stop you. It’s also our vast body of work that prompted us to make the video,” he adds. Bruce says that during his tour he met a lot of different kind of musicians and people who have dedicated their life to the arts be it music, dance or theatre.
“It takes a lot to keep the interest in the arts alive and each one of us in the band have dedicated equal time to furthering our interest in music and developing a style of our own,” he says.
Soon after the screening, the band also performed a special gig, featuring obscure tracks by acts like ‘Sting’, ‘Dire Straits’, ‘Blood Sweat’ and ‘Tears’, ‘Gilbert O’Sullivan’, and a couple of songs by Bangalore bands that have sadly disappeared – ‘Lounge Piranha’ and ‘Zebediah Plush’.