'Each song has a story to tell'

Despite packed schedules as young professionals, it was their intense love for music that brought the members of ‘The Pulse Theory’, a city-based progressive rock band, together. In a candid chat with Tini Sara Anien, the members Avishek Dasgupta, Arijit Dey, Arjun Menon, Antariksh Pandey and Siddharth Singh shed light on their melodious journey.    

How did the band come together?

Avishek: I was into music prior to my MBA days. In 2013, at my previous company, there were many clubs and forums where one could connect with other interested people for a common passion. I always wanted to get back to music and that’s how we all came together.

What keeps you together?

Avishek: We gel well as a team. The rock music scene hasn’t been really great lately and we have gone through dull phases and our lineup has changed often. Our passion kept us together.

Can the band’s music be classified into a genre?

Arjun: We are a progressive rock group that is deeply influenced by other artistes like ‘Dream Theater’, ‘Periphery’, ‘Porcupine Tree’, ‘Tesseract’ and Steven Wilson. For us, each song has a story to tell. Most of our songs revolve around a plot. We create theme-based music though we don’t have common subjects.

Some of the themes that you’ve tried are...

Arijit: We don’t write too much about love. ‘Puppet Dance’ is about how we are played by the system and how we are all living inside boxes. It urges us to break the mould. ‘Distorted Silence’ is about a ghost of a person who wanted to accomplish many things in life. ‘The King Who Cried’ is about a king who fell in love with a girl who doesn’t acknowledge his presence because of a reason.

Tell us about your latest project.

Siddharth: We are coming out with an EP called ‘Meteors In Ascent’. The EP will have four songs of which the title track will be about fighting depression and coming out victorious. The song is about hope. This song is trying to tell people about how they should get rid of their anguish as there is a lot of light left in the world.

How does the band see the world of music?

Antariksh: Music is like oxygen to us. It is that outlet which cuts through our mundane lives and makes us feel alive again.

A blooper on stage..

Avishek: There are times when we have messed up with covers, played them again and messed it up even more. We have laughed about it and learnt from our mistakes. We work great as a team and cover up well. 

Three things you always remember when on stage.

Arijit: We always have a sense of gratitude that we are on stage, we bring our best energy level to every act and perform as though each act would be our last one together.