Know Your Artist: Multilingual Folk Band When Chai Met Toast And Its Journey To Independent Music

When we think of indie-folk bands, When Chai Met Toast is the first one to pop in our minds. Radio City Freedom is back with another Know Your artist piece where we bring you a little closer to your favorite independent artists and bands. Let's tell you how When Chai Met Toast was formed.

Meet The Band

When Chai Met Toast is a multilingual indie-folk band comprising of 4 versatile, most talented musicians. The band's lineup looks smething like - lead vocalist Ashwin Gopakumar, guitarist Achyuth Jaigopal, keyboardist Palee Francis, and drummer Pai Sailesh. They are known to create and make light-hearted music in Hindi and English with a beautiful twist in Tamil and Malyalam.

Where does When Chai Met Toast come from?

The idea of forming this indie-folk band was seeded at Springr, a music cafe in Fort Kochi. This is the first place where Ashwin and Achyuth met to come together and form an independent band. They were soon joined by a friend Ricky on keyboard, who along with Ashwin, left the country to pursue further education. While the band was on hiatus, Achyuth joined Raghu Dixit, the frontman of The Raghu Dixit Project.

In 2016, Ashwin and Achyuth returned to Kochi and were later joined by Palee and Sailesh to become a 4-member indie-folk band. Their first single Firefly released in 2016 was an instant hit.

Accomplishments

Having released two EPs and several singles, When Chai Met Toast has been recognized as the rising indie band by Spotify's RADAR program. Break Free, the band's another single's video, was chosen as VH1 India's Top 50 Hit Videos. The independent band often performs at live events and music festivals including Bacardi NH7 Weekender, Sula Fest, OnePlus Music Festival, and Red Bull Tour Bus.