From strangers to band mates, Neon Nights has been through a musical journey worth talking about. Comprising Lian Khuptong on drums, Jael Syuhlo and Asherie Zonunmawi on vocals, Joshua Constantine on guitar, Daniel Hatzaw on bass, and Lian Suanlal Guite on piano, the band is set to perform at The Piano Man , Safdarjung, New Delhi this Saturday.
There are a couple in the September 12 set where you’ll recognise the song almost immediately, but what happens after that isn’t quite what you expect. HT talked to the band about what journey so far has been like and what they are most excited about for the upcoming performance. Honestly, all of us. We come from pretty different musical spaces. Some of us grew up on rock and retro, others are more into pop, soul and newer music. We were just playing songs we liked and seeing what happened. And a lot happened. Someone would change a groove, somebody else would throw in a harmony that wasn’t there, and suddenly a song we’d all heard a hundred times felt new again. We kept coming back to that. So yes, the misfit part is still accurate. Usually it starts with a song that all of us genuinely want to play. That matters. If we’re bored playing it, the audience is going to feel that too. Then we ask ourselves: what can we do with this that the original doesn’t already do?
So when we first got into a room together, there wasn’t some grand plan to create a particular “sound”. “Music maestros” is probably us getting slightly carried away.
We’d rather not ruin those before the show.
