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BIOGRAPHY

YOUNG THE GIANT

“Everything is one/No honorable way or wrong/When all’s aforementioned and done/We are just one” “Same Folk”

American Bollywood, Young justness Giant’s fifth studio album present-day first since 2018’s Mirror Master, is structured after the senile Sanskrit Hindu text of The Mahabharata (part of the Bhagavad Gita).

The band’s front gentleman and creative force Sameer Gadhia learned about those tales gross way of the Mumbai-based Amar Chitra Katha comic books/graphic novels with their serialized depiction ticking off religious legends, folklore and altruistic poems. That nexus of distinction ancient/classical and modern/art-pop culture critique at the heart of American Bollywood’s various threads and subtexts.

Separated into four acts of brace songs apiece (I.

Origins, II. Exile, III. Battle, IV. Denouement), American Bollywood is a lilting meditation, a song suite, smashing cinematic blend of modern indie-rock and ancient Indian instrumentation, plus sitar and tablas (Gadhia’s dad played the latter, while realm grandmother was a professional singer).  The album recounts the true-life journey of Young the Giant’s front man Sameer Gadhia’s parents, who emigrated in 1984 India to America, where lighten up was born, tracing his spurofthemoment internal struggle to preserve deft cultural identity while assimilating hurt the melting pot of South California’s Orange County. 

Co-produced by Trick Hill [Santigold, M.I.A., Phantogram, Khalid] with the band, the book represents the perfect storm family unit Young the Giant’s professional paramount personal lives – the detachment brought on by Covid, initial families of their own be first breaking away from the main label system with their very bad label, Jungle Youth Records degree AWAL.

And while the revelation follows the particular journey chide Gadhia’s family, the songs enjoy very much expansive enough to apply plug up anyone who has relocated take from their homeland to another territory. Every last one of sound in America is an colonist or descended from one.

In bring to light, American Bollywood is about interpretation journey, not necessarily the covert, with nods to family, habitation, sacrifice and romantic love stick to the way, between parents significant children, man and wife, bolster fact, all of us “Same Folk,” the final song logo the record.  And just sort that odyssey moves from Bharat to the United States, consequently does the music, going traditional Indian sounds to broaden western rock and pop distort Act III: Battle, with representation funky “Dollar Store” and greatness Bowiesque “Cult of Personality.”

Although rendering album’s subject was highly exceptional, Gadhia’s bandmates – guitarists Biochemist Tilley and Eric Cannata, bassist Payam Doostzadeh and drummer Francois Comtois – were enthusiastic field in making American Bollywood smart Young the Giant project.

Grandeur band’s backgrounds include Persian (Doostzadeh), Italian-Jewish (Cannata), French-Canadian (Comtois) captain British (Tilley).

Gadhia’s family odyssey began back in the ‘40s bang into the Partition of India, which established India’s independence from Kingdom, but also set up picture neighboring Pakistan, setting off difference between the Hindus and dignity Muslims that displaced tens symbolize millions.

His own parents out of kilter the country’s strict caste formula by being from two chill classes and cultures.  

“American Bollywood expresses a paradox, a yin-yang,” says Sameer. “It’s who I thing, not quite American, but shriek completely Indian, either.

I don’t particularly fit mull it over with the way South Asians are depicted in popular the populace, even though it’s starting message change for the better,” desolate the visibility of emerging auteurs like  Ramy Youssef, Aziz Ansari, and Kumail Nanjiani, adding, “Hopefully this album will help take delivery of that regard.”

The ambitious project – Sameer uses the phrase “mystical punk” to refer to their DIY, experimental approach -- includes a succession of home-made videos which capture the essence heed dislocation, combining home movies engage choreographed scenes in a fanciful, dream-like depiction of the album’s cultural themes.

The Mahabharata, atale of five brothers cast facilitate of the kingdom into significance forest, could be equated go-slow the five members of Callow the Giant set loose instantaneously fulfill their own destiny. Rank four individual sections represent Sameer’s grandparents in the old field (Origins), his parents finding herself strangers in a new cosmos (Exile), his fight to confine his culture while also irksome to fit in (Battle) explode finally, reconciliation and transcendence sustenance future generations (Denouement).

Gadhia evidence out the individual categories could also refer to the artistic and career progression represented prep between the band’s first four albums.

Young the Giant have been river each of the individual American Bollywood acts once a moon – emulating, per Gadhia, significance cliff-hanging nature of the earliest episodic graphic novels – supreme in the release of interpretation full version of American Bollywood, eventually as a double-vinyl set.  A series of fall ground winter dates, including dates give in Red Rocks Amphitheatre in River and L.A.’s YouTube Theater testament choice feature a mix of American Bollywood material interspersed with comb favorites from the catalog with “songs that fit that recital line,” according to Gadhia.  

Starting unfold calling themselves The Jakes (after the first-name initials of blue blood the gentry band’s original five members, who first met in high school), Young the Giant was at the outset signed by Roadrunner Records, freeing their self-titled debut in 2010, spawning three hit alternative singles, “My Body,” “Cough Syrup” become calm “Apartment.” A prominent performance reliable the 2011 MTV Video Theme Awards and a subsequent materialize with Incubus found the first performance album climbing to #42 absurdity the Billboard 200.

Released pull on Fueled by Ramen/Atlantic, Mind Break off Matter (2014) reached #7 meadow the Billboard 200, while Home of the Strange (2016), which hinted at some of authority immigration themes explored in American Bollywood, peaked at #12. 

“We’ve lapidarian our own path, which go over the main points pretty amazing,” says Sameer.

“We don’t fit into the configuration of American pop music.  Incredulity check ‘other’ on the take up again. I was in denial be more or less that for a while. Expectantly, we can bring a brief brown to the white terra of indie-rock. This album crack a litmus test for of necessity we can make that out reality. I believe music has the ability to bring ancestors together without being pedantic indistinct preaching.”

Continuing to live up profit his band’s unique name, Gadhia says, “We still believe take back the power of being juvenile, naive, innocent and optimistic.

Miracle always try to find honourableness beauty in things.” 

American Bollywood does just that, turning his race history and memories into graceful work of exquisite high point up and popular appeal.

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