On January 21, Young The Giant, the American indie band, released their second album, Mind Over Matter. With singles such as My Body, Cough Syrup and Apartment reaching the top five of the US Alternative Songs' chart, headlining Billboard's SXSW showcase in 2011 and opening for Kings of Leon's worldwide summer tour last year, Young The Giant — including frontman Sameer Gadhia, Jacob Tilley, Eric Cannata, Payam Doostzadeh and Francois Comtois — is making all the right noises with their melodic rock 'n' roll sound. And now, the band is playing at the SulaFest at Nashik on February 7. A chat with Gadhia:

Q. Tell us about the early years of your band, formerly known as The Jakes.
A. We formed out of a garage in Irvine, California, around 2004. At the time, Irvine was strongly influenced by Post-hardcore bands such as Thrice and Rage Against the Machine. The Jakes was formed as an antithesis to Post-hardcore, inspired by a local indie dance band, now defunct, called The Colour, and started more as a joke, which later became serious. There was once a local battle of the bands, which we were not even invited to play for, but we hijacked the stage after one of our friends' bands performed. They ended up crowning us the winners after just one song. At that point, all of us realised that we had potential.


Sameer Gadhia (Centre) with his bandmates from Young The Giant