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A first generation Indian American and the frontman of New York-based band named after 'Goldspot'a popular orange-flavoured carbonated drink in India in the early 90's; Siddharth Khosla creates music which tugs at heart strings and sets feet tapping.
Khosla's music is a blend of retro indie, pop-rock, light pyschedelic rock, something for every mood. The first thing which you notice about the band and their music are the lyrics.
The 'Friday' hitmaker who founded the band, also pens the lyrics of the songs which 'Goldspot' plays, prefers doing concept records- basing all songs on a singular concept. On a recent visit to India, he revealed that many songs from the band's latest album Aerogramme (2013) are based on stories about his family and his childhood in India.
"I believe when I write an album, I'm creating a piece of art and I'm always trying to write from the heart and in my heart is my family so that is all I can really write about", Siddharth told PTI.
Khosla shares that his parents moved to the US from India in 1976 with only 8 dollars in their pockets.
"Within a year of their arrival, I was born. They were studying and at the same time managing full-time jobs. They had to make one of the toughest decisions they had ever made - sending me back to India to live with my grandparents in Delhi", says Khosla.
Infact even the name 'Aerogramme' is inspired by the letters that his father sent him from the US, a sheet of paper which was used to write a letter and then doubled as an envelope.
Some popular songs from the album are based on his childhood experiences in India, like the 'Monkey Song', which he narrates with a laugh.
"When I was younger I spent a lot of summers in India and one of my fondest memories is of being home in Shakti Nagar, Delhi and a monkey used to climb on our roof top to eat fruit from the Litchi tree and my aunt used to beat it" says Khosla.
nother song from his album, the 'Evergreen Cassette', which he calls his favourite song from the album encapsulates the story of his mother sending him taped lullabies to India, because it was expensive to make phone calls.
"I was probably like 1 or 2 years old, when my parents sent me back to India. My mother would put her voice on a cassette and send it to me in India so that I could hear her voice. At that time it took 24 dollars a minute to make a long distance phone call. So they sent that cassette", Siddharth says.
The band's frontman, who spent a large chunk of his childhood in the narrow lanes of Kamla Nagar here, considers performing in India like a dream come true and has been to the country on multiple occasions to perform at popular music festivals.
"Everytime I perform in India it's like I am living my dream. My favourite musicians were all Hindi singers- Kishore Kumar and Mohammed Rafi and they used to perform infront of all these audiences and the fact that I can do now is just a reminder that I'm living my dream, I'm humbled by it", Khosla told PTI.
He says that Delhi is a nostalgic city for him, which reminds him of his childhood.
"The other day I went by our old house in Shakti Nagar and a new building stands in its place now, new people live there, but I walked down that alley and it brought me back to flying kites with my cousins and playing cricket in the street and stepping in cowdung.
"The first thing I do when I come to Delhi is to eat Bille de Hatti di Puri. It is one of the best meals I've ever had", tells Siddharth. Apart from creating music for his band, Khosla has forayed into Television and was the composer for the recently concluded ABC series "The Neighbors".
