Q. How did the band name come up?
Sadman: I had this name down as an option for this band I wanted to form when I was a kid. So when Ahnaf and I were discussing potential band names, I suggested Locomotive, the railway vehicle. But Ahnaf wanted to break it down to Loco Motive which made it more interesting and somehow suited us better as a musical group.

Q. Introduce yourselves. What does each of you play?
The band line up is as follows: Sadman Rahman - Guitar, Lead Vocals; Arittro Noor - Guitar, Keyboard, Backing Vocals; Sayed Ashraf Hassan - Bass; Kazi Ahnaf Toufique - Drums

Q. How'd you guys meet? What inspired you to make music together?
It's quite simple really. Once we were introduced to each other through common acquaintances, a part of the band occasionally jammed for a while. We decided to perform together after a while. Based on the response we got from that, we decided to do another, and then we decided to take it a bit more seriously, jam at least once a week and do as many shows as we can. The band is relatively new but we feel comfortable about our current lineup and we can definitely see ourselves improving exponentially.

Q. What got you into music in the first place?
Arittro - I was introduced to music at a very early age by my brother. Watching him make music and perform at various concerts over the years, I knew it was something I wanted to do as well. Fortunately, my parents have always been supportive and very encouraging about it.
Ahnaf - My ears.

Ashraf - I always enjoyed listening to music. One of my closest friends and band mate, Sadman, influenced me in many ways, while also teaching me the basics of guitar playing. By then I got so heavily inspired by the bass player Michael Flee Balzary (from Red Hot Chilli Peppers) that I decided to take up playing the bass.

Sadman- Pop music got my attention at the age of 12. From then on it has been a journey through different types of music. I started learning the guitar when I was 16.

Q. Who writes your songs? What type of music do you prefer to cover?
So far, the songs we are currently working on have been written by Sadman. Hopefully there will be contributions from other members of the band in the future. When it comes to covers, we really don't like to narrow it down to a particular genre, it's not possible to; our tastes are too varied. Therefore we end up covering songs we somehow all manage to like, keeping in mind how each song will help us improve as a band.

Q. What are your future plans?
We plan on recording 3 original tracks this summer. One of them, 'Agamir Bangladesh' is going to be the official anthem of the internationally recognised NGO, OGGRO-Agamir Bangladesh, and will be released along with the launching of the official OGGRO website, sometime in mid-July. The other two singles are prospective tracks for mixed albums. Other than that, we wish to continue bringing in fresh covers to the music scene and keep improving as a band.

Q. Any last words of wisdom…
It is good to see that local bands are trying out different kinds of music. We encourage that and would like to promote the fact that whatever you compose, be honest in your songs, words and your groove because no two people are the same. Your honest music will be the contribution you want to make.

Loco Motive has a Facebook fan page so please check it out for updates about the band and to find out where they'll be performing next.

By Shaer Reaz

Incursion Battle of the Bands

The Incursion Battle of the Bands took place on the 24th of June at Saffron in Gulshan, sponsored by Radio Foorti, Waveshift, Incursion, and Toto. The judges included Cryptic Fate, Daniel Rahman, CEO of Radio Foorti, and Saadi Rahman, CEO of Incursion. There were ten bands, each with a twenty minute time slot and a maximum of three songs to perform.

Surprisingly, the concert started at the correct time with Revolutus opening the show with a bang, crooning “Eve of Seduction” and “Sea of Lies” from Symphony X, along with a mind-blowing original track “Rongagro”. The judges were impressed with their performance and claimed that the bar had already been set very high. Up next was Treblecleff who provided some mediocre covers of Audioslave, Velvet Revolver, and Bon Jovi.

The performance of the next band, Minerva, took the judges (and this writer) by shock. They presented a fourteen minute medley with songs from Azam Khan, James, LRB, Aurthohin, Nemesis, Artcell, Cryptic Fate and a few more artists. The band excelled in every one of the songs they covered. What really got the heads banging was their own single “Mrittur Shesh Choy”. The judges did not have a single thing to criticise so you can imagine just how good this band was. Next, Bum Engine slowed down the mood a little with covers of Eric Clapton's “Crossroads”, Muse's “Time is running out” and Guns N' Roses' “Night Train”. Vibora turned up the heat again with Metallica, Pantera and Black Sabbath covers.

Then, it was Silverlight's turn to show what they had. They did “Zombie”, “Careless Whisper” and an amazing rendition of “Dream On”. Ashreen's enchanting vocals to the Cranberries classic had the crowd singing along all the way. Syndrome showed up next with “Faced Down” and“Toxicity”.

By the time Openfly was ready to perform, it seemed that most of the crowd had disappeared. However as soon as they got on stage, the fans came back went nuts for the Scholastician band. Seeing as they won the recent ISD battle of the bands, their presence on stage was emphatic. The band performed “Purple Haze”, “Aeroplane” and “Just a Boy”. Towhid's vocals seemed to change to the perfect scales for each song and the cohesion between the guitarists was phenomenal. The band was absolutely marvellous; maybe it was the incessant chanting or the ground breaking performances, or both, which gave them a chance to play a fourth song. They covered the Ozzy classic “Crazy Train” in their encore and which proved more than enough for the crazed fans.

Divine Sanity and Minus+2 were the last two bands to perform. Minus+2 ended the concert in style with Limp Bizkit, Tapeworm and Drowning Pool covers. The members had painted grinning skulls on their faces and that scared me to bits. Anyway, the show ended soon after and while the votes were being counted, guest bands Bohemian and Cryptic Fate gave their usual mesmerising performances.

Certificates were handed out next with Rafsan (Minerva) winning the best guitarist, Bijoy (Minerva) winning the best drummer, Tanveer (Revolutus) winning the best bassist and Towhid (Openfly) winning the best vocalist. It was no surprise when it was announced that Openfly and Minerva were the final competitors for the best band. The two were brought on stage and after a lot of drama and suspense, it was pronounced that Minerva had won by 2.5 votes. The winning band was given a ten thousand taka prize money, certificates and finances to record a song in a studio under record label Incursion.

Sync. Entertainment, the organisation which brought the whole thing together should be applauded for their hard work and passion towards music.

By Munawar Mobin