The first thing that catches the eye as Sameer Gadhia emerges from the dressing room is his clothes: He’s fitted in a green button-down and then a shirt jacket, both embellished in colorful floral embroidery. Employing Indian-inspired designs on Western pieces, the outfits he dons for our photoshoot echo not only the theme of his band’s most recent album, “American Bollywood,” but also his very existence — merging the two cultures of his Indian and American identity into one.
Gadhia is the frontman of Young the Giant, an alternative rock band from Irvine, California, that made their mark in the early 2010s with hits like “My Body,” “Cough Syrup” and “Mind over Matter.” He was born to Indian immigrants trying their hand at the American Dream and, like many first-generation kids, never saw music as a viable career path despite the art form being a multi-generational passion: His paternal grandmother was a budding Bollywood singer who gave up her dream to start a family, while his father played (but hesitated to pursue) Indian Classical music. Although Gadhia picked up playing instruments at an early age and started a band in high school (that would later become Young the Giant), he never allowed himself to take music too seriously.
“There weren’t many examples of [successful] brown singers, particularly in rock bands,” he says. “I didn’t really think it was a path for me.”
So Gadhia went to Stanford University, studying human biology and fiction writing — all the while working on an EP with the band. Then, as Young the Giant started to gain interest from record labels, he put a pause on school and signed with Roadrunner Records in 2009. Of course, giving up an education to pursue music was met with pushback from Gadhia’s family; but,…
Read the full article here
