Welcome to TragiComedy.com

What's with the name TragiComedy?

This is a solo project of mine but I didn't want to go by my own name Amitabh Chandra. So I decided on TragiComedy coz it's a cool sounding name to me and I liken my life to a tragicomedy anyway, both tragic and comedic at the same time. I always oscillate between wanting to kill myself or just laughing at how meaningless life is sometimes. Laughter and music keeps me going and that's how I keep tragic thoughts out of my head. I know that seems heavy but that's how life is for me.

So since it's a solo project did you record everything by yourself?

I wrote all the songs by myself and recorded over a period of a year and a half with my producer T.C Meng. It was just me and him. He helps out on lead guitars and does a lot of the samples and keyboards. With him on board as producer I knew I could come up with anything and he would make it sound great. We didn't really need a band while recording.

How do you play live if you don't have a band?

Obviously after recording the album I realised I had to play it live eventually, so I just called up my old friends and got them to jam with me. By the time we got the call to play Rock the World V we were pretty much a decent band. Chee Meng plays lead guitar, Chris, my old school mate plays bass and Arul, my fomer Amigone drummer sits in on drums. We have since played a few Musiccanteen gigs and are set to play a few more around the country. It's a great feeling to play in a band again.

What happened to your old band Amigone?

It's really hard to keep a band together coz everyone has their own thing going. I also lost interest in being in a band that was kinda lost between the underground and the mainstream. People didn't really know what to make of us. But we were a pretty hardworking band, playing gigs everywhere including Rock the World 1 & 2 and loads of semi undergound gigs. We also got brief radio airplay for "Philanthropic Beings" but other than that our album, "Truth and Consequence" and the "Eulogy" EP barely sold a thousand copies. After that I quit music for a couple of years. I didn't even pick up the guitar to write a song until "Never Lonely". By then my songwriting had become more simple and to the point. It was just me and my guitar.

So what made you get back to music?

It was by accident. I didn't really want to get back into the music scene but I wrote and recorded Never Lonely for the girl who is now my wife and it kinda worked. It was the first outwardly pop song that I had ever written about love. Hitz.fm got a hold of it and as luck would have it I had a minor hit on my hands. The response was great. People started asking me when my album was coming out. So eventually I pushed myself to record the rest of the songs for the album.

Why did you call the album "Songs That Won't Sell"

I honestly believe that my album won't sell even though my songs are as catchy as I can make them. I wrote the lead track "Songs that Won't Sell" because of that. But it doesn't matter to me coz I write songs to please myself and give myself a pupose in life. It pleases me when people tell me they enjoy the songs but at the end of the day I'm proud that I finally recorded an album that I can be happy with.

-Tabh Chandra-