A band like never before

A perfect night mixed with classic rock, a twist of heavy distortion and jazz vocals strikes the right chord with every music lover. It is hard to find all these combinations in one band. However the crowd of Bangalore was in for slow but special treat when Slow Joe and The Ginger Accident performed at Opus on Friday.Slow Joe and The Ginger Accident, a French band with an Indian vocalist, beautifully blended European with American music that was sung by an Indian. A perfect melange of different cultures came together to perform the most enjoyable music ever. The band consisted of Alexis on bass, Cedric on lead guitar, Josselin on drums, Denis on keyboard and Joe on lead vocals.This is the first time that the band played in our city on their Indian tour and the response showed by the crowd was truly magical.Alexis said, “We are doing an Indian tour for the first time. After playing a few shows in the North, we travelled to South and our first performance in the South was in Bangalore. We heard that the Bangalore crowd preferred heavy metal and we didn’t know how they will like our music. When we were on stage, the energy showed by the crowd was truly amazing. And, this made it hard for us to get off the stage.”The crowd enjoyed the band more than the cocktails in their hands.The band had kept the crowd entertained through out their performance. They played over 12 songs among which one was an old classic Indian number 'Tu Kahan Gayee'.They also covered Pink Floyd, which reminded the crowd of the good old days of rock and roll. Most of the band’s original numbers are based on love. Josselin said, “Slow Joe writes the lyrics for the band. The rest of us build on the chorus and concentrate more on the music. We usually find Joe, with a book and pen in his hand. He keeps writing poetry regularly and his poems are amazing and talk about emotions a person is going through. We select the poems which we like the best and convert them into songs in the jam room.”The band was formed last year and have already released an album called Sunny Side Up and has travelled to various parts of the world. Cedric said, “I visited Goa for vacation and that’s when I heard Joe sing at a local pub. Moved by his voice we shared a conversation. That’s when an idea of starting a band struck me. The rest of us were friends who played for different local bands in France. I recorded Joe’s voice and made them listen to it. Before we could finish listening to the whole song we were going through various music beats in our heads. That’s when we realised that we can make it big.”The key member of the band is Joe.He isn’t your average Joe with a regular job. He is a 68-year-old singer, with the attitude of a 27-year-old attitude. Taking life as it comes Joe is truly a gifted singer. His voice makes it perfect to sing any jazz number, whereas his pitch follows all the blues scales. Cedric said, “India has always been nice to me.I love Indian food, the traffic and Indian Joe whom we call Slow Joe because of his age.”Slow Joe reminds one of the great vocalist Ozzy Osbourne, singing with bunch of young guys. His contribution to the band and his lyrics is what keeps the band going. Slow Joe said, “Music is everything to me. It is a religion I follow.It is like the air I breathe. No matter how old you are you do need air and you do follow a certain religion. So I feel my age is just a number and it wont get me away from music.”The band’s music is unusual and it isn’t something you would find on the radio.Just as their music they even have an unusual name. Denis said, “We started this band because of Joe, we had to have his name in the band’s name. So we decided to call ourselves Slow Joe and the Ginger Accident. Ginger accident is because of the ginger coloured hair we have and accident is the way we all meet each other. This name suit us best and we stuck to it.”They are working on a new album and will soon be releasing world wide. They also promised to visit Bangalore again with some new songs.