Exclusive: Indian-South American Band We Here Now Offer Trippy Garage Rock on Debut Album ‘The Chikipunk Years’

If you look through the tags of garage psychedelic rock band We Here Now on Bandcamp, they list locations such as Kolkata, Rio de Janeiro, Peru and Philadelphia. And they’re not even trying to show off. But as the “Kolkata” rep for the trio, bassist Indrayudh Shome says, “The truth is I’m a foreigner everywhere.”

Shome’s mother is an Indian classical dancer, and his father was working in a multinational company that took them from Bengaluru, Mumbai and New Delhi to Hong Kong and Singapore. The now Philadelphia-based musician and filmmaker moved to the USA to study. Shome says, “I’ve never properly lived in Kolkata, but I was born there, my parents were born there, my mother lives there now, and that has been the only one constant location associated with my life.”

As was the case with anyone on the internet in the early 2000s, the musician and filmmaker began making friends and even took it ahead and formed bands with people from different parts of the world. Cut to a decade and many stoner/doom/psychedelic bands later, Shome joined forces with guitarist Pedro ‘Sozinho’ Salvador from Brazilian psych rock band Necro and drummer Panchito El Sofista (from Peruvian psychedelic band Montibus Communitas) to create We Here Now in early 2018.

Their debut album The Chikipunk Years (out on January 17 via Homemade Gifts records) is a swirling headlong dive into seven tracks of somewhat nostalgic but also fluttering psychedelic rock. With all three members sharing vocals, the songs remind you of everything from The Beatles to The Mars Volta, Thee Oh Sees and King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard. “It’s probably harder for us to NOT play in polyrhythms, so we tried to keep it down to earth,” says Shome.

Up next, the band is “burning tires” through Brazil in May, to Europe in June and in the US in November. Shome says he’s also looking at an Indian tour through December 2019 and January 2020. “It’s a long trip for Pedro and Panchito, but India would be a dream,” he says.

Pre-order the album here .