Rhythm of Love: In conversation with Paradigm Shift

The Paradigm Shift are a pop rock band of five members. During 2019, they won eleven various music contests. The band professes to achieve the musical ultimates of originality. The Paradigm Shift spoke to us about their musical journey in today’s Rhythm of Love.

EASTERN MIRROR: Please introduce us to The Paradigm Shift band and the role each of you take on. Paradigm Shift: Hello guys, we are “The Paradigm Shift”, we play Pop Rock. We are full-fledged musicians and we were formed on the 6th of February 2019, 5:26 PM to be precise (laughs). We are five of us with Atsa on the drums, Razo as the bassist, Arepsen Aier on the Rhythm guitar, Zajamo Kithan as the lead guitarist and Chechamo Odyuo on the vocal.

EASTERN MIRROR: How did you all meet? How long have you known each other?

For the formation of the band, we would give the credit to our drummer, Atsa. He is the person behind “The Paradigm Shift” because we were all playing in different bands, yet admired and respected our present band mates. We also kept connected via social media besides the vocalist. Then, after the musician’s ensemble, the quest for a vocal started and eventually we approached Chechamo Odyuo to be the band’s front man. And that’s what completed “The Paradigm Shift”. So that should cover the two questions (laughs).

EASTERN MIRROR: What does your band name signify and where did it come about?

The band’s name has a lot of significance to relate to, as in, it’s about an important change that happens when the usual way of thinking about or doing something is replaced by a new and different way. More likely, the main spectrum behind the band’s name was to create a new wave of sound in the current music scene. Relatively, we were all going through a transitional period in our musical taste. Since for quite a long time, we were into 80’s and 90’s era of rock music. So, as an outcome, we decided to come out from that niche and started craving for the kind of music which we all envisioned. As for the name, our vocalist would take the credit.

EASTERN MIRROR: How do you describe your music to people new to you?

2019 was a year where our main focus was into contests, so we were more into playing complex form of music and loving it so much. 2020, however, will be a year where we focus purely on Pop Rock to easily connect with the emotion of the audience. We simply portray our passion through light music to evoke the core feeling of someone’s indescribable joy, happiness or sadness. Every music we do speaks a different story and we put it all together in harmonies to project the reality.

EASTERN MIRROR: Working as a band is not easy, especially with each individual having different ideas and tastes. How do you work it out? Any issues you have faced initially?

We are fortunate enough that we share the same vision, ideas and tastes for music. So it has never been a struggle for us to coordinate with. And we believe, as long as we keep sailing on the same boat, it shouldn’t be an issue at all. It’s all about the chemistry we create.

EASTERN MIRROR: Do you write your own songs? What are the contributions that each of you make?

Yes, of course we write our own materials. Initially, everything starts with the guitar with some riffs and choral progression. Then, our vocalist would gravitate towards that direction and eventually come up with the lyric and melody lines and the rest follows. Everything starts out from scratch in the beginning.

EASTERN MIRROR: What are the main themes or topics that you cover?

For us song writing has always been like capturing real life moments. So eventually, it is the ultimate

expression behind every song we compose. We mostly write based on our experiences and we are headstrong about hope, faith and love with our lyrics. So, the message is clearly inspirational. In fact, we write from a very honest place as we are not afraid to expose our vulnerability and be transparent and confessional. It’s all about being as real as possible.

EASTERN MIRROR: Looks like 2019 was a year for your band – winning the “Arju Autumn Fest” and “45th Karbi Youth Fest National Beat Contest 2019” to name a few. Has the winning streak in any way intimidated you? If so, how? 

Of course, it was really intimidating since last year, i.e. 2019, we had eleven winning streak which included, VIRTUOSSO sponsored by VH1 and MTV BEATS. Overall, it’s a huge thing for us. Besides, nothing can be more intimidating than sharing stages with great musicians whom we always looked up to.

EASTERN MIRROR: What’s the ultimate direction for your band?

As a band our ultimate principle and obligation is to execute originality and share it to the world. We are Big Dreamers (laughs). Also to add up, like the name of our band goes, there’s a shift going on in progress. We are looking forward to connecting more with the main stream audience. Guys, we are very soon coming up with our first official music video.