Arunava Roy started making music in college around 2002–2003, grounded in Bengali rock. A move to Bangalore in 2011 expanded his sonic vocabulary considerably — Western rock, blues, jazz, and reggae became new reference points, and the city's independent music scene gave him a community to grow inside.
He formed his band Roots in 2015, channelling the specific pressures of corporate life, IT work, and depression into songs that are deliberately approachable on the surface. "Everyday life gives me inspiration," he told us — and he means all of it: the tedium, the strain, the moments that don't seem significant until you turn them into music and realize they were.
His influences — The Beatles, Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, John Lennon — share a commitment to directness and lyrical honesty. Arunava carries that forward in his own way: songs that feel good to listen to, but reward close attention with something harder and realer underneath.
His forthcoming album, currently in development, will collect 8 to 10 songs written from the inside out. The process is unplanned and raw. The results, if the songs he's already shared are any indication, will be worth sitting with.