alexrintu

Alex Rintu is a singer songwriter who has lived and grown up different lives. He is a sensitive-indifferent and carries the two traits nonchalantly, which is very evident in his music. With his fluid, and skillful playing of guitar-centric ‘alternative jazz influenced pop’-deemed to be one of the best in the country -, he creates a surreal atmosphere with the guitar. Alex’s songs relate to the existential concern of the modern world. They also express the beauty that life is. His words a...

Alex Rintu is a singer songwriter who has lived and grown up different lives. He is a sensitive-indifferent and carries the two traits nonchalantly, which is very evident in his music. With his fluid, and skillful playing of guitar-centric ‘alternative jazz influenced pop’-deemed to be one of the best in the country -, he creates a surreal atmosphere with the guitar. Alex’s songs relate to the existential concern of the modern world. They also express the beauty that life is. His words are filled with disillusion and faithlessness in the most romantic way and yet they speak of the hope which drives human endeavors. As far as he remembers, his first experience of powerful music was his parents’ collection of Alice Cooper, Abba, Queen and the likes which they used to play in their car, during their long travel to their hometown. The western Music influence might have started thus. His growing interest in music was unseen. And later, he tried tinkering with his sisters’ piano and that was the first time he expressed his musicality. Later, this developed into a fascination for classical music. After listening to Eric Clapton’s Acoustic rendition of the classic song ‘Layla’, he instantly felt the connection with the guitar. He confesses that he had not heard of Clapton before that, and he didn’t even know that the song was one of the greatest blues love songs ever written. He explains that the ‘fluidity and the essence of the blues’ is what hooked him to the instrument. Moreover, he was looking for an instrument to accompany his love to write and express. He started practicing the guitar aided by YouTube and the internet expanded his influences. He calls himself a ‘Google’s child’. His influences have been so varied over time that you can see almost a century of on-going guitar evolution in him. Apart from that, his tumultuous high school made him practice the guitar for as long as 6-8 hours a day. He was a closet singer, and even his closest friends barely knew that he could sing. He started writing songs as early as he knew how to play 3 chords and soon he started getting attention for his guitar playing and Musicians started noticing his talent. He played the usual competitions in college, and the bands he played only helped him in widening his interests. He was good at academics and his family did not even consider his making a career in music, especially the Indian Music Industry. He got recruited to D.E Shaw & Co through the college placements. He worked in the Company for 8 months, from where he expanded his network and made enough money to buy a good guitar and a stompbox, after which he moved to Chennai, to pursue a career in music. The decision to quit a well-paying job to pursue music was a very difficult one, considering his musical direction and the state of the Indian Indie Music. He currently plays in the Indie Scene and, as a support, also works as a session guitarist.