GIRISH AND THE CHRONICLES: In demand but staying loyal (2026)

By STEVE MASCORD

IT’S A crossroad in the career of many a band – exacerbated, perhaps, by the modern convention of musicians having many concurrent projects to keep the wolf from the door.

What happens when one member’s extracurricular activities become more lucrative than the one that also involves his band-mates?

Girish Pradhan has been singer for Girish and the Chronicles for 16 years, the Indian band breaking down barriers with his lung-busting vocal capacity. His brother, Yogesh, is the bass player. They performed on America’s Got Talent and their every move is the stuff of mass-media consumption in their homeland.

But in recent times, 40-year-old Girish has been courted by big names in the US. He is a member of the End Machine with Dokken luminaries George Lynch and Jeff Pilson, he performs on the new album by former Whitesnake guitarist Joel Hoekstra, From The Fade.

And with many heritage acts now on their second or third vocalist (and drummer), the offers show no signs of abating. Currently on tour with GATC in Australia, it’s an issue at heart of where Girish and the Chronicles are going – ie, whether it’s the same place.

But first, as is the way in 2026, much might have been written about India’s pre-eminent hard rock band but not much of it with any depth. Sikkim, a state in north east India, sure isn’t the Sunset Strip.

“We would have to walk uphill for more than one or two kilometres to reach school and stuff like that,” the smily vocalist explains. “We grew up right below the Himalayas. This is Nepal, this is Sikkim, this is Bhutan. It’s all a part of the same belt. Sikkim used to be a kingdom at a point in time and later on became a state of India. Life out there was quite different, yeah.”

Like Ethiopian runners, I suggest that maybe the altitude contributes to Pradhan’s unique abilities.

A laugh.

“Who knows? I would love to believe that. The water and the air is different. But I would give a lot of credit to Bruce Dickinson. I just wanted to sound like him and I worked a lot on that at a point in time.”

Covid was a friend of GATC, the reckons. “I think a lot of people had time to listen to new music, discover new bands. It might have worked a little bit for us, yeah.”

One of the most intriguing aspects of this story, the one any documentarian or writer of a feature like this would try to draw out, is the culture shocks of being from the Himalayas and going to Hollywood to be on America’s Got Talent and working with members of Dokken.

On a superficial level, it sounds lick a rock’n’roll Beverley Hillbillies. But the culture shocks came much earlier than that, Girlish insists.

“In India, every region, every state has its own culture, its own language. When we moved to Bangalore, Bangalore was a completely new society for us. But there is some kind of uniformity down below it all. At the end of the day, everybody just knows what it’s about, you know? I don’t know how to explain it.

“But yeah, it has been harder for artists from our region going to the city or going to other parts of India.

“When you start a journey like this, you’re in the innocent realm. You’re just doing it for passion, you just want to rock out there. Eventually you start thinking of survival, you want to earn money. When we first started to release our album, we weren’t even thinking about money, you know? Like ‘OK, we have an album!’

“But as we grew, as we progressed, eventually we got to know the hard truth. We had to learn a lot of things. We had to learn how to compromise sometimes. A lot of times we were always, like, stubborn. We were like ‘we’re not going to change for anyone, we’re just going to stay like this, we’re going to do what we like’. I think that’s always helped us in the end.

“And a lot of people who support us and try to bring us to festivals can see that in us. ‘They know what they want to do so just let them’.”

The temptations of just a taste of fame are too much for bands from Albuquerque. Being through into the dens of iniquity of Hong Kong and Los Angeles from Sikkim must be on another spectrum in terms of the opportunity to go completely off the rails…

Girlish nods.

“It’s part of the same learning curve you were talking about. There was a time when we were really wild, just having fun, all about going here and there, drinking every night, this and that. We matured up. We don’t drink before shows anymore actually. We found out the hard way you have to be really serious about what you’re doing, you know? I mean, you should have fun to a point in time. You’re a really young band. You should do all that – good memories. Being in a rock’n’roll band should not be about just getting serious and doing your job. You should have fun but after a point you should just take things very seriously I think.”

“The hard way”. Any reporter worth his or her salt has to ask a followup question in response to that….

“Imagine you drink every day,” Girish responds. “Quitting alcohol is not an easy thing. Or quitting smokes. Or whatever you’re into. It’s not always easy. For me, I actually quit alcohol completely and some of our members stopped drinking before shows. A lot of them … basically we found our limits. The hard way in the sense that it’s not easy.”

And so, step by step, GATC have become known outside India. They signed an international record deal. And then their singer replaced Andrew Freeman in the Frontiers project band The End Machine.

“It was Frontiers, it was Serafino (Perugino, label head) who directly put me in touch with these guys and for me it was a no-brainer. You’re talking about George Lynch – I’m in! I wanted to do it as something I’ve always wanted to do as a kid, you know? It was a big adventure for me. But yeah, everything was done remotely. I was in my studio. They would send me tracks and ideas.

“Joel Hoekstra, he’s very particular about the melodies and stuff so he would want me to sing exactly what he wants me to sing. He writes everything, from the melodies to the lyrics. I was like … I’m more of a performer there.

“But when it came to End Machine, George and Jeff were more like ‘we want you to do whatever you want to do’. So you will see more of me in The End Machine. I wrote all the lyrics, all the vocal melodies and everything. We share responsibilities like that.”

And so to our narrative fork in the road, which might be just ahead or may never be reached. How do his bandmates feel about these gigs that keep coming his way?

“It’s quite relaxed. We just say ‘hey, this is happening’ and I think it’s pretty cool. Because at the end of the day, no matter what I do or what anyone does, it always comes back to the band. I feel it’s beneficial for the band. The more anyone’s name goes higher up there, it’s always good for the band. Because out here or anywhere, the band gets known more widely. That has always been the goal.

“I’d say from our end, we’ll keep doing what we have to – release music and try our best to get out there but if we are getting individual opportunities to put ourselves out there but in the end, coming back to the same topic, if it’s helping the band in the future then we can give it a shot, you know?”

But what if he has to choose between the Chronicles and, as a solo performer, becoming iconical? Actually that’s not a word. But you know what I’m getting at.

“…it all depends on the situation. It all depends on… if it’s right in your face, what you’re going to do, I think. If it looks like it’s something that’s going to kill the band, I don’t think that’s something anybody’s going to look forward to. It’ll have to be something that’s very flexible, I guess. Maybe I might have to cut down a few (things) here and there. That’s a different thing, right?”

So the band remains his priority? “This is what we want. This is our canvas. This is what we want to keep doing. But if given the opportunity, if there’s something that’s going to help the band – you know – reach higher or something, we might have to take some steps.”

OK, then: the bluntest question of the interview for the number one draft pick of all young vocalists for legacy hard rock bands, Girish Pradhan: have you done a Skid Row audition tape?

“Haha. No I have not! But honestly, some of them are my friends. We keep talking. And I’m always talking, ‘if you’re even in the need for my services or something…’ No, but yeah I have talked to them and stuff.

“I have not done anything official with them.”

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