Spotlight

Some of the most renowned bands of today have originated as small bands performing in campus events. In this issue of Star Campus, we tried to find the inside stories of some of these bands. One such band is 'Scarecrow' from BRAC University.

'Scarecrow', the most popular Metal Band from BRAC University has managed to get a good fan base with their strong concert performances and mesmerizing songs.

Scarecrow has a very talented group of musicians in its line up with Tanvir on Vocals and Guitars, Shafeen on Guitars and Back-up Vocals, Rajib on Bass and Acoustic Guitars and Robin on Drums.

It all started in January 1993 with Rumman and Anjan conceiving the idea of forming an Alternative Band. Robin joined in too, thus making the base of the band. At that time Rumman was the vocal and also played the keyboard, Anjan was on guitar and Robin was at the drums. But as it happens, this initial formation died off with some of the members opting out of it in an early stage, thus calling for some change in the band.

Six long years later, in 4th June 1999 the plan became successful and the group of young musicians came up with a new name 'Scarecrow'. But the band was reformed as a pure metal band with new members. Anjan left the band for educational purpose but became the manager of "ScareCrow". Tanvir and Hasan joined at that time as the vocalists and guitarists.

After various lineup changes and concert performances, Scarecrow settled with the present lineup in mid 2004. They finished working on their debut album 'Oparthiv' which was released later that year with a huge response from the fans. Scarecrow's first album 'Oparthiv' maintained the Number One position for more than four consecutive weeks in the 'Rising Star Underground Albums' rankings.

Scarecrow is mainly inspired by heavy, trash and melodic death metal music. It is basically a heavy metal band but they try to bring a different taste out of the typical heavy metal patterns. They are working hard to change the taste of metal music among the listeners of Bangla metal songs. Their debut album hints on this approach of the band. The tracks composed by this band is popularly regarded as a mix of old and neo metal.

The members of Scarecrow have mentioned Megadeth, Metallica, Pantera and Dream Theater as their main sources of inspiration. In addition to that, they also like the Bangladeshi bands Cryptic Fate, Warfaze, and Rockstrata.

Scarecrow usually performs their own songs on the stage. Besides performing own songs they also cover different popular Megadeth numbers. To date, they have performed almost all the hits of Megadeth on stage and at times they also cover Metallica, Dream Theater and In Flames.

About the current Bangladeshi music scene, Scarecrow thinks that there are lots of talented bands in Bangladesh at this moment. But they are not getting enough exposure to express their talents. There are lots of reasons behind that. If these bands can get a healthy environment of doing music, they have the ability and standard to prove themselves as great international musicians and can bring fame for the country.

These days however, Scarecrow has become more engaged with the ever increasing number of live concerts. They are also working out with new composes for mixed albums and for their upcoming second album, which promises to be yet another masterpiece. In the near future, they plan to do concerts all over the country and if possible, would also go for a world tour.