VDAZE was founded in 2006 by Arun (caddy) Narasimhan, Farhan Mohamed, Krishnamurthy (kishmu) Kalvai and Nagaraj Varadharajan. They have played for almost every Indian-musical show in the bay area, accompanying many professionals such as late PB Srinivas, Anuradha Sriram, Bappi Lahiri, Kavita Krishnamurthy and Dr.L.Subramaniam, Mano, Unnikrishnan, Sikkil Gurucharan, Satyaprakash, Pooja, Srinivasan Raghunathan. With a lot of talent and experience behind them, they are great to work with for any challenging gigs and above all are a bunch of fun loving lads! Contact us at vdazegroup@gmail.com.

Arun “Caddy” Narasimhan is a completely self taught drummer, with a solid sense of rhythm. His attention to detail in his performances is legendary. He is one of the Bay Area’s top drummers in the Indian music scene. Arun started drumming in his undergrad days at BITS, Pilani in India, and learnt his skills playing a mix of indian and classic rock numbers. Even today, he loves drumming for rock music
whenever he gets the chance. He was the drummer of the Seattle based rock band named East India Company . These days, he performs with his band VDaze, performing a variety of music
from the Indian movie industry. He has performed for the top bands in the Bay Area like Thillana, Pallavi, Raagalaya, and is also part of the Kansas Raja music troupe, performing shows across America. He also gets his rock fix from his band named Cumulus. Check out his videos with VDaze and others at http://www.youtube.com/aruncaddy

Nandu Sankaran started formal training on the Mridangam at an early age and later on the Tabla. He performed frequently in the Pacific Northwest with local artists and bands in classical, semi-classical and light-music concerts as well as taught Tabla at his home. Since moving to the bay area, he has accompanied local artists in devotional music and has performed with VDaze for the past couple of years.

Krishnamurthy “kishmu” Kalvai picked up keyboards in a not-so-tender first year of college. Started with classical rock, and later, with piano lessons, music for the piano. His love for film music started with Ilayaraja, RDB, and many other greats. He has accompanied Bay Area bands such as Thillana and Pallavi.

Nagaraj Varadharajan is one of the founding members of VDaze. He has been part of the live music scene in the bay area for several years and has lent keyboard support for music shows in many different languages and genres. His musical foundations were built playing harmonium for Bhajans and Hindustani classical as a youngster. He enjoys listening to Jazz, Ghazals, Hindustani classical music and is an ardent fan of ilayaraja.

Apu Jose Battan is a case in point for contradictions! He does a typical Indian head shake, while following the thalam and listening to a TNS RTP, and also goes into emotional nirvana listening to the complex rhythm patterns of a Dream Theater song. He loves to get high on filter kaapi, but also relishes the peaty after taste of a 12 year old Lagavulin. Brought up in the lovely French town of Pondicherry, he is a (fraud) mallu at heart! A classically trained violinist and self taught guitarist, Apu started learning violin when he was 7 years old and has been performing at various venues since – Carnatic, LIM & World Music. Apu works in the Big Data space and loves to spend his non-work hours recording, playing live and more importantly learning more music.

Farhan Mohamed loves to cook fish curry, do dishes and play music. He holds degrees in audio engineering, music production and computer music and works at the audio company, Plantronics. Prior to Plantronics he worked as a music engineer at Muse Research for 9 years. As a music supervisor for the gaming company Webzen while at Muse, he spent two years working closely with composer Howard Shore working on the orchestral game score, Soul of the Ultimate Nation. Currently, he plays and records with the surf band, The Aquamarines; the progressive rockers, Utopian Trap; the classic rockers, Cumulus and is composing music for an upcoming tamil movie.

Recent Performances
With Mano:
https://youtu.be/aZCHoWamaQM
https://youtu.be/itytWOlUNGk
https://youtu.be/fEP0mkiRTOA
https://youtu.be/YIt0F5-4298