Being in a band is a big commitment for anyone, especially for a college student who’s also working. Balancing music, work and school is a tough task that many in the Connecticut music scene have to do.
Among those actively walking this tightrope is Safin Choudhury. He is a singer-songwriter from Fairfield, Conn., and is the singer and guitarist of Bonemeal, a three-piece indie rock band. He’s best known for his creative math rock-esque guitar playing, which features arpeggios, tapping and the use of various effects pedals.
When he was in high school, Choudhury discovered artists like Joji, Boy Pablo and Cavetown, which opened him up to the world of indie music. One of his biggest moments, however, came when he discovered Radiohead.
He was enthralled by the group’s 2007 album “In Rainbows,” and called them “the first band that made me think about music composition” and songwriting. He then found the progressive rock band Chon, which inspired him to start playing guitar in 2019 after hearing the band’s “crazy finger-tapping compositions that [he] could only dream of writing.”
From 2020 to 2022, Choudhury credited three main artists he began listening to as his biggest influences: Dayglow, Steve Lacy and Alex G. He admired that each of these artists took a do-it-yourself approach to their music.
“Those three artists inspire me the most because what they all had in common is that they were all solo artists that started their own thing and did all the instruments themselves,” he said.
Of these three, Choudhury said that he admires Alex G the most, particularly since he started recording and producing by himself as a teenager. This inspired him to start writing songs more seriously and got him interested in recording.
“I had been listening to Alex G in 2022 and was getting super inspired,” he said. “I was seeing how he was 14 or 15 when he started and he would use one mic and record every single instrument himself. And I was like ‘Alright, I need to do that.’”
Choudhury used this burst of inspiration to record and release the three-song extended play “Shapeshift,” which came out in October 2023. The album was solely made by him, recording all the guitar and bass parts and adding drum parts digitally. He noted that he rushed to get the EP done so that he could release it by his birthday that month, mixing and adding parts till the bitter end.
He admitted that he has mixed feelings about how the release came out, though he still regards it as an important building block for where he is now.
“It’s not my favorite piece of work to say the least,” he said with a laugh. “My friends like it, but I cannot listen to it at all. But I’m really glad I did it because that got me in the door of being like ‘Hey, I’ve got actual songs.’”
Up until this point, Choudhury had been flying solo with his music. Things changed when he started jamming with his friend Walker Donohue, who started on piano before switching to bass. Together, they learned Alex G songs and played at an open mic night at Southern Connecticut State University, where Choudhury attends.
However, the summer of 2024 was when Bonemeal morphed into a full band. Choudhury and Donohue were introduced to drummer Ryan Hanock, and they instantly hit it off in a series of fun jam sessions. Choudhury finally had a band and it came at a perfect time, as the three had their first show booked at Cafe Nine in New Haven on Aug. 20, which was booked before they met Hanock.
Choudhury claimed it was “a summer of being stressed out, but it pushed my inspiration because it was a good stress.” The pressure was on not only to write songs, but to have the full band learn them with their first gig looming large. He recalled waking up every morning and picking up a guitar, taking using events in his life and the upcoming show as motivation. This resulted in a batch of 10 songs that still make up the basis of the band’s repertoire today.
The week before the show was tense as Choudhury had a vision not only to play the show, but to have shirts, stickers and CDs ready to sell at the show. In the three days leading up to the show, he estimated he only got a total of three hours of sleep over that time, as he rushed to make t-shirts and finish the demo tape to get on CDs. When Aug. 20 came, he was up until 6 a.m. working on the tape’s final mix.
When he and the band finally took the stage that night, Choudhury looked down at his guitar and felt his heart drop at what he saw: The input jack was gone, leaving him unable to run that guitar through an amplifier. He looked at his bandmates in a panic as their set was slated to start. Luckily for him, one of the other bands on the bill, Sentiments, let him use a guitar for the set. They played the show, and he shared that “we still felt really weird after the set, but people liked it.”
Since that first show, Choudhury and the band have made multiple appearances at DIY venues from Fairfield to Hartford. Among his favorite shows was at The Dog P0und in Storrs last September, offering high praise for the energy of the University of Connecticut’s music scene compared to that in Fairfield.
“There’s a lot of people who want to be at house shows at UConn and that area seems ripe with a lot of people who are interested in music,” he said. “I’m from Fairfield and it feels like it’s dry around here sometimes, especially with indie rock.”
Of course, it’s been a busy stretch for Choudhury, as he’s had to balance gigging, taking classes and working. Though he’s grateful to have the band, he admitted that balancing everything can be draining.
“I don’t think stressful is the right word, but probably draining because on a given day, I’m either doing music, work or school,” he said. “The music days are really fun, but I don’t really have a rest day on anything.”
In spite of that, Bonemeal has continued to make their presence in the Connecticut music scene known and Choudhury has still been weaving guitar textures night after night.
Bonemeal so fye