Members of rock band Stranzers. Telegraph pictures

Bhubaneswar, April 4: From a bunch of music fanatics who used to dream to become rock stars to a band that launched the first multilingual rock album from Orissa, members of Stranzers rock band from Cuttack have proved the will-and-way equation. Their debut album Hum Kahan, which was launched on April 1, is creating waves in the city.

The six-member team got together four years ago to explore the world of music.

“We formed the band in 2007. Our passion for music brought us together,” says band manager Anikesh.

Initially, it was bassist Aniket, lead guitarist Bibhudatta and drummer Prayas who used to practice together. The team grew bigger with Anikesh, vocalist Milan and rhythm guitarist Avinash joining in. Most of the members are pursuing MBAs while some have received their engineering degrees this year.

The word about the talent of this young group spread in rock-savvy engineering colleges and soon they started performing well-known songs of bands like The Eagles, Linkin Park, Metallica, Nirvana and so on across Bhubaneswar, Rourkela, Balasore and even Calcutta.

“We would perform international covers and some Bollywood songs. Our friends of other rock bands in Bhubaneswar encouraged us to come up with original compositions. Soon, we sat together to pen down songs in Hindi, Oriya and Bengali,” says Avinash who has written and composed the only Oriya song in their debut album, To Bina.

The album Hum Kahan was released under the banner of Sarthak audios.

“We always dreamt of making an album and with the support of our listeners and family members. That dream has been fulfilled,” says Prayas.

A blend of Indian classical, western pop, soft rock as well as one metal number can be found in the album. There are seven songs in the album which are different from one another in genre and presentation.

“We have used four different languages in our album: Hindi, English, Oriya and Bengali. We are sure listeners will like all the tracks,” says singer Milan.

Working on Oriya classics of Akshay Mohanty and other legendary singers such as Prafulla Kar, Sikandar Alam, the group is trying to popularise traditional Oriya music.

“We are just giving it a touch of soft rock, adding guitar rhythms. It is an experiment and, hopefully, people will like it,” says Bibhu, adding that the band wants to make its presence felt in the national scenario. The only worry is jamming facilities. “There are no jam rooms in Cuttack. We have pooled in money to buy the equipment and practise at our office in the city,” says bassist Aniket.