The room was small, slightly lit and packed with all types of people. A number of enthusiastic and enlightening performers had gone before and now a band was announced. It was Gyazette. On this night, only two members of the band were going to perform - Nickolai Salcedo (lead singer/guitarist) and Ruba Holder (bassist). The third member of the band, Alexander (drummer), was absent.
As they took the stage, free banter pervaded the audience members. One young man was heard telling another, "Yuh go like them, them fellas real bad." Once set up, the band's lead singer gave a brief introduction. Humble but commanding, he seemed a ripe Julie mango about to burst with energy.
Haunting, meticulous bass lines, unique, pronounced guitar strums and simple, provoking lyrics settled on attentive minds. The final song culminated in exuberant applause. The band seemed a bit surprised, but pleased, and eager for the next performance.
This interview, which took place a short time after the performance, gives some insight into everything you might want to know about the band Gyazette.
Alicia: Your last performance was at One Mic in San Fernando. Nickolai and Ruba you were there; how did you feel about that performance?
Nickolai: It was good. I felt as I usually do about intimate performances. Those are the most nervous ones for me but it went down good. When we started to get people involved in the first song that we did, ‘Crabs in a Bucket', people were actually singing along when we got to the chorus...it was encouraging.
The audience enjoys the performance at Songshine. Photo by Navin Parray
Alicia: ‘Crabs in a Bucket', what is that song about?
Nickolai: ‘Crabs in a Bucket' is about society ... we are all basically like crabs in a bucket... so it talks about racialism and basically social issues like greed and people just fighting to reach to the top and pulling each other down in the process. Nobody really gets to the top.
Alicia: What do you like best about performing?
Nickolai: ...interacting, seeing the reaction of the crowd and noticing that people are reacting to your song, just being able to play...and mesh and create...cause while you may practice something in rehearsal, when you play, it may be different...
Ruba: ...feeling the music inside and being able to express it by playing it...cause if you don't feel the music inside first, you would not be able to express it.
Alicia: How old are you guys?
All: Age is just a number...average mid twenties... between twenty and forty... (laughter)
Alicia: How did you come together as a group?
Nickolai: Well Ruba and I met up in a maxi ...we used to go to school together...and we talked about being into music and that kind of stuff...that was around July 2006...eventually we met up and I showed him a couple songs and that is how we started up.
Alex: Last year September Darius from Cabezon, cool guy, put me on to them and was like, these guys sounding really good and they need a drummer...I was like why me? (everybody laughs) So I jammed with them a couple times and it was great...we meshed well. We snowballed from there.
Lead singer Nickolai Salcedo. Photo by Navin Parray
Nickolai: The band is like five to six months old...counting from our first performance.
Alicia: Is there a group leader? Who does the writing and musical arrangements? How does Gyazette function?
Ruba: Generally it's a group effort.
Alicia: So thus far, you have had no conflicts? It's like Kumbaya (laughter). What creates that level of respect among you? You have not known each other that long...(laughter)
Nickolai: Well that is why we have respect...we just know when to back off... My brother may say what sounds bad, but as Alex says, we just do a lot of experimentation.
Alex: We put all the ideas out there and try which one will sound better. We come to a consensus from there...
Alicia: Why the name Gyazette? How did you guys come up with that name?
Ruba: We came up with a lot of names previous to Gyazette...Fusion, Autocatic and Macajuel... and for some reason it was not making any sense. We wanted when you hear the name of the band...for people to recognize that...this is a fusion of music...but that (fusion) was too much of a popular word.
Nickolai: Autocatic...was too much of a rock name...too vague. Another was too much of a reggae name. Another one sounded too much like some hippies...it was like what I go sound like boy?
Ruba: ... we just wanted something that everybody could accept and digest, especially Trinidadians.
Nickolai: ...Gyazette. The name has some kind of symbolism too, because of the lyrical content we deal with, social and world issues...love. You could apply it to a papers cause gazette in Trinidad is referred to as a papers. Like the editorial page in a newspaper where everybody just writes in what they are thinking or feeling.
Ruba: Tell her the story of how we came up with the name.
Nickolai: Well since we did not know what name to choose, I took a dictionary and said, all right Ruba, I going to flip through the dictionary from cover to cover. Put your finger in and wherever your finger lands, we are going with that.
Nickolai: We came up with Gaza strip...so we came down the list and came up with gazette...Gaza strip has negative connotations and we always try to be positive. When we came down the list and got gazette we were like...Gyazette! Every Trinidadian knows what is gyazette. When you run out of toilet paper you know what is gyazette. When you need to clean the louvers you know what is gyazette...and the name stuck.
Alicia: How would you describe the musical style of the band?
Nickolai: I came up with a kind of term...I call it Caribrock, because it has the aggression of rock but it is totally Caribbean, and owing to the influences that each of us come in with, I don't know if we can really call it a style. A lot of the strumming is calypso strumming and that way a lot of Latin people told me that they like the music cause it has that link to Latin America with the beat. At the same time a lot of the melodies are Eastern and Alex has this jungle thing he does with the drum. To me, it has a larger sound than a trap set...and Ruba holds these locks on the bass...a running, driving, slide bass. And a lot of it is reggae too because we coming from that Caribbean background. So it's reggae and calypso and soca and all kinds of stuff...and rock
Alicia: Does Gyazette sound like anybody?
Ruba: No, I heard a lot of local bands and I don't think we sounding like anybody at all
Alicia: What about international?
Ruba: The closest person I can say is Asista. She is a Trinidadian who resides in England. She has a strong local connection but still she has a little bit of jazz/hip hop added to her music.
Nickolai and Ruba: Some people say we have a sound reminiscent of Bob and the Wailers, some say Rudder...Andre Tanker...Lennie Kravitz...Eddie Grant....Police.
Nickolai: ...and people where I work say that it sounds like Eastern music because of the workings of some of the songs. So I guess like any other band we would have things that we have a vague resemblance to but we can't say that we really sound like ‘this' person because we sound like ‘all of these' people and not just one.
Ruba: It sounds rootsy, organic and raw.
Alicia: Another song that I wish to ask about is ‘Down'. I have seen you perform it and each time it seems to pierce the minds of the listeners. What is that song about? What is the inspiration for that song?
Nickolai: I wrote ‘Down' as a protest song. It basically applies in every country because of a lot of stuff I felt about governments and a lot of social situations...then I also felt it about drug dealers, it doesn't mention government. The song is speaking about people who reach in a position of power and begin to abuse the power and you feel invincible but you not looking around. Everybody wants a taste of the action. Everybody wants to take you down. In the history of humanity, every time somebody gets power, there is always somebody else waiting to get the same power...waiting for the scraps at the table and eventually the scraps are not enough. Eventually they want more.
Alicia: Do you have any recordings? Are there plans to record?
Alex: We have a lot of songs and a lot of ideas and people have actually approached us wanting to record some of our stuff...but all that comes in time...right now we want to play shows...get ourselves out there. During that process we will have recordings...we are taking it one step at a time.
Alicia: Some people would say that if you guys were true Trinis you all would be doing soca and calypso and promoting that...how do you respond to that?
Nickolai: I disagree. One time we were playing ‘Pay the Devil' here, which to me sounds like a rock song, and there was a vagrant standing up outside there dancing...and the dance he was doing was a calypso bounce...and seeing him move I started to hear the calypso in the song and that is when it dawned on me that because calypso is so ingrained in us you can't really escape it. To me we are playing calypso and soca.
Alex: Trinidad....it's a wide culture...it is a multicultural nation...We don't align ourselves to one genre of music.
Alicia: Which musician /artiste /entertainer is your greatest source of inspiration?
Ruba: Let me do it by different categories of music...Sparrow; rock - Nirvana; hip-hop - Wu-Tang...reggae - Bob Marley and Latin - Santana.
Nickolai: David Rudder, Sparrow...as far as reggae goes Bob Marley...plenty plenty copious amounts of Arabian music, flamenco...plenty plenty classical music and plenty old poor quality vintage calypso.
Alex: Police, Eric Clapton, all styles of reggae and fast calypso and old time calypso...Villagers...and one important band, Orange Sky.
Alicia: You all don't do music full time what do you do?
Ruba: I'm a scrub who inherited a big lump sum (laughter). I'm a soldier.
Nickolai: I am a teacher
Alex: Real estate
Alicia: If you could do one thing through your music what would that be?
Ruba: Unite the world in peace and love...no really!
Nickolai: Unite the world...that is why I got involved with music...to give some good vibes...At one of the last shows that we played in December one guy called me over and was like, "Dread allyuh music real," and that was after singing songs like ‘Bread' about struggling to eat. It is a kicksy song...a lot of people laugh when they hear it, but it is a serious matter.
Ruba: A lot of people could identify with the lyrics in bread because it is a struggle everyday for some people to get up and get food to eat...
Nickolai: ...I always thought that people from certain backgrounds would not like our music cause they would be like it sounding too much like rock ...the guitars...
Ruba: They could have put aside the fact that is sounds like rock but the lyrics are real...the voice of Nickolai is also very local, it is not like a foreign artiste, not sounding like an American or Jamaican it is a local Trinidadian voice.
Nickolai: So I guess we can say that people from different backgrounds are taken to the music...we have yet to see how people outside Trinidad take it...
Alicia: And so my last question is the most trivial one that I've asked...depending on how you look at it. What colour best describes you?
Nickolai: Fiery red...and the colour of the band is fire...red like T&T...and black.
Alex: Red...I'm a red man.
Ruba: Black