Many moons ago, EA Amplify (a music community-driven portal hosted by the big-name game publishers of the same initials) held an artist talent search for the Asian Pacific region, including countries such as Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Singapore, South Africa, China, and of course, India. That was all the way back in 2007. But just a month ago (after sorting through no less than 619 bands), the winners were announced and Indian music group CYANIDE got the top honors. They’ll be offered an exclusive contract with EA and Sony BMG, and will get the chance to work on upcoming projects from either companies’ side. Not bad for a group who entered the contest on a whim! Hit the jump, as we have a small chat with lead vocalist and guitarist Rohan Solomon on their recent winnings.

When did you first hear about the competition?
We heard about the competition around the end of July 2007. Bharat (our bassist) registered and I uploaded the songs – and believe it or not, we never went back to the site again. We registered and forgot about it, until I got a phone call telling us that we won. And the rest is history.

What was your reaction after being selected, considering it was like what, 6 months ago since you entered? Did it catch you off guard?
My first reaction was: “Uhhh… what Amplify???” – then I remembered the competition, and all of a sudden I was shocked and sooo happy. I couldn’t believe that we had won an international competition and that it could be a huge platform for us. Kale and myself were in Bangalore when I got the call, so we got really excited and called Bharat and Srijan, and told them about it. Yes, I would say that it caught us off guard.

So how important is gaming to the group? Have there been any particular games that have influenced your work in any way?
We’re okay about gaming. Not gaming freaks or anything, but yeah, we like to play video games some times.

Have you guys ever considered doing a cover song/track from a popular game, and put it up on sites like Overclocked Remix or VGMix?
Well, we love Breaking Benjamin and their song “Blow Me Away” which is in Halo 2, so yeah, we’d like to cover that song. We love that song.

What’s your opinion on games that try to simulate instrument playing through score-based pattern recognitions, like Guitar Hero or Rock Band?
I’ve never played either of them. But they sound cool!

Finally, if EA gave you the choice, what kind of game-related project would you like the band to work on?
Hmm… Either an arcade racing game, like Need For Speed or Burnout. Or a first person shooter like Call of Duty, Halo, etc.

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