Bruce Lee Mani On How the Internet and the Pandemic Led to His Solo Album

The vocalist-guitarist of Bengaluru rock band Thermal And A Quarter created a song a day for the 30-track ‘We’re All We’ve Got’ and is now releasing a song each week

- ANURAG TAGAT

LONGSTANDING ROCK BAND Thermal And A Quarter are no strangers to the Internet. Among the first Indian indie acts to release their albums on the web, they’ve had no trouble keeping up with the times. By frontman Bruce Lee Mani’s own admission, however, he wasn’t all that active on social media. “I would only do stuff for the band or [music school] Taaqademy. Occasionally, I’d put up something but I wasn’t actively engaging with folks,” he says.

By April this year, when the second wave of Covid-19 devastated India, Mani recalls it was a “sensory-overload of a time” to read the news or scroll through feeds. When his wife pointed out that he needed some real creative outlet, Mani decided to claim social media as a space for his music. He wrote a song each day for a month, resulting in his debut solo album We’re All We’ve Got: Songs from a Pandemic.