For singer/guitarist Ramesh Srivastava, there are distinct eras of Voxtrot, the band he fronts. The first he references centers around the band’s 2005 EP, Raised by Wolves, where he sings about his first major love and heartbreak. “To me, those songs are very clearly that and don’t really have much poetic diffusion,” he says on a recent video call. With the band’s self-titled album, released nearly 20 years ago now, Srivastava sang about the pressure he says he felt being in a group with a record deal and big opportunities before them. “It was a very challenging time, so I feel like that album is lyrically mostly about my psychology. It’s not really about other people,” he explains.
Emerging from Austin, Voxtrot’s first run coincided with the rise of music blogs, file-sharing and early social networks like Friendster and MySpace, what people now might fondly refer to as “the good internet.” The band gained a buzz online, as well as in traditional media, with the EPs leading towards their 2007 album. While a couple singles followed the debut full-length, Voxtrot split in 2010.
A 2022 reunion and successful tour led to recording Voxtrot’s recently-released full-length, Dreamers in Exile. In the 12 years that passed between the band’s first and second lives, plenty changed, including Srivastava’s lyrical approach. “Now, I feel that I try to talk a lot about my own experience, to talk about my experience, being gay and of mixed race and how weird it is to be that and be from Texas and how hard it is to be that anyway,” he says. “I try to talk about my unique human experience, but also constantly bringing in stories and references of people and works of art that inspire me.”
He adds, “I’m really into creating a world that is both deep and meaningful, but is also aesthetically enjoyable.”
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