It's Davangere, the first-ever original song composed by a college band named The Last Leaf, has been garnering a lot of attention as well as likes on social media platforms — especially YouTube. The brand new song has already been viewed more than 97,000 times in the 12 days since it was initially released."Davangere is nowhere less [sic] when it comes to food, education, and fun. Lucky are those who got an opportunity to study here and luckiest are those who are born and brought up here. Pulled out all our efforts to portray the best frames of Davangere in this video," reads the description of the video on YouTube. Each frame included in the video justifies what the band claims in the description.
Watch the video here:
Started in 2017, The Last Leaf consists of four members — Sanath Bharadhwaj on the drums, Sushmita R J on bass guitar and Akash A P and Karthik A Sambhapur, the vocalists. Apart from Karthik, who is a sound engineer and works in Mumbai, and Sanath, who is a B Com student at R G College, the other members are all engineering students at the Bapuji Institute of Engineering and Technology (BIET) College in Davangere, Karnataka. The bandmates said that it took just a week to compose, shoot and edit the entire music video. The song was composed and written by Karthik and the music video was conceptualised by Halesh Kogundi, who is also a student at BIET.
Karthik, who wrote the song, says, "The idea originated while we were having a cup of tea near Brand Studios. I got a rhythm and tone, which is when I thought that it could be made into a song. We thought of starting our journey from where we were standing right then. Hence, we chose to make a song on our own city Davangere."
Their song highlights some of the best things about Davangere as a place, such as Benne Dose, Kundavada Lake, Deverabelekere, Shanti Sagara, The Davangere Glass House, Khara Mandakki, the city as an educational hub and Durgambika Temple. Brand Studios, which has produced the song, is also the brainchild of Halesh and he said that it cost them Rs 85,000 to create the music video, and they received financial support from sponsors like Gelato Ice Creams and District 17 restaurant. "We began our journey through the event company. We produce our own songs and provide a platform for The Last Leaf to perform. We have also conducted events and partnered with other artists like Raghu Dixit," says Halesh, adding that the band has plans to make more songs and their dream project is to work on a song about the jawans of the Indian Army by next year.
The sheer love for music and dedication brought the band together which resulted in the making of their first-ever original song. Halesh tells us that they have plans to create three more songs, but currently, are awaiting responses from sponsors. You would have all guessed by now what their band name is inspired from — O Henry's The Last Leaf. Halesh explains that they were inspired by the story and how one artist's dedication to painting a leaf saved the life of another artist who was convinced that she is destined to die when the last leaf falls from the tree that she watched out of her window.
Sushmita, the only female player in the band, said that the audience's response motivated them to come up with other new songs and more albums. "I feel so proud to be a female bass guitarist in the band. I have got the best platform to showcase my talent," said Sushmita, who is from the town of Byadagi and is currently in her third year of biotechnology engineering at BIET.
