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`Hijacked' back to Kochi

Glen Gillbanks rocked the city when bands were still a new thing in this part of the country. He tells PRIYADARSSHINI SHARMA how he moved to Sweden for more than two decades and now, he is back in Kochi

DOWN MEMORY LANE Some of the members of the band, `Hijackers' in Nairobi sometime in the early eighties. From left: Krishnan, T.S. Radhakrishnan, Ravi, Hari ( now no more) and Glen Gillbanks.

Glen Gillbanks was different. For that's what the members of his old band group, `Hijackers', declare in one voice. He was as different as one can get, they say. His voice, his looks, his attire, his style and his stagecraft were all singular, like that single musical note that hangs happily day long in the head. But Kochi too was different then, in the late seventies. It was happening musically. A swinging, singing city with more western music than there is today; it was ripe for musicians to thrive. And into this scene came Glen Gillbanks in 1979 from Mumbai, to sing, dance and entertain in a style, which the city had not seen before. For seven years Glen became the new, musical face in the city, loved and encouraged. But then the music faded and the tunes changed. Today, Gillbanks, after his musical sojourn in Sweden for 22 years, is homeward bound. Kochi is calling him once again, this time tugging at his heartstrings.

And he is singing his way back to the city that has given him a scale ranging from wonderful memories to long lasting friendships.

"My Swedish wife Maj (pronounced `my') and I would like to live in Kochi. I have spent a wonderful time in the city, singing and making people happy. So here we are, back and looking for a suitable place to stay," said Glen.

He recalled his first brush with the city: "I ran away from home in Conoor to join my brother who was a drummer playing at Hotel Sealord. I was 15-years-old then. On the first night of the show I was caught for being under age and packed off back home. Later when the group, `Hijackers' were in search of a singer, Jose, a bass guitarist with the group, heard me at the Sea Rock in Mumbai and brought me here. After that it was wonderful being in Kochi."

Gillbanks who did roles in the rock opera, `Jesus Christ Superstar' in Bombay and sang at the Sea Rock hotel before coming to Kochi, brought along with him all that jazz.

Gillbanks, back in the city

"With Glen came a truly western style of singing, in rendition and showmanship. Until then we were listening to duplicate Western singing. I remember he used to wear the cassock and sported an Afro hairstyle that was so eye-catching," says T.S. Radhakrishnan, a former Hijacker and now a singer of devotional songs. Gogo Sami, (Capt Iyer) one of the original line of Hijackers too vouches for Glen's versatility. "He could sing from Jazz, to blues, to rock 'n roll, to country, just about anything."

Says Ravindran, an advocate, who was the lead guitarist of the group, "Glen had stagecraft which was refreshingly different. Jayan, who preceded him, was a very versatile singer. So we had to find someone equally good. Glen fitted the bill 100 per cent. In fact Glen fitted the Kochi scene beautifully."

Born of a South African father and an Anglo Indian mother and raised in the hills of Ooty, Glen says, " Though I was different in so many ways I fitted the group and the city. Kochi was very different then.

We used to perform at the Maharaja's college. The girls used to sit on one side and the boys separately, but my music would make them get up and dance. I saw to it that people danced. I became so much a part of the band group that I even went to Sabarimala with them. I even did the `shayana pradakshina'." And so Gillbanks and Kochi were in tune: the perfect symphony. In fact so perfect was their music that they even played the panchvadyam on the orchestra.

For a boy who was discouraged to follow his musical heart, "as my mother frowned upon stage shows," he learnt music by placing his ear to the wall of his aunt's house, where English songs played all day long. "I have no formal training in music but I love to sing and I sing everything from Elvis Presley to BB King to Robbie Williams. Once back in Kochi I want to restart learning Carnatic music."But besides music there are many other things that bring Glen to the city. "Oh yes, after music it is karimeen. I used to love eating it then and I look forward to it even now," But the years between the Kochi of seventies and the return of the native, Gillbanks played and sang on cruise liners that sailed between Finland, Estonia and Sweden. He played at the large hotels there but surprisingly met his Swedish wife, Maj, at the Westend hotel, Bangalore..

And so Glen Gillbanks, sporting a very telling T-shirt: Many sounds, one soul, India, will soon be back to the city that gave him the opening notes of a musical journey, which took him across the seas and brings him back, `to the place I belong... country roads take me home.'

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