The Voxtrot frontman preps new solo album, Search for Freedom & God
Ramesh Srivastava was born on June 26, 1983 in Austin, Texas to a mom from New Jersey and a dad from Uttar Pradesh, a state in northern India. And despite the Austin music scene seeing a shift towards embracing queer artists and culture in the clubs, that didn’t necessarily translate to being a kid growing up just outside of the city. Ramesh graduated from Leander High School in the early 00’s and studied literature at the University of Glasgow.
By 2002, Ramesh was back in Austin, and his indie project, Voxtrot, was taking shape. In 2005 the group released their acclaimed debut EP Raised By Wolves, a catchy indie-pop album evoking similar energies to Belle & Sebastian, The Smiths, and even a little bit of post-punk, all written when Ramesh was 19.
After putting out two more well-received EP’s in just over a year, Voxtrot released their self-titled debut album in 2007, a highly anticipated output being reported on from the L.A. Times, Spin, and Pitchfork. None of the songs from any of the EP’s were on the album, impressing critics with Ramesh and the band’s prodigious discography in just under two years.
After what Ramesh called a “career path [that] was truly one of long, simmering build, explosion, and almost instantaneous decay,” he announced on the band’s website in April of 2010 that Voxtrot was breaking up after they completed their short, seven-date Goodbye, Cruel World tour that wrapped at Manhattan’s Bowery Ballroom that June, putting a button on one of Austin’s most successful breakout bands of the 2000’s.
Ramesh released his debut solo album The King in 2014, accompanied by a 100-page hardback book full of his own prose, poetry, and photography. He followed that up with Eternal Spring in 2022, the same year Voxtrot reunited with a secret show in Lockhart that unofficially kicked-off a nine-date tour. Since then, Voxtrot has remained somewhat active and even performed at the world-famous Primavera Sound festival in Barcelona last year.
Part of what prompted Ramesh’s move to Glasgow was the need to seek community compared to the loneliness of being a not-quite-out gay half-Indian boy in Texas. After Voxtrot broke-up win 2010, some of those same demons came full circle, creating an identity crisis surrounding his queerness, religion, and culture.
These struggles and the journey involved are laid out in his upcoming solo album Search for Freedom & God, a work dealing with everything from existentialism, queerness, spirituality, love and heartbreak, and the pursuit of purpose.
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