North Penn High School is filled with musicians, but few are highlighted on social media and within the building itself. Nonetheless, the new “soft metal” band, Indium, gained traction quickly after their performance on Friday, just days before Superbowl LVII. By playing the Philadelphia Eagles fight song, as well as many other renditions of popular songs, they attracted a large crowd and earned rightful publicity.

The quartet wouldn’t be Indium without its musical North Penn students: Akshay Krishnan, Neil Anand, Jacob Johnson, and Derek Rajan. Krishnan plays the guitar and bass, Anand plays the bass and guitar, Johnson plays the drum set, and Rajan plays the piano. This band recently joined together to play the music that they love.

“We all love to play the classic rock tunes, but our jam is putting our own spin on well-known American pop songs and Bollywood hits. Our style is a melting pot of rock, pop, and a bit of jazz,” Krishnan explained.

The rock band shares a mutual liking for the same type of music, while also sharing lots of other characteristics which makes them cooperative and harmonious. From the start of this school year, the band members knew they were destined to be a perfect rock quartet.

“The band is relatively new. We began consistently meeting at the beginning of this school year. All of us were itching to jam with some like-minded rockers outside of the amazing North Penn band activities. One day we got together and it was exhilarating from the first downbeat,” Krishnan said.

Along with their identical love of rock, the whole band wants to pursue the same career after graduating from high school. Their similar interests make them more compatible and better friends outside of band practice.

“We are all looking toward pursuing scientific degrees in college, but we plan to keep the band together to jam out when we come back home. We all want to keep music as a part of our lives beyond high school,” Krishnan mentioned.

The band’s name, Indium, comes from both the members’ love for science and their ethnicity.

“Perhaps the most interesting story we have is our name, Indium. One day, about the second time we met up, we were thinking of ideas. We were talking about commonalities between ourselves as a group. We noticed that we are all chemistry nerds and that we are all proud Indian-Americans. Then the name Indium, a soft metal, as well as our music style, was born,” Krishnan said.

If you take any higher-level chemistry courses at North Penn, you know how challenging they can be. What is the key for Indium in managing a huge workload as well as a band?

“We all take rigorous course loads and participate in many North Penn band activities such as Marching Knights, Jazz Band, and Pit Band for every musical. The thing that keeps us going is time management. That’s the best answer. Other than that, I have no clue how we keep up with it all,” Krishnan remarked.

Crazy enough, Indium still has time outside of school to perform as a group. Even though the band is newly-born, they still find ways to put themselves out there.

“We are completely new to this arena and have only performed twice as a band so far. We hope to increase this rate as we get more exposure and experience. We have played at various North Penn events and plan to perform at local venues and the Bharatiya temple. In addition, we plan to get into recording our own original songs,” Krishnan explained.

The future looks good for all of our North Penn musicians, but especially these four. The dedication to their music and persistence helps them to rock on.