Stiffneck Syndrome

There are various interpretations of this band's name. The one we would like to stick to involves the band playing music that makes your head to jerk up and down violently so that your neck will be stiff for a while. That is good in terms of metal and moshing. Even better in terms of psychological disorders. But we'll stay adrift of that when talking about metal and rock music.

Stiffneck Syndrome is another of the nu-age metal acts of the city, like Gnarl. The four-piece attack comprises of Sanjay on the drums, Vivek on the vocals, Jayanth on Bass and Earnest on the lead. SNS (Stiffneck Syndrome) kick-started in a big way, performing at IIT Chennai's Sarang and then at VIIT, Vellore.

They claim to be the only band in town to play Linkin' Park. Nobody's really coming forward to challenge that claim. They also play Papa Roach, Limp Bizkit, System Of A Down and Korn. As usual, the metal community, the purists, are condescending when it comes to the music played by the SNS.

The band has a great sound engineer who partly handles the managerial duties as well. Nitesh Ahuja handles live sound for Indian heavyweights like Euphoria. He's also helping them cut a demo.

SNS tries not to repeat their playlists at live gigs. Most of the bands from the city have become predictable, they say, and want to maintain their freshness by this. They even play Coldplay and Nirvana, bands which not many venture into.