The Homemade Charm of Weston Estate [@WestonEstate]

Words By: Matthew Griffiths

Weston Estate are the North Carolina band channelling their passion through an authentic DIY spirit.

There’s something about DIY artists that just attracts fans. I don’t know exactly what it is, but we’ve seen it time and time again with artists like Yung Lean, bladee, Billie Eilish, beabadoobee, and more recently the enigmatic TikTok star PinkPantheress.

Young artists are working alone in their rooms, staying up late, and are making incredible music. Each comes with their fair share of awkwardly filmed, homemade nostalgic old-footage style videos, and perhaps this is part of what draws fans into this style of artistry. The down-to-earth-ness of it all, the relatability of going out randomly with friends, shooting silly videos of yourselves and then posting them up on the internet, with music. Genres like “bedroom pop” seem to mirror that energy.

However, how does that energy change when the music is made at home by 5 people? Does it become less relatable, seeing as it’s harder to connect with 5 people rather than just one artist? Is the content more refined, more polished? That was not the case with drain gang, and it doesn’t seem to be the case with Weston Estate, either.

Weston Estate are a North Carolina-based band made up of Marco Gomez, Tanmay Joshi, Abhi Manhass, Srikar Nanduri, and Manas Panchavati – and they do the majority of the production themselves. I’d describe their sound with one word, “mellow”. But that doesn’t mean boring. Their music is chill, yet filled with vocal strength, amazing harmonies and genuine passion, despite being so subdued. Srikar Nanduri is a guitarist and songwriter for the band. In an interview with Monsoon Mag, he detailed some of their creative process, which initially focuses on laying down freestyled, vocal melodies by humming.

“From there, we all get together and pick out all the melodies out of all of the audio files we like and then pick the best ones that fit with the best chorus or best verse. From there, we’ll structure the melodies and start writing the lyrics.  That’s usually what it is.”

Srikar Nanduri, Monsoon Mag

Their track, “Saturday Nights” is so well put together harmonically that it’s hard to appreciate the level of vocal talent without watching the acoustic version. They make it sound easy, and there is a reason why this version has more views than the music video, despite being released months afterwards.

Visuals-wise, the “Saturday Nights” music video exhibits the boys exploring the woods, enjoying a dip in a lake, riding and waiting for public transport, and walking through the city at night – filtered through a lush, crackly film grain. It’s not exactly the pinnacle of storytelling, but this is what I mean about the relatability of these kinds of visuals. They’re almost like photographed memories in their simplicity, providing a feeling of belonging to something, to someone…it’s nostalgic. Their video for the track “Outside” takes this feeling to the maximum, with a handheld camcorder aesthetic (and shakiness), showing the boys on a day out at the beach, simply joshing around and enjoying each other’s company.

Srikar met the other members when he was in high school. Outlining how they came up with the band name, he revealed that bandmate Tanmay lived across from this neighbourhood called Weston Estates, and they thought it sounded cool.

“Once we started talking about it, Tanmay was like, “Oh, I don’t know why, but I really like the word ‘estates.’” And then Abhi was like, “Do you mean like Weston Estates?” Then, he [Tanmay] was like, “Yeah, like that.” And he [Abhi] was like, “Why don’t we just use that name? That’s literally how it happened.”

Evidently, Weston Estate are a home-grown, DIY band with tons of homemade charm. Ironically, they tried to include the real Weston Estates neighbourhood sign in a lyric video for their track, “Close the Door“, but were prevented from doing so by the Homeowner’s Association.