Chauncie: From West Lafayette basements to Final Four festivities
BiL's Tim Brouk on what’s driving Purdue’s latest breakout band.
Support for Based in Lafayette comes from Purdue Convocations, presenting Soul Asylum Acoustic w/ Corey Glover (Living Colour) on Friday, April 10. Spend an evening with legendary alternative rock band Soul Asylum, known for iconic hits like “Runaway Train.” In this rare acoustic performance featuring Dave Pirner and Ryan Smith, the artists revisit songs from across their multi-platinum catalog. The night opens with Corey Glover — powerhouse vocalist of Living Colour — bringing his soulful voice and rock legacy to the stage. Don’t miss this intimate night of music — BUY TICKETS today!
Thanks, also, for ongoing support from Based in Lafayette sponsor Long Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Lafayette. For tickets and details on all the shows and events, go to longpac.org.
Today, BiL correspondent Tim Brouk takes a break from the weekly Tim’s Picks for this one …
Chauncie: From West Lafayette basements to Final Four festivities
By Tim Brouk / For Based in Lafayette
After three name changes and more than three years sweating it out in crammed West Lafayette basement shows, Chauncie’s breakout moments have finally arrived.
A pillar of the Purdue University live music scene, Chauncie will perform at 1:30 p.m. Friday, April 3, at the SWISH Arts & Culture Festival to celebrate the 2026 NCAA Final Four in downtown Indianapolis.
The five-piece, which started as Velvet then Monaco Groove then Free Play and now Chauncie, will also open for national act Ax and the Hatchetmen at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 8, at Purdue’s Loeb Playhouse inside Stewart Center.
The first two name changes were due to band members graduating and an evolving sound. The last was because of a cease-and-desist letter from a tech company wanting to launch a music streaming service of the same name. Since the band didn’t have copyright of the name, they adhered to the order. But so far, the Chauncie moniker, which was chosen as an homage to the Chauncey district in West Lafayette where the band lived, played and practiced, has gotten the young band over the hill — and over the moon.
“We’ve all been in a lot of Purdue bands,” said guitarist Aamir Rahman. “But I think of this as like an all-star group. And we’ve had people graduate Purdue but still stay in the area and still play. Just enough things lined up for us to be like, ‘OK, this has a lot of potential, and we could actually make it happen, so let’s do it.’”
The Chauncie sound is a funky pop mixed with guitar-driven alternative rock. This is evident on what was once a self-titled, five-track EP, “Free Play.” The band has already started tracking a full-length follow-up at Red Beard Recording in Franklin.
Blended band beginnings
With at least a couple dozen bands playing every month in basement shows, campus events and sets in Lafayette bar venues, young Purdue student musicians get to know each other well. Most shows have at least three bands on them and the amount of support they have for each other has helped make things sustainable despite almost no Chauncey Village bars or coffee shops booking live music. These musicians scope out each other’s bands and when bandmates graduate, they are often quickly replaced.
Rahman and drummer Roshan Sapra were blasting brutal heavy metal riffs for Code Red when they were intrigued by the early sounds of Velvet. They soon joined, wanting to stretch their musical comfort zones. Rahman, who can shred a Megadeth solo in his sleep, quickly got hooked playing a poppier, funkier style, as did Sapra.
“We listened to a lot of other music, and we like to play a lot of music outside of metal,” Sapra explained. “Neither of us got our start playing metal. I know (Rahman) was big into classic rock.”
The two joined singer Rosie Inman, but when most of the original Velvets graduated, including Inman with a degree in visual communication design, the trio decided to keep the band rolling, recruiting bassist Matai Loveman and guitarist Jeffrey Hart to complete the current lineup. Inman currently lives and works in Indianapolis but drives up for West Lafayette gigs. The bond she has with the band makes the commutes up and down I-65 worth it.
In 2025, Sapra and Hart graduated with degrees in computer engineering and math education, respectively. Hart found work in Indy, but Sapra now lives in Chicago. Still, the bandmates’ bonds are keeping Chauncie alive despite those long drives for gigs and rehearsals.
“We were acquaintances when we started, but now we’re like, ‘This is the friend group,’” Inman said.
Prolific writers
Most early sets were cover-heavy, but in the last academic year, it’s flipped. Chauncie has about 20 original tunes, but they still snap around some covers to keep crowds engaged and dancing.
Original songs like “Flipside” and “Tunnel Vision” originate with Rahman or Hart writing parts and sending them to the band. Sometimes they are just ideas, other times they are full songs from intro to outro. The rhythm section writes their parts, and Inman handles all the lyrics. She also creates all the artwork and designs for posters and merchandise.
As the years and gigs passed, Chauncie — and most fellow Purdue student rockers would agree about their own bands — has become a passion for the five.
“With Purdue being the way that it is with school, it’s like you need something else to do to keep your mind off of it,” Rahman said. “And that’s kind of just the thing that you look forward to every weekend. Playing the show is going to be so fun. Let me just get through this week. Let me get this homework done so I can practice. So yeah, it kind of has just brought a lot of joy to every weekend.”
Hart concurred, “You’ll see a lot of the same people who just care so deeply about having the scene grow and having it represent like a community. It definitely saved my college experience.”
Heatseekers
With the musicians occupying three different cities, the possibilities of new gigs have opened before them. Who knows what doors a solid SWISH performance would bring? And Chauncie just snagged its first Chicago show, May 29 at Gallery Cabaret.
Live, the band emits a jillion joules of energy to their audiences. Lately, Loveman has been wearing a zip-up shark costume. The blue suit was originally worn for warmth and residence hall representation at football and basketball games as part of the “Tark Sharks” of Tarkington Hall, who arrive en masse to games together in shark outfits. The costume stayed as a comfortable good luck charm for the youngest Chauncie member, who is key to the funkier side of the band’s sound. However, some of his bandmates wonder how many times the costume has been washed.
“It gets washed,” Loveman insisted. “I’m at the point where I’m not going to go on stage without it. So now I always wear it.”
That energy, music chops and songwriting has made Chauncie a champion, even if the Purdue Boilermakers men’s basketball team’s run fell just short of the Final Four. Chauncie is nothing but net when it takes the stage.
“After all the different bands we’ve been in, this is like the final form,” Rahman said.
Tim Brouk is a longtime arts and entertainment reporter. He writes here (almost) weekly, tracking things to do for Based in Lafayette.
Thanks, again, for ongoing support from Based in Lafayette sponsor Long Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Lafayette. For tickets and details on all the shows and events, go to longpac.org.
Thanks, also, for support from Purdue Convocations, presenting Soul Asylum Acoustic w/ Corey Glover (Living Colour) on Friday, April 10. Get tickets here.
Thank you for supporting Based in Lafayette, an independent, local reporting project. Free and full-ride subscription options are ready for you here.
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