The Pied Pipers of Bollywood music

Four of the biggest composers of Bollywood sit across the table for a musical chat. An exclusive interview

“I’d love to have Marilyn Monroe perform a private concert for me,” says Vishal Dadlani amidst chuckles from Shekhar Ravjiani, Ehsaan Noorani, Amit Trivedi and Anupama Chopra. “What She sang Happy Birthday really well,” he continues with mock derision. The composers have gathered to shoot for Anupama’s Film Companion show, which the presenter is moving to an audio-only medium on Saavn, and the place erupts with throaty laughs every time one of them cracks a joke.

In an exclusive chat with The Asian Age, Anupama reveals that she’s looking forward to the reaction her new show generates. “When I was recording the promo I realised, my God, there’s no visual, and so my voice is suddenly important. It’s such a learning curve. There is a whole different bunch of muscles you use when there are no visuals and there’s only sound,” she exclaims. “The medium is about music and I’ve done round tables before with actors and directors. In all my years I’ve never sat with composers and talked to them about their process,” she says, explaining why she asked the composers to be a part of her show.

The camaraderie between the music directors is palpable. Says Ehsaan, “We don’t get much time to hang out with each other; we plan and don’t end up meeting since we’re busy with concerts and recordings. We’re glad to be chilling together.”

Hit after hit; these composers seem to be riding the success wave, with no signs of stopping. What is their secret “We don’t think about making hits,” says Vishal earnestly. “We think of doing what we have to do and have fun while doing it.” His partner Shekhar adds, “The idea is to push yourself to reinvent while you’re at it, having fun with new structures and formats. When you enjoy the process, it translates into people liking it.”

All four of them are in consensus with the idea that the origin of their soundtracks comes from the director’s vision for the movie. Says Amit, “I read the script and sometimes sit through narrations — that opens up a lot of windows. When you come across a story like Udta Punjab or Dev D, you’re automatically transported to a trippy, intoxicated world. I experiment a lot with directors like Anurag Kashyap and Abhishek Chaubey — their thinking is unconventional. They’re not scared of how their films will fare at the box office. That’s a rare trait. As far as indie music goes, we have Coke Studio, the Dewarists, NH7 and I’m a huge part of this — they’re encouraging for indie artistes.”

Like Amit, the others too work beyond Bollywood. “For years I had Pentagram, Ehsaan does blues concert and guitar workshops and Shekhar has released a few Marathi and has done a Hanuman Chalisa track; playing live is one big part of creative outlets,” observes Vishal. However, as far as Bollywood goes, they need to strike a fine balance between experimenting and playing to the gallery. “You must remember that the music you’re creating is for people. If you get too edgy, only the director and you will end up listening to it,” says Ehsaan with a laugh. On that note, Vishal adds. “Years ago, Ehsaan had said that what we do is India’s pop music. For what it’s worth, you have to bring your artistic sensibilities but as a pop music producer, you have to make sure it reaches to people. The beauty of it is that it becomes part of people’s lives.”

“Film music is such an important part of people’s lives in India; our lives are punctuated by it,” Anupama elaborates on Vishal’s statement. “I go to birthday parties, weddings, funerals — everything will have a layer of film music to it.”

A question fans often wonder about is what do the composers do with the leftover tracks — all the scratches that never make it to the soundtracks. “We have the rights to them but they don’t make it out. Sometimes they’ll get passed around from one director to the other till one of them makes us hear them thinking it was made by someone else,” Vishal laughs. On being prodded about the controversial Jag Ghoomeya track by Arijit in Sultan, a tight-lipped Vishal says, “A different version of the track, with a different voice got used in the film. So it doesn’t belong to us.”

Amit has been gaining prominence for crooning tracks for his own films, time after time. “It wasn’t planned. I had other singers in mind for all tracks I’ve sung. For example, for Shaam Shaandaar, I dubbed with Sonuji and Arijit, but the director decided to retain my voice after hearing the scratch.” With the advent of music streaming sites, does listener data play any role in the process of composing new tracks “No,” says Vishal vehemently. “That’s not the point. We’re in the position where the stuff we put out becomes the musical language of the country. It’s both a privilege and a responsibility. Part of the responsibility is to not be a follower and do your own thing,” he signs off.