Raghu Dixit Project has a huge fan following. But how many of his fans really understand the meaning of his songs since they are in various regional languages? All of them. They may not understand the meaning the lyrics, but they do understand the mood of the songs, which mostly is joyful and inspiring.
The musician whose work is a manifestation of the phrase ‘music is the language of the heart’, will be performing at the Beats and Pints festival at Oasis, Amanora Mall this weekend. We chat him up to find out what he’s been up to lately.
He recently composed a track for the Bollywood film Chef, which he hasn’t performed live at any of his shows yet. But he wishes to debut the performance of the song at the festival. “Whenever we come on stage, I want to do new songs. But the audience demands the tracks they’ve already heard and their favourites like Ek Jodi Chappal. I can’t say no to that, can’t disappoint the audience because they came with the expectation to hear those songs. But I will be playing the new song that I composed for Chef too, along with a few other tracks that I haven’t done before,” he reveals.
He also has his hands full composing music for Tollywood. He’s most excited about working on the music and background score for Malayalam director and write Anjali Menon’s next. Anjali won the National Award for her film Ustad Hotel in 2012. She’s also known for her film Bangalore Days, which was a phenomenal hit. “For her next film, I’m working on three songs plus the background score. It is the first Malayalam film I’m going to be working on,” he beams.
This brings us to the question — as the audience, we enjoy the music he makes even without understanding the language, but how will he work on making the music in a language, he isn’t quite familiar with? “Usually the script is in English, or I have the transcript translated so I can understand the mood for the song. Of course I have to sit with the director so they can take me through the entire screenplay and narration of the film. The tune for the song is made first, and then the lyricist fills the words in. Composing the melody is easy as I am clear about the mood in which it is to be set,” says Raghu.
This apart, he will be simultaneously working on quite a few films down south. “I have to make the music for two Telugu and five Kannada films. After this interview, hopefully I will be approached for a Marathi film as well. I’d like to try my hand at composing Marathi songs,” he adds.
The musician will be coming back to Pune to perform on the last day of the NH7 Weekender festival next month. A regular artist to be featured on the line up of the multi-city festival, this year he is yet to plan his act. “I have no clue what I’m going to do for NH7 this year, and it’s quite worrying. The expectations are quite high. As of now, there are two-three directions we want to take, we are yet to finalise on it and start working accordingly. I’m going to start working on it from Monday,” he promises himself leaving us with certainty that we’re going to be in for a fantastic show. “I will not be playing any of my old songs there. The set will have about 15 new songs, which we plan to officially release one-by-one later. They are collaborations with my friends who are international artists,” he shares.
Having established himself as an artist before the mayhem of social media broke out has its pros and cons, he feels. But when asked by younger bands and artists on how to be successful and sustain themselves in this cut-throat industry, he says, “You have to write 50 songs. That’s how you start. Because nowadays people think they can write one song, make it viral and get famous overnight. That’s not how it works. Your best song will happen over a period of time.”
Another suggestion he has for budding artists is to work towards making a connection with the audience through live performances. Audiences have so much to choose from, so any artist is at a touch of the screen on whatever device they use. You have to work hard on your performance to make them come out and enjoy your performance,” he adds.
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The Beats and Pints festival to be held at Oasis, Amanora Mall, will feature performances by Indian Ocean on November 11 and Raghu Dixit on November 12.
