Himesh-Reshammiya.com

Even after 15 successful years as composer, singer and actor, Himesh Reshammiya feels that he has a long way to go
Radio is your third film as actor-singer and composer. The publicity campaign started three months before the release date. Is this strategic?

It is. A 90-day campaign is needed for a film and a music score like Radio. Six years earlier, we did the same for Tere Naam. Music with depth needs time to grow on the audience. Mann ka radio is like an anthem because it picked up instantly. But the other songs needed time to grow. Jaaneman is the current favourite. I want to state categorically that Radio is one of my very best scores. It is not music that should be heard in a hurry and forgotten. Like Tere Naam had some instant hits and some songs that needed time to grow on the listener.

The music of Radio is very different from what you have done, and more importantly, from what we are listening to in film scores nowadays.
Today’s generation prefers their music to be stark. Bhara hua (heavy) orchestration is not ‘in’ now. Mann ka radio, for example, is a very stark song with a clean sound – it has just a base-line, one snare, one percussion and one live guitar. There are just 15 tracks. Production of songs and sound are very big criteria today. I have kept acoustics and also authenticity.

But there’s a welcome difference – the voice dominates over the orchestration.
I have always believed in giving the voice prominence. That is always the driving force for a song – helping it catch on, sustain and live on.

Besides Shreya Ghoshal in four diverse duets, you have unusual voices like Rekha Bhardwaj and Kailash Kher.
Shreya and I have never been in focus as a singing team despite our chartbusters Yeh tera mera milna and Aashiq banaya aapne. She is a fantastic singer, and so is Rekhaji, whose talent and range I have always admired. I could not have imagined anyone else in Piya jaise laadoo, which is almost designed for Rekhaji. But I must add without false modesty that a song must be good for a singer to take it to another level, which these singers have done, including Kailashji in Damaadji angna hai padhaare, a jugalbandi between sasoor (father-in-law) and son-in-law.

And yet the voice that stands out is yours, largely because you have never sung this way before.
I am blessed that I can sing in completely different voices – Mann ka radio is a middle-octave song and Shaam ho chali hai is in the lower octave, different from each other as well as from the high-pitched vocals associated with me till now. And I am doubly blessed that my new voice is a hit.

And we get to hear Indian instruments that are otherwise not around today – the shehnai for example. Are you on a crusade to restore ethnicity to film music, which is being increasingly lost in the last five or six years?
For me, it’s not so much that as about changing my music every two years, which I have been doing since Odh li chunariya (Pyaar Kiya To Darna Kya) in 1998 to my early films with David Dhawan to Humraaz to Tere Naam, Aashiq Banaya Aapne and Aap Kaa Surroor. I feel that the age of fusion is over. The youth are loving ethnic sounds, unlike a decade ago when fusion came into fashion. Also the music lover wants his sound pure – the sarangi should be clean and heard without any clutter. This is a very healthy trend.

When you signed on Radio, how did you decide to approach the music?
Like I said, I opted for a minimalist approach. But one difference between most of my work and this one was that I made the songs completely for the script and the characters. In the past, there were times when a song was liked and a situation woven according to it. This time, though I did use songs from my stock, I redesigned them.

What does such re-designing involve?
The phrasing and packaging change. I change the tempo, the rhythm and the internal content. Many music directors have experimented, but in older times, not all experimental stuff worked. Today, experimental songs work much more. Things, like I said, have changed now. Both here and abroad, even slow songs have begun to work in clubs and people groove to a Man ka radio, which is a very slow song. Also please remember that if a song like Piya jaise laadoo had been made 15 years ago, it would have been a hit only with a huge orchestra. It might not have worked the way it is arranged now.

This is also one of your rare films minus Sameerji as lyricist.
Sameerji is like family. Subratji was writing my film Ishq Unplugged and I never knew that he was also a lyricist because he never told me about it. Then Pritamji told me about his talent and when I gave him two tunes and their situations and he wrote them so brilliantly, I told him that he was on. He also has a fantastic concept for me as actor that he wants to direct himself.

You do riyaaz to evolve as a singer and composer. What do you do to improve as an actor?
I do workshops. Today I am working with accomplished people like Mahesh Bhatt, John Matthew Matthan, Ishaan Trivedi who directs Radio and Swapna Joshi (Ishq Unplugged), which is a Studio 18 project. I have done workshops to understand and do justice to my characters like the Radio Jockey Divaan Shah in Radio, the tapori in John’s A New Love Isshtory and Rajiv, my character in Kajraare. In fact, that was the crucial lesson I learnt from the failure of Karzzzz – that I had do characters that suited me and were believable for today’s sensibilities, not for the ‘80s.

Is that your explanation for the reason why Karzzzz did not work, though the music was a hit?
The pricing also went wrong – it should have been priced like Aap Kaa Surroor, which earned distributors in multiples of their investments. But essentially, there was a difference between a rock-star in the ‘80s and a rock star in 2008.

Did you always want to be an actor?
Nothing was planned, and I wanted to be sure that I was good at whatever I wanted to do. Scepticism is something I understood, apart from concern for me about why I was rocking the boat, whether it was when I moved from TV serial production to composing for films in 1998, to turning singer in 2005 and so on. But God and my parents always blessed me – my first serial and song, my first song as composer, my first as singer and my first film as actor were all major hits. Now the onus is to grow, sustain and win over those who doubt my various talents. Till I remove them with proof that I can be good, others have the right to have doubts about me.

So how do you look back at your 15-year journey from your first serial Andaz to Radio?
My journey has just begun. I have been very lucky, now I have to prove myself as singer and actor. As a composer, I have to keep springing surprises.Even there, I have to win over some critics, though I am very happy that nine of 10 reviews of the music of Radio have been excellent.

When you enact a song that you have composed and sung earlier, do you feel the need to change some detail? If so, do you actually change it?
Of course, the story and situation are the most important. But since Radio was composed for the script completely, I did not need to do that in this case.

Salman Khan and you sorted out your differences recently. Would you do a film only as composer for him this juncture when you are not doing outside films?
There is no question of refusing Salmanbhai anything!

Article Credits: ScreenIndia.com

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