The 'durable' singer-cum music composer chatted with Shana Maria Verghis about new projects, including Shootout at Wadala, and Rekha's comeback vehicle plus his plans to go viral with a single
After Simla’s cool evenings, Karol Bagh-born Anand Raj Anand was taking the road back to Delhi.And a very rough road it was too, from the sound of the reception on his mobile phone.
The singer-cum-music composer recently created a single called laila, for the yet-to-be released Shootout at Wadala (on the Sony Music label). He and Mika have sung for sequences that were picturised on John Abraham and Tusshar Kapoor. He has been hearing they have already got over 12 lakh hits, after streaming via YouTube.
Anand was born into a jeweller’s family in Delhi. He explained that as the eldest son, he was expected to carry on the profession. But he preferred to sing and used to have a college band, when he was studying civil engineering at the GB Pant Polytechnic. Anand wasn’t getting anyone in Delhi to sing for. So he composed his own songs, and went down to Mumbai, mainly intending to be a singer. “I was there initially in 1992. But didn’t do well. So I returned to Delhi because I wanted to sing first and it wasn’t happening. Only to go back in ‘95.”
Then offers poured in — Masoom, Major Saab, Bichoo, Jodi No 1... He has been involved with over 80 films till date.Said he, “The industry is all about finding right people and the right context, at the right time.”
Anand also recalled, “Earlier my family had been after me, ‘gehana bech’. And I’ve since been secretly guilty about spoiling my father’s business. But two of my kids have business minds and want to create a jewellery brand. I had promised my father I would not let his business die.”
Anand is a self-taught musician. He said, “I used to watch films and paid attention to the character, and even the body language. I think durability is my best quality. You won’t identify a style. Because I like to keep doing something different each time.” But he shared that he is not a fan of sharing one film’s sound track between different composers, like he’s doing with laila.
Anand also added that his gift was “God given and one knew how to compose, with an innate sense of rhythm and melody suiting certain situations, remembering that music for the movies is entirely commercial.” And that, “It’s all about the chemistry between lyrics and melody. But interestingly what sells in the end is the soul. And that is part of creativity. You cannot plan what a song will make.”
But he took a while figuring out how to market himself. “Initially I didn’t do a great job of strategising. So it’s been a learning process. I would take a lot of songs, thinking to myself, ‘I’m doing this for the music,’ irrespective of whether the film was good or not. And so a lot of my super songs have wound up in films that never got released.”
He noted how film music, which had previously used “Indian melody and the tabla-dholak,” was “replaced by MTV and modern youth who now had a habit of listening to international music, and we had to take note.” And in keeping with the times he said that he plans to release a single, “and let it go viral. Because many youngsters don’t watch tv these days. They are on the internet. And its a good forum for someone with real creative ideas. He has several projects lined up where he gets to control the soundtrack. Including Singh Sahib the Great. Grand Masti II. Super Money (Rekha’s comeback), plus something with Anees Bazmi (“I did Welcome with him.”) and Raj Kumar Santoshi. He also paints landscapes and is taking a professional course in art.
