I did this interview along with my best friend Maitreyi. 'Agnee' was in Trivandrum for their first performance in Kerala. It was very difficult to have an interview with them but we somehow managed to do it. Here is the interview which was published in yentha.
Let’s start from the beginning. What made you form the band?
Mohan: Oh My God! Koco and I met first at a friend’smarriage. I was a banker back then and he was the head of an institute. We met a couple of times after that, got into jamming sessions and all. It was fun. Then one day he called and said “let’s form a band and actually do something”. Koco was always a musician. And in 2005 I quit banking and we formed the Band. So that’s how it began.
Your inspiration? Your favourites in the music industry?
Mohan: We’re big fans of Sting and classic rock. Hailing from a classical family I love Carnatic music and am a big time fan of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. I have this personal ambition that if I could compose at least one song like Nusrat saab, then I’ll retire.
You perform in genres from folk-rock to jazz to carnatic. Which is your favourite genre?
Mohan: Basically we end up performing songs that we compose. We play originals, we compose originals. At the end of the day, we don’t know which genre it would be which is why we end up performing different genres. It is not about playing a particular genre or performing a genre. It’s about doing something new. That is what is exciting. We got to meet this superb musician Etienne M’Bappe from Cameroon and we jammed with him. It was an honour. His flavour of music is very different from ours. It’s very very exciting trying something new like that. So, that’s it.
How has your music evolved since you first began playing music together?
Koco: Over a period of time music production has become more important to us. We’re giving a lot more importance to producing songs, now. We hear the songs back and forth, redo it and stuff like that. I think the main evolution is that we are pushing the next level. Initially we were band oriented but now with Aditya producing songs for us and all, we are really pushing the limits to make it big.
Mohan: In fact his name is Aditya ‘Pushkarna’! (laughs).
Splitsvilla and Roadies theme songs are the two songs that made you popular down here in the South. Our readers would definitely want to know your experience making those songs.
Mohan: The making of these two songs were extremely opposite in terms of experience. For Splitsvilla, we approached them. We made a song and we wanted a platform to present the song. So we approached them. In the case of Roadies, Raghu asked us whether we could make a song. In terms of experience it has beengreat fun. And it was very different working with the director of the show and all.
How does it feel selling music online?
Mohan: We don’t sell music online. It’s totally free and it has completely worked for us. We started this with Splitsvilla. Songs like Sadho re and Shaam Tanha became popular after two years. And we never expected to be huge stars overnight. Even some of my friends haven’t heard our videos. Because of online music, people heard our songs. Online has helped us especially because we release singles more than albums. It’s better promoting one song than eight songs for an album. So we usually stick to singles.
Ujale Baaz. Fully animated video. Tell us how this idea shaped up and also about its making.
Koco: We really can’t take credit for the video. Manu, one of the crew members of Roadies heard the song and said he wanted to make a video. And it was done completely on gratis. He approached Eric Novak, the Cannes award winning Hungarian animator, formaking the video. He didn’t charge us any money. He even sent people to India to work for the video. It was completely their gift to us.
How did the Avengers theme song happen?
Mohan: Actually we got a call from UTV saying there’s this project coming up. We were kind of surprised. It just sort of happened. Abbas Darewale wrote the lyrics before composing. We got the briefing and had two months to make the song. We made the lyrics in two days and made thirteen different tunes for it. We narrowed the tunes to just three but still any tune we played, one of us wouldn’t like it. Finally Koco’s son Udayan who’s 10 years old selected the third one saying Koco is playing acoustic in the first two tunes and it wasn’t good. So it took a 10 year old to finally fix the song.
What was your most memorable moment?
Mohan: Oh! It must be the first time we performed in Baroda in 2008. Back then, we weren’t used to people knowing our songs. There were like 6,000 people inside and another 4,000 outside. And they knew every one of the songs. That’s when it hit me that ‘Ok, we are successful as a band.’
Koco: For me, it is the performance at our home townPune. There was this Indo-German festival. It was Day 4 and the festival was picking up. We got to perform on a Monday and believe me, Monday is the worst day to perform. And the people also have seen us perform often. It’s not like they haven’t heard us. Because it was the worst day I was a bit skeptical. But when I saw 12000 people there, I was gratified. That kind of support from the home town… It was just awesome.
First performance in Kerala. What are your expectations?
Mohan: I love the venue. It’s really hot, but still it’s nice here. There are lots of students here at the venue. I’m hoping that we have a good time. Performing for colleges is always great. It’s so much fun and I love a very very rowdy audience.
How’s Kerala?
Mohan: I’ve been here before on a road trip. We went to Trichur. There was a close friend of mine there. I love ‘rasam’ and ‘sambar’. We were on a pilgrimage kind of trip and this was 25 years ago. We visited at least 40 temples.
Koco: It’s really green in here. We could see that even on a short drive from the airport to the hotel. It’s a million times greener. I’m also planning a road trip to Kerala.
Your upcoming projects?
We are planning on doing a Punjabi song with Daler Mehndi. It’s actually our sixth anniversary this year and we are trying to do something big. We have been wanting to release an album for quite some time now. So those are the two big things.
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