Chatting on style and soul

AN EVENING before the Ooh La La La show, the singers had a date with the media. Thanks to delayed flights and sound checks at the venue, it was quite a while before the whole affair started.

Rohit Adya, the CEO of Vijay TV, apologised for the delay, before he got started, explaining the programme and mooted an informal interaction.

Malgudi Shubha and Adnan Sami were the first to reach. Shuba was just ``raring to come up with her next album''. She just wanted to do better than her previous bests, and that was why it was taking time, she explained to her fans.

When someone asked her how important good looks were for a pop star, she said that sadly it was like that for a while, until the companies realised that though the videos were successful, the albums were not being sold. That was when people like her and Adnan Sami came in and proved that logic wrong. In the end, only good music sells, she said.

Adnan Sami started out saying he was absolutely thrilled to be playing in Chennai, and that he was a big fan of Carnatic music.

And he was asked about his experience working with Asha Bhonsle. Among the adjectives he threw up, were ``wonderful'', and ``fantastic'' apart from adding that it was an ``honour''.

Adnan has been here before. Once he was here for an MTV bash, at HFO when he electrified his audience. He even shot his ``Bheegi Bheegi Raton Mein'' video here, he revealed.

When asked about his background, Adnan said he started playing piano when he was five years old. Started composing when he was nine. He trained in Western Classical Music in London. He did Jazz while in school and college, then fell in love with Hindustani when he trained under Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma.

That's when a mediaperson asked him why all music videos revolved around the boy-meets-girl concept? ``Unfortunately, there are only two sexes in the human race. So you are right,'' he laughed. ``But then the incurable optimist that I am, I hope we come out with better videos in future. If you look at videos made five years ago and now, between then and now, there's been a big leap. In five years the videos would be much better,'' he said.

That was when Shankar Mahadevan made his entry. And he was flooded with questions on ``Aalavandhan''. The songs were ready and would be out in July,`` he hoped.

Anuradha Sriram who the media quizzed next, was apparently pleased with her successful foray into Bollywood, with ''Mujhe Kuch Kehna Hai``, giving her a boost. If singers from the North could come here and make an impact, why not the other way around too, she wondered.

The press meet wound up soon. And we caught up with Shankar once again to get some exclusive bits on his latest release, ''Dil Chahta Hai``. Really trendy, we tell him.

Shankar is very pleased about it. ''It was great fun doing the music for it. And it's a great movie too,`` she said.

Talking about the MP3s of the film already on the net, Shankar said there was nothing they could do about it. ''They just post it,`` Shankar said, quite matter-of-fact.

''Dil Chahta Hai`` has some youthful and trendy music especially with Shaan and KK teaming up with Shankar himself for the Farhan Akhtar directed film.

Is there ever a conflict between him as a composer and as singer? ''Usually, when you are the composer, you tend to become greedy and say I want to sing all the songs. But no, that does not happen. It's not practical. It's always a team decision,`` said the composer who teams up with Ehsaan and Loy for film music.

We spotted Adnan slipping away and caught him on his way out to ask him about the Govinda video ''Lift Karadey``. And he started out with the story behind it. ''Every time I listened to the song, I had Govinda in mind, because it was a fun number. Without me approaching him for it, he listened to the number too and found it to be fun. He wanted it for a film of his, but the logistics didn't work out. We were planning to do the video and so I asked him if he could do it. First, he was hesitant that it was the small screen, but then he did as a goodwill gesture, free of cost. He landed up on the sets and we shot the whole afternoon,`` Adnan recalled.

Adnan was now working on yet another album, this one minus Asha.

Singer Srinivas had just dropped in. He was busy at the sound check as well as the venue and hence was late. Srinivas, incidentally was coming out with yet another pop album.

''It's called Usile Usile``, he revealed. A couple of videos had already been shot by Rajiv Menon, he said, asking ut to watch out for it.

By Sudhish Kamath

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