While the perception is that Vishal Dadlani is seen as much as he is heard, his partner Shekhar Ravjiani is quite chatty too. The duo gets candid about new talent, their bonding, life and much more. By Jigyasu Joshi
Not too many musicians in Bollywood can boast of a discography that is as impressive as composer duo Vishal-Shekhar’s. The partners, who lately performed in the city at the Royal Stag Barrel Select MTV Unplugged, left the audience singing and jumping on their tunes. Holding his cup of coffee right before the performance, Vishal smiled and said, “It is always amazing to perform for the audience who is energetic and supporting. And the remaining help is the coffee. A strong one.” In the past, the singer and music director has also performed with Chris Martin, front man of the British rock band Coldplay. For Vishal it is coffee that helps before his performance, Shekhar believes that it is the rush they get from audience that is the key. “It takes a lot of energy to perform live. You can improvise as much as you want but if you go wrong then there is no way you can undo it. However, if the audience is willing to participate in the performance, I fear less and gets extra power from it,” he said.
Starting their journey from the movie Pyar Mein Kabhi Kabhi, Shekhar recalled, “I was asked to do two songs for PMKK. One day, as I was leaving the recording studio, I saw Vishal walk in. When we got to know that both of us were working on the same film, we interacted more and played our songs for each other. Then we decided to do the last song of the film together. That’s how Vishal-Shekhar was formed.” Vishal was simply happy to find a friend for it was his debut. He said, “We were just happy to be in the same space at the same time. We played each other our tracks. More than competitive, it was really exciting and also inspiring because Shekhar is more of an evolved musician than I am.” Fast forward seventeen years now, Vishal-Shekhar has given some of the biggest hits to the Indian music industry.
The duo has also judged some of the singing reality shows. Appreciating the young talent that participates in the competition, Shekhar said, “It’s great that we have many talent shows. Since we have loads of talent in our country and there are not as many avenues to accommodate it, we should applaud the little efforts which are done.” However, Vishal gets disappointed when people call these talent shows fake or scripted. “We respect the participants who come from different parts of the world for showcasing their talent. The efforts they put are far beyond we can imagine. And calling it useless or scripted, simply blows my mind,” Vishal gushed. Both the music directors have always been on the front foot when it comes to giving chance to the new talent. “These new kids have so much in them and they are absolutely capable of singing in any genre. There talent cannot simply be explained in words,” he added.
While both of them were positive about the EDM genre becoming a major part of the music industry in India, Shekhar said, “There are new forms of music and it keeps evolving. And EDM has evolved into different sub-genres. All these genres are now explored. There are some tracks in Bollywood which have bits of electronic music in them and they have done pretty well. So we will soon be getting more of electronic in our desi tracks.” Where Vishal is also on a jury panel of an English singing talent show, he believes that language is a very small aspect of music. Moreover, it can not be a decisive factor for anybody who wants to enter the music industry. He said, “Music is music. language is a tiny aspect of it. They are singing and are talented and in no time, even with singing songs in English language, they will create a niche for themselves in the world of music.”
When asked if their equation has changed over the past years, both of them looked at each other and laughed. “Shekhar is like a family. We do fight a lot. And there is often a difference in our opinions. But we try to keep intact,” said Vishal.
On the other hand, Shekhar cracked, “We have broken up many times and we just don’t talk to each other. We have recently patched up though.”