Indipop singer Bhavya Raj wants to make his mark slowly and steadily, says M Bhansali
Ko Ko Korina by Ahmed Rushdi was the first pop song to burst on the sub-continent’s music scene in 1966. And it changed popular music as we understood it profoundly and forever. Since then the flow of Indi-pop hasn’t ebbed. With the airing of Channel V and MTV India, various Indi-pop bands and singers came to the forefront and gave the audience a new genre apart from typical Bollywood tracks. Bhavya Raj is one among them who along with his band, Bhavya Raj Collective, is taking this genre ahead.
The 21-year-old Delhi boy credited his mother for being his inspiration. “She has been a folk singer for a long time. She sings in 18 Indian languages, so I just got the talent free. I used to sing in school and there I got introduced to rock music and bands like linkin Park. In 11th grade, I realised that an individual could make money out of pursuing music as a profession. The first number that I performed solo was You’re Beautiful by James Blunt. The way people treated me after that show made me realise that I want this treatment throughout my life,” he said.
The formation of Bhavya Raj Collective, where Raj is the vocalist, was an organic process. “I met the guitarist of the band in 2011 near my house and we both discovered that we shared music as a common interest. We started jamming together. I was initially a drummer in my previous band leaf Tone. Gradually, I developed an inclination towards being a vocalist and this led us to our drummer. Through my band, I wanted to compose more home-grown pop songs as I was deeply influenced by Madonna, Michael Jackson and Backstreet Boys,” he said.
In 2015, Raj came out with his first single, Spexy Girl, which became a hit on MTV Indies. For him, singing is his profession.
Singing from acoustic folk to pop rock and from jazz to R&B, Raj has acquired a name for himself. “When you play any genre, overtime you build an audience. If you are having an audience of 7,000 a day then by your next performance you can increase it to 7,100. As we build an audience and release our original songs, then we are inviting the audience to listen to the same,” said Raj on how singers are pushing the appreciation.
Recently the band performed at the Fio Cookhouse. For Raj, the commitment to the band is not like being in a marriage. Rather it is like being in a relationship where singing outside the band is not cheating. He said, “We are not bound by any contract. Everybody is open to do other things. Supposedly, if a song that I want to sing is not fitting the general vibe of the group then I can sing it outside with anyone else. I personally do a lot of solo projects.”
Raj would rather do his kind of music but would not mind doing a one-off film song. “But my audience should not be impulsive and should genuinely appreciate my work,” he said.