Exclusive: Interview with Shankar Ehsaan Loy
Last Saturday, after some relentless follow up, Sourav Bhuyan calls me up saying, “Dude we finally got the appointment with SEL!!” After that there was some hectic emailing of questions back n forth, with Honhaar Goonda doubling up as a moderator for the questions, and giving us some valuable interview tips. Most of the questions were formed by many of the PFC authors.
Finally, the day arrived and we found ourselves outside the Purple Haze studio for the interview. Shankar Mahadevan was busy in another interview that had been already scheduled. While waiting for his interview to get over, we chatted up with Ehsaan Noorani and Loy Mendonsa.
Ehsaan Noorani talked about some of their upcoming projects like My Name is Khan, 13B (tamil), Wake Up Sid, Chandni Chowk to China as well as a Telugu movie called Koncham Ishtam Koncham Kashtam (starring Siddharth). He had a very high opinion of Ayaan and was very bullish on 13B.
All of them were pretty kicked up about getting featured on the cover of Rolling Stone
(Indian Version).
Pretty soon, Shankar got free and we got down to asking the questions.
Most of the questions were asked by Sourav and yours truly was handling the camera.
Part I: Rock On.
Part 2: Johnny Gaddar to Jhoom Barabar Jhoom
Part 3: The Early Influences in their musical career
Part 4: The Finale – SEL Unplugged
Tags: "rock on", Interview, johnny gaddar, Shankar Ehsaan Loy
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Thanks for the interview guys! Looks like you all had a great time
i would have loved some on technicalities into their music though… still love the videos!
Oh man…after Rock on! S-E-L have gone straight to the top in my fav musicians list..!! Thanks!!
Yeah it was great!Awesome interview..great fellas/musicians.Thanks to Sudhir..he let me in in his mission and also HG.Cheers.
Fantastic job guys…Sudhir and Sourav…thanks for the persisitence..and thanks to the Goonda..ahem Honhaar..
They sound and look very down to earth and grounded..feels good…good luck to the band..IMO, they are next to only ARR today
here is the audition ehsaan mentioned in part 1.. farhan has stepped into bono’s shoes quite admirably
editors, please post the embed link from the following URL into the post if possible:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjRX3FEejis
Thanks for this great Interview Saurav & Sudhir!
It was awesome!
thanks guys its turned out very nice !!!!
hmm very interesting striker…farhan does a good job here…also suprised, he plays guitar quite well..very refreshing
Ehsaan!!! thank you for giving us the time!!! And we still have so many questions on the mechanics of your music and ofcourse RD Boss!!! thank you… for this!!!
Ehsaan ..good to see you.
Ehsaan…thanks for giving the interview, it felt really nice to see you talk and get the view point of all three of you…It is really amazing to see the three of you coming from three different backgrounds and gelling so well and consistently giving good music..
Yes as oz bhai said, would love to would love to hear your influences and admiration of Panchan da..saw the documentary of Panchan da by Bhrahmanand and you guys talk so much about The Boss, and how difficult it is for you create something original without thinking about The Boss’s music…it was such a great docu :-)
Hmm also the hook of Johnny Gaddar you guys were talking about, the first time i heard of that was in the Mukul Anand’s classic Hum, the scene where AB talks about Gandi naali ka keeda with romesh Sharma( Kimi’s brother in the movie)
Good luck to you all..and may we hear some amazing tracks from the tridev :-)
That was a brilliant idea to tape the interview and share it with us. I really liked hearing about their influences. Did they say if they’re ever going out on tour?
Striker, thanks for posting Farhan’s audition video. It’s extraordinary, really.
I am impressed with Farhan’s youtube video. a very good job by him
Looks like what ever Farhan touches turns into gold. Be it acting in, producing or directing films. :-). Hes sung pretty well in the video here.
Thanks on Sudhir’s behalf too guys..;)
@Sudhir Sourav (S S),
Good work Guys. Thanks a lot for arranging it, recording it and then sharing it with all. Very nice work and quite organised and that too with least possible equipments.
A cam Corder, light available in the room and thats it.
Simple but fruitful.
Thanks to SEL also for giving the interview and sharing some thoughts of theirs.
Great going S & S !
Congrats guys on the interview………..it was good
Great team work, S & S.
look forward to seeing more of such stuff from you guys!
SEL – a great music team !!
Thanks people!!Appreciate it.
I’m sure SEL must get fed up with being asked how they came together all the time.
Great to see SEL talking in depth about so many things. I have never really read or seen much of their interviews. The high points were the three talking about their influences, Shankar mentioning the differences between north Indian and south Indian classical music made me realize it’s so true! North has sur, and south has groove, funk. And a study of both makes ones’ music grammar complete. About Shankar, the man has such a sonorous quality in his voice; even hearing him talk makes one expect a song coming soon. Been hooked to his work with Shakti for the last few days and can’t stop marvel at the ocean of talent he embodies.
Loved the fact that it was a very different discussion, Ehsaan talking about Blues and Rock and Loy talking about radio influences.
And finally, I got to hear Shankar singing Pichhle saat dinon mein!
Thanks for the interview.
S&S: Thanks for this. Shankar singing Peechle Saat Dinon Mein made it all worth it. And, of course, I got my question asnwered – Doob Jaa hook is apparently the “lehera”. Now, I know how it was there in Hum b/g score as well.
the final piece was grooovy and awesome!!!!!
these guys and u guys (sudhir and sourav) Simbly ROCK!!!
Na na na na naa..Na na na na naa..
Wonderful interview guys…
SEL – u rock… I simply love the Mera Jahan song in TZP. wonderful music. Especially, when the music goes into a high when the Paint falls on Ishaan’s cheek and he wipes it off…
Truly amazing stuff!
Forgot to mention in the last comment… he wipes it off with a smile :-)
good effort and nice to see u interacting with good guys from film industries. can u not extend it to other fields or u want to specialise in particular field. mummy is very happy n proud, keep it up. But donot lose ur focus. I want to see u at much higher places irrespective of any field. u must find ur arena. give a good try n it ll never go wrong. hv u sent to ruhi whats her comment. no work is small. rome was not built in a day. no baby walked strait away he falls many times to get up n running. it is very important to give it a good try. enough of advice for today. lov u bye. papa
My family reunion..with peppered with fatherly advice..:)
SEL were indeed one of the most promising talent a few years back. Even today they give atleast 1 good track in the full album. But their scores are getting funkier and louder and noisier in order to attract the current hip crowd and disco gamgs. I like their simple tunes more, like “Meri Maa” from TZP. Some of their melodious songs are fabulous. Keep them coming SEL and please do not bow down to the pressures from big banners, market-trends. You have a good mixture of talent and utilize it properly
U ARE THE FACE OF INDIAN MUSIC INDUSTRY
despretly WAITING FOR THE NEXT ONE
@ Sivakumar T
“Mera Jahaan” in TZP was not composed by SEL. It was composed by Shailendra Barve – guest composer for this film.
Regards
Shyaam
Nice! Thanks for sharing this interview with us guys and thanks to HG for the link. A bit late, but finally managed to watch it!
As for Farhan’s clip… Wow! Is there anything the man is not good at?!