The interview which appears below, was originally published on Haussite in March 2000. ©The rights to this material are reserved to the owner. If you have any concerns or comments, please send an email to info@rahmaniac.com.
Ruby Sircar: I would like to hear first of all about your new album.
Shweta Shetty: The new album is called “Jaane Ja” which means Sweetheart in Hindi. The first single will be released in April, by Orbit, it will be the first pop album released in Germany by an Indian artist. The album itself and some video clips will follow in August. Its basically an English album with some Hindi words which will be standing out. The album itself and the way it is build has also Indian influences – such as an Alaap etc. It is a mix of influences: Indian as well as Western, so one may call it an Indian, a pop as well as a dancefloor album.
RS: Pop albums with Indian influences have also been produced by Western artists and musicians.
SS: Yes, artists like Madonna and Prodigy have produced songs and music too with Indian influences. Madonna even did a song in Sanskrit, but these are Western artists producing for a mainly Western audience, they just use Indian music elements. So far I have been producing for a mainly Indian market, now I will open a larger, not Indian-only market for this music. This is also what my producers said, Dave Roth and Stephan Aurel, it is different whether an Indian produces music, using Indian influences or if a Western artist works with them.
RS: What is your musical background, how did you start your career?
SS: I am from a South Indian family, when I was 14 I started taking classical music lessons, so my voice actually has a classical Indian training. My mother was very keen to give me the best education possible. At first it was very hard, but than I saw the possibilities, also outside of the classical Indian music, this is when I started to sing and perform musicals, which also made me start to experiment with musical styles outside of the classical field, such as Soul and Pop.
If you tell someone abroad that Indians are able to perform within other musical fields, outside of the cliche expectations, they can not imagine it. But partly due to my classical training I can, though I actually have a husky, low based voice, hit the high notes as well. I think that even though no one abroad can imagine that – Indian singers have the same abilities as any Western singer as well as a very rich and colourful musical background.
My career actually started with A.R. Rahman, I was very lucky to sing from the very beginning with and for someone like him. Till today, and all through the last decade he was one of the most influential and important people in the popular Indian and the film music industry.
RS: Your voice is very different from what one expects from an popular Indian singer, think of Lata or Asha. I also think taht due to your voice A.R. Rahman was able to make this change in, for example the Indian film music. As I remember the soundtrack of “Rangeela” for example was so succesful and had such an impact on the industry because of your voice and your interpretation.
SS: As I said before, my voice is not what one might expect, it is untypical. If you think of “Mangta Hain Kya” you will see that this was a change, for the first time a singer, playback singer, was literally allowed to go crazy, to interprete the song the way she felt it. I asked A.R. Rahman whether I could change the sound of the song, sing it differently, he allowed it, gave me the possibility and the freedom to work on the song, as on the others, just the way I wanted. It was not what the film music industry had as their standard, but it was new and audience and critics perceived it well.
RS: Your songs or interpreations of songs also allowed a breakthrough for a different kind of female voice.
SS: Yes, I was one of the first Indians to interprete, or even had the possibility, and sing the songs “black”. Further for the first time an Indian singer in India didn’t just sing “Indian” to Western influenced music, but actually created a mixture between an Indian interpretation and Western means. But also the music itself, for example in “Rangeela” was different and unusual it was Indian music with Rythm n Blues.
RS: How did your musical style develop after your classical training, the musical experience, into which direction did you develop?
SS: After “Roja” my next big step was “Rangeela”, which was an experiment, but turned out succesful, as it is till today the most succesful movie-album, soundtrack, in India. “Rangeela” – as well as “Roja” – was produced with A.R. Rahman as a Rhythm ‘n Blues influenced album. After working with these influences I went on to Bhangra, which you can hear in the film “Bichoo”, it is going to be released in April. I actually worked with Bhangra out of different reasons but first of all as it is part of Indian folk music, which is big today in India – just think of Daler Mehndi – out of the same reasons why Schlager returned to the stage in Germany.
Apart from my film music I produced parallely albums such as “Johnny Joker” which is pure Pop and “Shweta” which has Western influences as well, followed by “Deewane to Deewane Hain” in which I included Indian Folk, Bhangra. “Jaane Ja” on the other hand is basically a dancefloor album, it includes songs like “People of India” which is Rhythm n Blues with Indian instrumentation or others where I use Sanskrit Shlokars which develop into House – ist again a classical development from Alaap on to the faster parts.
RS: You were and are extremely succesful in India, why did you decide to come to Germany?
SS: Many journalists and the press asked that before too. First of all because of my husband, who is German. I didn’t expect to have a continuing career when I made that decision, luckily though there are people in the Indian music industry who are interested in my work and ask me to work with them. At the moment I am at least six times a year in India and work there, mostly with T-series.
As I said before – I didn’t expect that my career would continue after I got married and especially in Germany which has no link to popular Indian music, in the sense of production, but I was able to meet people in Hamburg who were interested in my work and support me, the people from Orbit. So now my career even continues on a broader, international level. It is also easier to reach a larger audience of non-Indians if you live outside of India, as the market there seems to be more restricted. To work in the field of media on an international level seems to be easier in Hamburg. One must not forget also that Germany is the third largest music market, after the US and Britain.
RS: What is the difference for you as a woman, your life and your work, in Germany and in India?
SS: Well, I never had any difficulties or experienced anything negative as a woman working in the music industry in India, but this is maybe partly because of my upbringing and my family background, as well as the way I work as a professional.
I was very spoilt from my family and also experienced a very warm family life. My parents gave us daughters enough freedom, as you see I hadn’t had an arranged marriage, my three sisters though were all married by 23 and have their set families. And though my parents were separated, not divorced, they stayed together for the sake of the children, to grant us a functioning family, a warm home.
I think this is also one of the reasons why I have a strong family sense and was willing to give my career up for an own family. When I decided to come to Germany everyone around me warned me and said that it could become difficult for me, to stay without everything one is used to in India, servants etc. and to do all the housework. By now I got used to it and I enjoy it, I even enjoy to take the trains and busses as well as learning the language.
Of course, as a known artist in India you are perceived differently by the public then here, but the working conditions here and there are not really different. As a woman, if you work professionally there is no real difference in the working lifestyle. I think it depends how you present yourself and how you act towards other people, if you make a common Indian mistake, invite the people home for tea, make those you work together with part of your family, you might not be treated with the respect you ought to be as a woman, because the distance or objectivity might be lost. I never made this mistake and kept business and pleasure separated. Of course there are women who might do everything for having a career and are therefore treated with lesser respect, but you will find this phenomenon everywhere, not only in India and not only in the music industry.
I don’t think that within the music industry today women are treated differently, because if you work on a level with A.R. Rahman, Anu Malik or Anand Millind you are treated equal as a woman and as an artist. The difference within the working lifestyle is for me rather between India and Germany, India is by far more unpunctual then Germany, I think this is one of the flaws, because if you work with someone you actually try to show respect to the work and your partner by setting up equal schedules and not keep you own pace at the expense of those you are working with.
I also think that woman of my generation had a different starting point, maybe due to their upbringing, for their careers, if you have to compare them with singers like Lata or Asha, but I don’t think that the beginning of a career for a woman in India is today more difficult or easier then it was at their time.
RS: How did the Indian music industry develop over the last few years and is the Indian video clip industry comparable to the Indian film industry?
SS: As you might know India has the biggest film industry worldwide, the popular music industry was part of this industry as far as it concerned film soundtracks, it is a huge industry in itself though. In the last few years popular music has gained more publicity, mainly because of the marketing strategies and the advertisement done by companies such as T-Series.
The video clip industry is an industry of its own, independent from the film industry and its soundtracks. It is and was growing together with the TV industry, which is one of the fastest growing in India, parallel maybe to the middle-class masses. There is a huge amount of financial power in this market, T-Series for example spends 1,5 crore on th emusic of each fil or clip – this is by far more then any one in Germany or Europe would ever be willing or able to spend. Or think of the money spend on the artists for the Millenium Show on Chowpati Beach, Bombay, for example, including Amir,Twinkle and myself.
The media of private satellite TV channels, such as Zee TV also reach Indians worldwide and by that also an larger audience outside of India, this also helps to enlargen the market of popular Indian music.
It is actually pretty unnerving, that people outside of India do not see how big these media industries are, India is not merely the poor country as it is always portrait. The music industry has people who have a training and are able to reach good results, in popular as well as classical music. But these talents are only being recognised right now.
RS: How did you see MTV Asia, which runs today a mainly an Indian-based program, develop?
SS: I was in fact the first Indian singer on MTV. MTV more or less took over, programwise, Channel V, a channel which was more Hindi music oriented. Before Hindi or Indian Pop didn’t get so much of recognition and wasn’t as popular. You must remember that the film industry was and is big, as well as their soundtracks, one could also see them as the predecesors of the video clips. MTV also gained more popularity by showing more Indian music, as thePop industry consists of about 950 million people and half of them do not speak English, those are the ones which are reached via Hindi Pop rather then by any English-language based Pop songs.
RS: What do you think is the difference between the Indian music industry abroad and in India?
SS: India is more mainstream, while abroad there are people like Talvin Singh who are still more alternative, more underground. There is no real Indian mainstream market abroad, though I think it si possible to make a breakthrough within the nearer future and open for Indian music a bigger market and an audience which is not only Indian. This can be done by Indian artists, not only by Western artists who use Indian instrumention or lyrics, as a temporary part of their work.
