The interview which appears below, was originally published on I Love A.R. Rahman Podcast in February 2022. ©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.
Music producer and programmer Praveen Mani takes us through his journey from Australia to India, his decade-long collaboration with A.R. Rahman, and the evolution of music production
Praveen, I’m very excited to have you on this podcast! Before we deep dive into your collaborations with A.R. Rahman, I’d like you to take me on a nostalgic drive and share memories from your very early stages as a music producer.
I started when I was very young. My mom and my aunt encouraged me a lot to pursue music because they got me a guitar and books – we’re talking about pre-internet days. I was naturally inclined to it, probably around 10-11 years old. I used to listen to a lot of records – Beatles, ABBA, Bee Gees – and I used to put them on my record player and learn the chords. The way songs were put together always fascinated me from a young age.
As I dwelled further, I started playing bass and playing with bands when I was 16-17. A keyboard player friend of mine called Bashir from Singapore had brought a little electronic gadget – the Yamaha FB01 tone generator. It was a little box with a digital display and things at the back that said “MIDI in” and “MIDI out.” I was fascinated and bought it for about ten thousand rupees.
I figured out through the manual that it has sounds that can be triggered, but to do that you need a computer with a MIDI interface. We’re talking about ’83-’84, and in Chennai there was nothing – no information other than magazines. Somehow, through my aunt in Germany, I managed to source a MIDI interface. My dad bought me a little Apple computer in ’84, and I put this thing together with the software. It was working beautifully – we were able to input music and do MIDI sequencing.
That was probably one of the primary triggers when I realized the potential. By then technology had gotten better and I started programming a lot. The programming and the need for music arrangement drove me towards production. I was playing with bands and doing session programming, jingles, and ads.
You studied in Australia – tell me about that journey.
I was in Sydney for ten years, from about ’88-’89. Before that, I had already evolved into jazz. Around ’89, I left Chennai and went to Sydney to study at the School of Audio Engineering. I studied music production and was working in Sydney as well in a couple of studios. Before I knew it, I was producing stuff.
We’re talking about a time where technology was picking up fast – something new would come out every week. It was the complete transition from analog to digital, so I went through that whole transition phase. I was a producer in Sydney, produced some albums for Sony Australia, Virgin, and got signed with Warner. Warner suggested that because I was doing a lot of R&B, North America would be a bigger market for me in terms of songwriting. That brought me to Canada in ’97.
How did A.R. Rahman come into this journey?
A.R. came and hijacked me! I came to Toronto in ’98 and started working with A.R. in ’98 as well. It was work, it was exciting music, something totally different for me – to do films and to be programming for A.R. The whole atmosphere, everything was so different.
After that, I got into the whole Indian production thing. I was barely in Canada – I used to just come here to visit family and then go back. I started doing some films of my own as well, so all that happened around 2000. I left India in 2011 to come back to my family here and decided I want to spend full time in Canada with the family. Technology had progressed enough and internet speeds got way faster, so we could work online.
Was music production already a defined career path when you went to study in Sydney?
In music, we tend to have a lot of respect for other musicians and artists, but I also happen to love people behind the scenes. When I was experiencing music, there were two layers – one is the music and two is the sound of it, the technology of it. How the sounds are placed, how it’s put together – to me that was as fascinating as the music itself.
I saw them as two different things – one is engineering (audio engineering) and one is music. But as a producer, I love the fact that you had to know both. To be a good producer, you’ve got to be a pretty good audio engineer. You’ve got to know the boards, your environment, and what any engineer is doing.
Let’s take Michael Jackson – one of the biggest producers was Quincy Jones, and I was a huge fan of Quincy. The way he brought about the arrangements, the sound of the album, the harmonies – everything together. I wasn’t a singer and wasn’t aiming to be an artist per se, so what I wanted to do was be able to make wholesome products.
The biggest beauty of production is where you’re able to assemble a team and coordinate that team to give you something. You might get a drummer you trust, a good guitar player, a good bass player, and you put them together. You tailor and fashion the sound around it – how everything should sound, the layers, how it’s placed. There’s an aesthetic sense in the wholesome of it.
How did the production culture differ between Australia and India?
In Australia, the culture I came from – labels would trust a producer. They’d give you the artist, give you the producer, give you a budget, and say “now you give us the album.” The label is not going to know, so basically you are responsible for the end product.
That wasn’t a thing in India because most music directors were producing their own thing until A.R. came along. Basically, there was no production – songs were just getting put together, somebody was mixing it, and it just got put out. There was no person sitting there saying “I think the vocals are too loud” or “maybe the mix can be better” or “the kick drum is too…” nothing of that.
You listen to a lot of older music from the ’70s and ’80s – it just sounds like it’s in one block. A.R. came and brought finesse into it, beautiful finesse right from Roja. He always had finesse because he’s another guy who admired production – he grew up from that school. What A.R. did was groundbreaking because he changed everybody. He gave everybody a standard where they’re like “okay, now we’ve got to at least sound half as good.”
You did several albums as a producer with Magnasound. How did that work?
I did a couple of albums for Magnasound when I came back to India in ’98. I did an album with Vasundhara Das, one with Daler Mehndi – there were six albums I worked with them on as a producer. By then they had also gotten into the thing where “we have this budget, we have this artist, and you give us the album.”
Whether I was also assigned as being the composer – when you’re a producer, you don’t necessarily have to be a composer. There were two remix albums out of the six, but the other four were compositional albums that I composed.
What I did was I have this way of working where I compose when there’s a song coming up – I tend to bring the artist into the compositional stage. I did the album with Shankar Mahadevan, and that’s how I encouraged Shankar to start composing. I play the chords and I’ll be like “you can go here, you can do this.” So he started experimenting and liking it. To me it was just production because when I get the artists involved in the compositional stage, I’m bringing their soul into the product even more rather than them just singing.
How do you approach a production scenario – for example, a guy walking into a nightclub scene?
Firstly, what’s going to happen? Is this guy walking inside the nightclub to go shoot and kill people, or is he going to hit on someone, or just drink and act cool, or spy on somebody? You have that situation, and that’s going to preempt the way he enters.
The other thing is the nightclub would already have music playing, so that music with the door shut is going to have all the high frequencies dropped out. As he’s walking closer, it’ll get louder, the sound changes. We’d keep that in mind, and whatever music we’re going to do, we got to make sure we don’t interfere with that rhythm.
I would approach it but also discuss with the director. In a situation like this where there’s music playing, I would say not to have additional music because that music is going to be sub-heavy and loud as this guy’s walking closer. Maybe we’ll have something as he’s walking, but something which will get drowned out by the music as he approaches.
Do you draw inspiration from other works?
Definitely. Every time I listen to a song and find something – it could be an A.R. song or any song – sometimes you’ll hear something they’ve done which is unique. Maybe they’ll have a sound one bar here and it’ll flip there and play one bar there. I’ll be like “wow that’s nice,” and that gets registered in your subconscious.
Sometimes when you’re doing some other song, you may have some other instrument doing something else but you can still have that same effect. We are always constantly drawing inspiration from anything we see around, anything we hear. It doesn’t have to be music – it could be watching a movie and some background score, and you’ll be like “wow that’s cool.”
Are there genres you’re more comfortable with or ones you dread?
Most musicians I know have always evolved. It’s not what they start with and where they end – it’s a constant evolution. People evolve and change with the times. There are certain genres where I wouldn’t be comfortable – like if somebody asked me to produce a fully blown orchestral classical album, I won’t be comfortable because that’s not my niche. Or a big band jazz album – even if it’s jazz, it has to be modern jazz, and I would rely on good musicians.
Production is about assembling the right team. If you come to me as a producer, I can’t produce a full-fledged classical production, but I’ll be able to put the right team together to oversee it.
How do you see the difference between Western and Indian film music production?
In the West, 99% of the films don’t have songs. If there are songs, a music supervisor would source a song from any popular or old song and place it to whatever is required in the scene. The songs can be of any genre based on whatever is happening. It’s not an intricate part of the film.
The movie per se would be on one genre – romantic, thriller, horror, drama – and it will follow that. The composer, based on style, will do orchestral, indie acoustic, various genres. Directors are comfortable with composers they like.
In India, firstly we have songs in every movie – 95% of movies have songs. Each song has a situation which is pretty typecast: hero intro song, duet, villain song. The audience has been given songs only from movies for years – that was part of the mass entertainment, the theatrical experience of watching stars doing these songs.
Songs became such an integral part of the movie industry. In the South, the composer has a responsibility to do the background score too. In the North, composers don’t even do the score – there are different people doing it.
How important is the director’s musical awareness in your collaborations?
It’s everything on a case-to-case basis. Some of the best directors I have worked with are absolutely non-interference. They come to you with a brief, and when they narrate the script, they tell you the song situations. When you have your second sitting for the song, they’ll come with the song lead and outro, explaining where the song starts and ends.
From here it’s wide open. There are directors who have something in their minds – they might bring an English song or French song and say “we’re thinking something like this.” I would want to work in a team with a director, which means I want to respect his thought process as much as possible. You listen to it, picture his scene, he’ll have visual references of what he’s planning to shoot.
You work on creating the hook – the part which people are going to remember, which becomes part of the song title. The key is to come up jointly with something which everybody is happy with. Nothing can be force-fed. There is a chemistry which happens, and if that chemistry doesn’t work out, you just want to get out of it.
That chemistry becomes more important than how much the director knows or doesn’t know. I’ve had directors who think they are musicians and singers, and they’ll come with atrocious lyrics, and I said “I won’t do this, sorry.”
When A.R. Rahman comes to you with an idea, how does the process work?
In today’s world, since we had non-linear systems, everything is flexible. Nothing is set in stone till the end. We may take flute parts, we may use something, we may not use something, but in the end, any song I did for him, I would put my picture together.
It always starts with a call between me and him – a discussion on how he sees the song, how he sees the entry, where the beat kicks in, that whole flow is explained. You get the intro parameters, where the pallavi comes, then when the pallavi is over, the second interlude. If he has an idea he’ll tell it, and if he hasn’t, we do something and present it.
It’s 100% collaborative because it’s his song and he has an idea of what he wants. Sometimes I do stuff and give it to him and he’s really happy – he’ll be like “I like it, let’s leave it like this.” Sometimes he’ll just play something on it. It’s a wide open gamut.
Is there a song that’s very close to your heart from your A.R. Rahman collaborations?
There are many. My first Tamil song for him was “Oh Maria,” and when that song came out I was super excited because that was my first release with A.R. “Shakalaka Baby” was another one because I remember I had to catch a flight and these guys were making me sing – it was insane.
Everything was a beautiful memory because that place was so spiritual. When you sit there and make the song, that aura – it was like crazy. Three-four nights I’d just be there without sleeping, really sleeping on the carpet. It was madness, but beautiful madness. It was absolutely bliss for me.
Any memorable breakfast experiences with A.R. Rahman?
Around 5:30 in the morning, he says “come, come, let’s go.” He jumps inside his four-wheel drive – I think it was a Pajero – and asks me to jump in. I’m like “are you sure you know how to drive this big one?” He drove down that hundred feet road, then goes and parks the car. We went to Drive-in Woodlands.
He parks the car and I’m like “this place is crowded.” At that time he had long hair and stuff. We were hiding in the car and eating because he used to get mobbed. Even then people saw him and there was a little commotion. That breakfast memory was insane.
Other than that, lots of other breakfasts would be sleepy breakfasts – working till five in the morning, sleeping for three-four hours, just getting up to eat something.
What would you guys chat about during these times?
Mostly me and A.R., right from day one when I met him in ’85 when he was Dileep, we constantly only spoke about gear. When I went to Australia, he used to call me and we used to talk about gear and only gear – equipment. From gear hardware it has become software plug-ins, and we just talk about gear and tech.
We’ve never spoken about movies or anything else. It’s mostly gear and tech-related stuff, production-related stuff, music. But exciting.
Any memories with other musicians like Srinivas and Clinton?
I met Srinivas at A.R.’s studio for the first time over a game of cricket on TV. India was playing badly, Srinivas was sitting and watching, I came and joined. Both of us were cursing the Indian team, and he’s like “I’m Srinivas” and I’m “Praveen.” He goes “oh, you’re A.R.’s friend from Australia, A.R. told me about you.”
Srinivas and I hit it off that day and today we are best friends. That happened at A.R.’s studio. He worked with me on Little John, co-composed a lot of songs with me. He’s been part of my journey, and that came from A.R.’s studio.
With Clinton, after I met him I made him sing in my movie – Clinton sang for Little John. I remember Karthik coming in for Boys, doing “Girlfriend” at that time, and after that he became a sensation.
I have a lot of memories of so many people – musicians, singers. I was fortunate to meet and work with Shankar Mahadevan, Hariharan, get to know them personally and hang out with them. A.R.’s place just connected me with so many people, so many souls. It was a pleasure being there.
Tell me about when A.R. Rahman visited Canada and the street was named after him.
He just called me out of the blue and told me he’s coming to Toronto and they’re honoring him with a street. I went with my family, met up with him at his hotel, and he showed me the sign. I think that street is still there in Markham somewhere, but it’s yet to be developed – it’s just empty plots. The street sign was commemorative.
How do you see the evolution of music from when you first started to now?
When I started, music was an instrument you play. There was this whole organic experience when a band plays – it’s still a complete organic experience with a bunch of people playing together.
I see music today evolved into so much technology, with artificial intelligence coming in. Things are becoming easier, lots of machines are doing loops, so people are taking the easy way out and forgetting the fundamentals of music. I can see it progressively – maybe in 10 years, computers will be composing and doing things on their own because everything is a pattern. Once computers are fed enough patterns, they’ll rationalize and put stuff together, probably better than humans.
The other thing about music is everything is getting more and more short-lived – from equipment to artists to songs. There’s nothing lasting, including attention span, because of too much saturation.
In India, from the ’90s to now, there was a lack of education and resources then. Today you have YouTube, tutorials, everything. Everybody knows so much more about equipment. All that is leading to more saturation – there’s so much more music being made, nothing is able to cut through.
I’m glad I was in an era where we still had music sales – physical sales of CDs and cassettes. I miss the user experience of going and buying an A.R. CD, opening it, taking the cover. That’s gone today – it’s all Spotify with inaccurate descriptions.
Your thoughts on instant fame versus hard work with lukewarm response?
Music is something you should not look at what comes out of it. You cannot let that define you or get attached to it. Frustration is a part of a musician because when you’re learning an instrument, you have to practice. You can’t just pick up a guitar and start playing – you’ve got to practice, otherwise it won’t sound correct.
You can have weeks and weeks of work putting out lots of songs and nothing can happen, versus one person who just puts out some song and it becomes a hit. But you have to look at the value. If people accepted something because it’s a hit, there’s some reason people have grabbed onto that song.
If you put out a song and it’s not well accepted, it just means you’ve not connected with them. It’s not good or bad – you lost one opportunity to connect. Whatever you tried to do to connect did not connect with the audience. Music is something which has to come and stir the soul – that’s what we need to do. We got to keep trying our best, but that’s not the prime objective. You don’t try to formulate to do that – it should happen naturally.
Before we wrap up, a message for A.R. Rahman via this podcast?
My message is do whatever you’re doing. I keep seeing him pretty content and relaxed these days. I’ve seen him when he was jam-packed with work in the early 2000s, and I used to keep telling him then “you need a break, you need a holiday.” But now he seems like he’s found a nice space and zone, and I really wish him to be in that zone. Looking forward to hearing a lot more music and collaborating more.
A message for music aspirants who want to get into music?
It’s a wonderful journey, and there’s nothing easy or hard about it. It’s a journey that you just embark on and you’ve got to find your way through it. You’ve got to enjoy it, you’ve got to experience it, and do what it takes. Cherish that experience and you’ll find your way.
