The interview which appears below, was originally published on I Love A.R. Rahman Podcast in May 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.
Acclaimed guitarist Sanjeev Thomas opens up about his decade-long association with A.R. Rahman, life lessons, health challenges, and his evolution as a musician
Mr. Sanjeev, it’s amazing to have you on this podcast! First, I wanted to apologize for the delay in bringing you on this journey. I’ve been working single-handedly for the last two years with 125-126 guests so far. You were definitely on my list and I’m excited to have a Bangalorean on my podcast. You’re still in Bangalore, right?
I was born in Kuwait and did my schooling there. Once I turned 18, I moved to Chennai and stayed there from ’98 to 2012 – almost 14 years. Then I moved to Bombay in 2012, and then to Bangalore in 2015.
Why Bangalore?
By the end of 2014, I was thinking I needed a break from the industry. I did like 15 years being in the industry doing all kinds of things, and Bombay was great initially but eventually became a little too competitive. People in the industry are quite cutthroat there. I went back to the reason why I got into music in the first place. When you’re in an industry competing with people, even your friends, you eventually forget why you got into this. It becomes all about competition, money, and people talking bad about each other, which I didn’t want to be a part of. So I took a conscious decision to stay away for a bit and chose Bangalore, which is disconnected from the industry compared to Chennai and Bombay.
You’ve just returned from your tour with Sid Sriram. How was it?
That was good. I played after almost one and a half years because of COVID and the pandemic. Finally great to be back on those big stages with big audiences. It’s good to travel outside of India and meet people – mostly Sri Lankan Tamils in those areas. The kind of love they have for music and culture is amazing.
When you stepped on stage after a year and a half, were you nervous or on a high?
Just before you get on stage, maybe a little nervous because you feel like “okay, this is something I haven’t done for a while.” But it takes like two or three minutes to hit back into your senses – you’ve been doing this all your life. When the audience gives it back to you, when they shout back and pour their love, that’s when you feed off that energy. I become a different animal once I enter the stage. Usually I’m very introverted and quiet in real life, but when I go on stage, I’m a different animal.
What does Sid do before he jumps onto the stage?
He’s completely sober. He reads a few religious verses or something from a book. Both him and me take time for ourselves – at least 15 to 20 minutes just with ourselves. Just before we get on stage, we as a band come together, say a little prayer, get charged up, and hit each other like preparing for a wrestling match. Once the music kicks in, he goes into a trance. We all feed off each other and it’s amazing energy.
Do you maintain eye contact with people in the front rows to see how they’re reacting?
Yeah, of course. Depending on how the audience is seated and how close they are to the stage, you can see the difference in our performance. For example, our first show was in Switzerland where the audience was right there – we could see everyone, hear them in full volume. Because of that, even though the auditorium was smaller than Germany, the energy we performed with was so much more because we could feel the audience closer. In Germany, it was a huge stadium and the audiences were way back, so we couldn’t hear them as much. Our performance in Germany was a lot more subdued compared to Switzerland. The audience really makes a huge difference.
You’ve been associated with A.R. Rahman since 2004, almost over a decade. What’s it like working with him in the studio during creative highs and lows?
Usually when it comes to instruments, sir is most of the time not there and he’s really confident with the person. He just says “Sanjeev, you go ahead and do your thing, I’ll sit on it later.” Most of the time when I go for recording, I chill with the engineers – it started with Sridhar, then Deepak, Chetan.
Usually in a recording, the music director is there, they tell me what they want, I finish in one to one and a half hours maximum. But with A.R., I like to give that time, spend some time there before I even find out what the job is. We chill, take it easy, listen to the song a couple of times, then discuss what could be the possibilities.
There are some recordings where sir was there and wanted to make sure I had a few things coming out of me which he was expecting. One such recording was Rockstar, where he was very particular because that movie had a lot of guitars and guitars were very important. I remember we did “Sadda Haq,” which was one of the main tracks, but I also remember both of us going through “Sadda Haq” where Orianthi had already recorded her solo. He said “This first half of Orianthi’s solo I like, but the second half I don’t like, so I want you to come in and fill the gaps.” So the second half of the “Sadda Haq” solo is me playing.
I still remember him trying to express how I should play the song – “Think about it like one beat is crying, you have so much emotion, just show it on the guitar.” He was making all kinds of sounds and I was like “Okay, let’s go.” That recording was particularly memorable because it was one of the few where he was actually part of it, and not only him but the film team was also there.
Creative blocks do happen?
Yes, creative blocks do happen. I still remember my first recording in 2004 for “Vande Mataram” – I was not getting exactly what he wanted initially. We took a break for an hour or hour and a half, then I revisited recording it again and it all magically came together. Sometimes I go into the studio and things don’t work as well, so we tell ourselves “forget today, let’s come tomorrow and revisit it.” A.R. never had time pressure like “I have to finish it today.” There were crunch days, but most of the time it’s not there, so it’s always cool to postpone it to the next day.
Which soundtrack is very close to your heart?
That’s hard to pick one, but if I were to pick one, it would probably be Delhi-6. I think the Delhi-6 songs were special – we had so much fun laying down those tracks. “Masakali,” “Rehna Tu,” all those songs were kind of special. Of course Rockstar also had great numbers, but this particular album, especially “Rehna Tu” and songs like that, had a very special quality. I love those songs so much and what we strived for came better than what we expected.
Your thoughts on A.R. Rahman as a boss – was he more like a collaborator?
Definitely a collaborator vibe was there because of the freedom he gave, but as a person I looked up to, so it always was a mentor kind of vibe. Even though he was giving you freedom, for me he has such an aura and such a burst of creativity and energy that you can’t see him as anything less than a mentor.
But I’ve seen him in all forms. To me he was very respectful and cool, but I’ve seen him lose his cool with people in the studio – he can actually be a boss, especially with full-time people at the studio. I’ve seen him get angry with them, but it’s for their good eventually.
Any memorable personal conversations with him?
I share most of my releases with him – whether it’s a film I do or an album – and even though his replies are very mono-syllabic or short, he still takes the effort to reply. He’s been very supportive. The last Malayalam film I did, he released it for me and things like that.
One thing I’ll never forget – I think it was a Rockstar concert, the release of Rockstar. We were doing rehearsals before the show in Bombay. For some reason, whenever we were playing “Sadda Haq,” I was screwing up the lead solo during rehearsal. On the day of the show, sir saw that I was getting worried about that particular solo because it’s not easy to play live in one shot – it’s quite complicated. When you record, you can stop and record in pieces, but live you have to perform it in one shot.
Maybe an hour before the concert, while we were getting ready and I was nervous about the solo, I got a note on a tissue paper which sir wrote saying “Don’t worry, you’re gonna kill it. Just go ahead and don’t worry about anything, everything will be fine.” I saw that and was like “I don’t care, I’m just gonna go there and not think about screwing up.” And it happened that way – I killed it, didn’t make any mistake when it actually happened. These kind of small things, these small incidents I would never forget. Sometimes we think he might not see these things – me being nervous or not confident enough – but he actually sees and notices those things and sometimes does these magical things to make things better.
How did your transition into singing happen?
I’ve always been a singer and a guitarist. It’s just that since I started playing guitars for sir, everyone thought I was the guitarist. The singing part – people never saw that side of me. The people who saw that were the independent crowd or people who followed rock music, not the film audience who type-casted me as a guitarist.
The first time A.R. realized I could sing was during the world tour. We were practicing in L.A. for a month and a half before the tour started. While practicing “Rang De Basanti” title song, Javed was singing it for the show, and A.R. was making comments that maybe we should have one more singer to sing with Javed to make it more powerful.
I was thinking maybe I should ask sir if I can sing because I can sing that song and I like it. But I was wondering how to ask him. Someone told me I should catch him after practice when he’s leaving or in the morning before practice starts. That’s what I did – I came early, waited for him to come down, and while he was coming down I told him “I have a suggestion to make. I think I can sing this song.” He said “Oh yeah, you can sing? Okay cool, let’s try it out.” During rehearsal, I came in front and started singing the song. He liked it. That was the first song I sang during the tour, and that’s the first time he realized I could sing. After that, he gave me other songs to sing.
As a composer, when did that journey begin?
When I started my career, I came to Chennai in ’98, finished college by 2001. As soon as I finished college, my first thing was I want to be a rock star. To be a rock star meant I have to make my own band, sing my own music, and travel the world with my band. That was the dream.
To tell you the truth, I was kind of anti-film at that time. Coming fresh from Kuwait and listening to Led Zeppelin and that kind of music, I thought “that’s not music, that’s stupid.” So I wanted to be a rock star. I asked my parents for one or two years to try out if I can survive in music.
The first thing I did was form a band and start competing in competitions like IITs all over the country, traveling, winning competitions. But the more years I spent, I realized I was performing everywhere but not really making money to survive. That’s when you realize the reality – you have big dreams but it doesn’t happen just because you think it’s going to happen a certain way.
Around 2004, I decided that apart from performing and independent music, I should get into producing music, understanding how a studio works, and start my own studio. I thought that was the natural evolution – understanding music even more in depth by producing. In 2004, I started my own studio and started recording, running that as a business alongside other things.
I started learning guitar when I was eight, so many years of experience made it easy when I was 25-26. But as a producer, I started only in 2004, and all these years now I feel like I’ve come to a place where I can call myself a good producer or director. I needed those many years and I’m happy I started then.
What was the trigger for moving away from the industry in 2012?
The main trigger was in 2012. Actually, I was at my high point in 2012 – I was in such a good place with sir performing and recording, my studio was doing well, I was doing movies. Leaving all of that and getting out of Chennai – anyone would have told me that’s the most stupid thing you can do because you’re in such a good place.
But the trigger was I got married in the beginning of 2012, and by August 2012 I got a divorce too. That was the trigger. When something like that happens and it was a bad divorce, you don’t want to answer to everyone in Chennai because you’ve been living there for the longest time. You don’t want to deal with people asking “what happened?” I couldn’t think of my career at that time – that was least important. I had to take care of myself. I needed a change of scene, different people in my life, to be away from that city.
That’s when I moved to Bombay. Bombay was good initially – I got a lot of work, but eventually I understood how Bombay worked. They were good to new people, but Bombay is like the mecca for music, so the entire country comes to Bombay to make their dreams come true.
There are certain expectations people in Bombay have from you. I saw the culture where when Sonu Nigam comes in, he first goes and touches the feet of the producer. Every Tom, Dick and Harry in the film industry does this – they’re buttering them up, kissing ass to the next level, touching feet. I’m respectful, but I don’t have to come touch your feet or kiss your hands. I was just not used to that and not ready to do that. The biggest celebrities were doing that, and the people who did that were favored most of the time.
It was so much more competitive because the whole country is there to compete. If I quote one lakh for a project, there are a thousand people waiting to do it for free. The competition was so high that your own friends will probably put you down so they can get the chance. It was that kind of culture which after being 15 years in the industry, I really didn’t want to be part of.
I was also not in a great mental state at that time going through a divorce. All of this came together and made me question why I got into music – did I get into music to compete like this, to kiss ass like this, or to be betrayed by friends? After Bombay, I needed to get back to my roots and the reason why I got into music. That’s when I moved to Bangalore and started the music school. Apart from other things, that got me sane again – getting back into practicing, playing, being with my instrument, teaching, giving knowledge to the younger generation.
The first two years, 2015 to 2017, brought me back to being sane again. Then it took me a while to reintroduce myself back to the industry. This time when I was introducing myself back, I made sure I was doing only what I wanted. I made sure my life was designed so I wasn’t depending on music entirely – I was doing other businesses too. If you’re a full-time musician, even if it’s a stupid job with the worst people, you’ll still take it because you have to survive. I made a conscious decision that I don’t want to do that anymore. I don’t have to deal with people if I don’t like someone – it’s better not to work with them.
That’s very inspirational. Not everyone can take this step, especially when you’re at the peak.
I always believe that failure prepares you for better things. You become so much stronger and realize you are so much more than just money and career. Those are good to have – it’s great to have a good career and good money – but especially after COVID, a lot of people understood what is really important. Those people who are really close to you, like family, those are the things which are important more than anything else. Those are the things that will carry you till the end of your life.
Passion should be done passionately. If you lose that passion and do it for money and other things, then the passion won’t be there anymore. It kills whatever passion is left. To keep the passion alive and keep it going, we need to choose the important things in our lives.
You had a heart attack in December 2021. Would you like to touch on that and how you bounced back?
Two months before the heart attack, I got a radiating pain on my left side. The first thing I did was have a blood test – there was a little bit of cholesterol, not too high. Generally I was kind of fit – I’m not too fat, don’t eat loads of bad stuff. Even though my blood reports showed it was okay, I thought I’ll start walking and exercising more. What I should have done ideally was take an ECG or echo and check my heart, which I didn’t do.
This heart attack just happened suddenly one early morning. I got up feeling completely breathless. I had to wake up my wife and tell her I feel breathless, maybe we should go to the hospital. We rushed to a nearby hospital, they checked an ECG and told me I was having a massive heart attack. I was rushed to a main hospital where they did an angiogram and saw this whole five centimeter block had happened. I had to put a stent in.
The only vice I had was I was a heavy smoker. But my personal doubt is it has something to do with the vaccine also, because a lot of my friends and people I’ve read about – which my doctor told me – one of the things with the vaccine or having COVID is clotting was a very common problem. My block was a blood clot rather than a calcium clot. I feel that also has a lot to do with why this happened.
Anyway, in a way I’m happy it happened because I changed my lifestyle. Now I’m so much more fitter, not smoking, exercising much more, eating right. I feel so much more energetic. It was scary in the beginning. Just before going for the Sid concerts, I asked my doctor if walking on stage for three hours continuously is okay. My doctor said it’s totally fine because now you’re used to this, you’ve been doing this all your life.
I still remember in the first show in Switzerland, at the end of three hours I was getting an ache on my left side. The band guys were scared for me, Sid and all were worried. But it was totally fine. I came back to my doctor who said that was just muscle pain – just because some pain comes from the left side doesn’t have anything to do with the heart. Usually when there’s a problem with the heart, you feel extra tired – those are the signs.
I feel perfectly fine and this is definitely not going to stop me from doing the things I do. All I can say is anyone having pain on the left side, go get your ECG checked. It’s great to always once a year check your heart health because post-pandemic, this has been quite frequent. I’ve heard so many people die of heart attacks, including Puneeth Rajkumar in Bangalore, Shane Warne, so many people. The vaccine and COVID virus is something people are still researching – it’s fairly new and now people are talking about its effects on the heart and bones.
But I’m glad to be alive and I’m going to be alive.
Before I let you go, would you like to share a message for A.R. Rahman via this podcast?
Hi sir, it’s been a while, but thank you for always inspiring us. Thank you for inspiring me and thank you for being the wonderful human being that you are, because that has definitely inspired me even more than the music. I really wish a wonderful and long journey ahead of you because you still have so many things to do, and I really believe that you are going to climb so many more heights higher than the heights you’ve already reached. Love you always.
Thank you so much, Sanjeev, for your time, kindness, and honesty with everything you spoke about.
Thank you, I had a great time. It was a trip down memory lane talking about all those things. I think it’s important for everyone to revisit those times in your life where you had it hard sometimes, you had it good sometimes. Right now when you look back at it, you appreciate both the good and the bad things that happened because that made who you are today. Thank you for taking me down this road and you’ve been a wonderful host.
