The interview which appears below was originally published in Nasreen Munni Kabir's book, A.R. Rahman: The Spirit of Music. ©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.
NMK: How do Indian audiences perceive films today?
A.R. Rahman: Over 60 percent of India’s population of 1.2 billion is under 30. Young people today experience films in a different way from previous generations. The audience is on another plane now. They love the new stuff and want films to have content that’s relevant to them. They aren’t keen on melodrama and are fed up with clichéd stories. I am the audience too. I want to be surprised.
Things are changing at a rapid pace in Indian cinema. In the 1980s, we used to have hero-oriented films, which followed the formula of action, love, comedy, song, and dance. Those movies don’t work that well anymore. So I say that and then a typical formulaic film comes along on the same lines and becomes the year’s blockbuster. [both laugh]
NMK: This is probably an unfair comment, but I find your music is sometimes better than some of the films in which it is used.
A.R. Rahman: Music doesn’t come with any baggage. People experience music in various moods and it can trigger in you all kinds of different emotions and imagery. Your imagination is limitless when listening to music. The very same music in a film becomes defined by a shot or scene. A beautiful music on its own can signify anything because the imagination does not have a budget. But movies do. [laughs]
NMK: I believe you often compose music that isn’t for a film or an album, but just for the pleasure of it.
A.R. Rahman: There’s no pressure when I compose music for myself. Sometimes I feel music is coming through me rather than from me.
It can be liberating at times not to be limited by the needs of a film or a screen character and when there is no one pointing a gun at my head, saying: “Compose a hit song. A great song.” [smiles]
There is a kind of purity writing music without a brief because it can have an unpredictable quality, partly because you are steering it away from tried and tested territory. The inspiration may come from nature, a landscape, or a poem about love. If your imagination runs free, it can bring a spiritual feel to a melody, it can develop its own character and be of a higher plane.
If you match an orchestral piece by the extraordinary Bach or Beethoven against a deserving scene, it raises the bar of the cinematic experience, even though their music was obviously not conceived for a film.
NMK: Added to the pressure of deadlines and the constant travelling that your work demands, when was the last time you composed a tune just for the love of it?
A.R. Rahman: Late last night. I composed three tunes on the piano. [smiles]
NMK: Hope we’ll get to hear them someday. From the start of your career, you have wanted to bring change in film music. How do people react to your music now? Has musical taste changed a lot?
A.R. Rahman: It isn’t easy to answer that question in a few words. I suppose there’s a section of the Tamil audience that still love a tune based on Carnatic music. Others prefer an experimental or modern sound. Audiences used to expect some songs to be special. Now they want every song to be special. We try and achieve that standard but only a few songs are truly special. Expectations are much higher today.
There are also many people who only listen to Indian or Western classical and never to Indian film music. I was recently in Kerala and met a minister who was talking to me about Bartok. I was zapped. Living in Kerala, he hears only Western classical.
Most people’s taste in music is largely defined by a combination of cultural influences. We all like mixing and matching, so fusion music is popular now. There is a kind of mutual growth that takes place. You grow because of them and they grow because of you.
But I guess it’s impossible to generalize about what Indians enjoy in terms of music. Musical taste is really broad here. I was listening to the most unusual sounds when I was growing up.
NMK: What music was that?
A.R. Rahman: Not the usual music, you know. When I worked as a session musician, I was obviously surrounded by Indian film music. But I’d be listening on my headphones to Vangelis, John Williams or a Zulu chant.
My interest in jazz began years later with Chick Corea, Dave Grusin, and Herbie Hancock.
NMK: I believe it was your father, R.K. Sekhar, who gave you your first music lesson. He is still regarded as a legend in the Malayalam music industry. How did he come to join films?
A.R. Rahman: He began by composing for the theatre and then for the cinema. My father was a composer, arranger, and conductor and had worked in over a hundred films. He played the harmonium and piano. My father used to be so busy that he would sometimes do seven or eight recordings a day.
Yes, he did give me my first music lesson. But I only remember it faintly. I was four.
NMK: Where were you born, at home or in a hospital?
A.R. Rahman: My parents lived with my maternal grandparents in a rented house on Mount Road in Pudupet in Chennai. I was born there on 6 January 1967, in the morning — at 5:50. It was a Friday. There was no midwife assisting the birth, and my grandmother and father were by my mother’s side.
I was told that my father was very happy because I was the first son in the family, so he distributed sweets to everyone. You know most Indian parents are keen on having a son. [smiles]
My mother said I used to suffer from tummy problems and until I turned four, I believe, I was a frail child.
