This is the story of how I got to be a part of the soundtrack of a Hindi film! It all started when I first moved out to San Diego. I responded to an email selling a Korg synth, and met Suresh Sistla for the first time. We found out we have very similar interests and we’ve been talking music and recording ever since. One day, Suresh asked if I’d be interested in playing some guitar in his soundtrack for the movie “The Girl Upstairs” by fellow Qualcommer Siddharth Katragadda. I jumped at the chance to be a part of this project and soon we met up to discuss and jam through some stuff. After playing through some parts, Suresh asked if I could sing in a song, with some lyrics in English and some in Hindi. I thought I’d give it a try, even though I knew the Hindi part would be tough.
I got my part, practiced it quite a bit, and came back for a practice run through. Suresh and his wife Sushma, who is a very talented Indian Classical singer, had plenty of critiques for me, but overall things were going well. We talked a little about the other tracks, and I gave my friend Lawrence a call to play some violin. Lawrence and I have played two weddings and jammed through a bunch of songs for fun, and I knew he’d be up for the challenge. We met up at Haemmerle Studios to record vocals, violin, and guitar. It was awesome being in a room with Suresh, the composer, Sid, the film writer, director, and producer, K.S.M. Phanindra, the lyricist, Sushma, the lead vocalist, Mark, the recording engineer and mixer, and Lawrence, the violinist! So many different talents working together to make this film soundtrack happen. I’m used to being in a band or solo situation, but this was a completely different experience! It took me a couple tries to get a good take for the song I was singing, “Mama.” Suresh and the other guys added a some emphasis on a few parts of the vocals of the song. When we were listening through it, Suresh said it was still missing something. He and Mark tried out a few things, then decided to autotune my voice to get the right sound for this party song. At first, the voice in my head was like “noooooooooooooo” as I’ve been fairly anti-autotune in the past, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that getting the right sound here was more important than my musical beliefs, and the result came out very good!
After the album was completed, I got my very own copy! The album starts off with Ne Korey, a pretty powerful rock-style song. It has a great guitar riff that’s later played on piano, some rockin’ percussion. This song also has an excellent vocal performance by both Balaji Raao and Sushma Suresh. I really like the duet style, and I wish I could understand what they were saying… When the song slows down a little bit, Lawrence’s violin comes in to play along with the main riff. This song has a wide variety of sounds which manage to come together quite cohesively, making it one of my favorites. One of my other favorites is Ragilinchi. I love the instrument that plays the main riff. I can’t remember for the life of me what its called, maybe Suresh can help me out here… Once again, Sushma’s vocals are very good, and always enjoyable to listen to. Anjali Theme is a very stripped down song that features Suresh’s guitar playing and Sushma’s singing, and is a great departure from the more produced sound of the rest of the album. Mama Song was my chance to shine on this album. This song has some crazy percussion on it, that took a while to get used to when recording, but the result was a very cool sound. Also, I’m sure my Hindi pronunciation was perfect.
I can’t wait to watch the film, “The Girl Upstairs”, and hear these songs come together in the final work! If you want a copy of the CD, let me know and I’ll pick up a copy from Suresh!
Eric