A.R. Rahman is an Indian musician, record producer and film composer with more than 180 scores to his credit, starting with Mani Ratnam’s Roja in 1992.
Danny Boyle asked him to score Slumdog Millionaire after hearing his music for 1999’s Taal and Rahman’s fusion of Indian music, hip-hop, R&B and house for the film went on to win him a Golden Globe, a Bafta and two Oscars, for best score and best original song for ‘Jai Ho’.
Rahman subsequently worked with Boyle on 127 Hours and the 2012 London Olympics and will be the guest of honour at this year’s World Soundtrack Awards at Film Fest Gent in October.
Your father, RK Shekhar, was a film composer. Was it inevitable you would follow in his footsteps?
Everyone got toys for playing; I got keyboards and synthesizers when I was young. Even though I wanted to become an electronics engineer, my mother was very clear after he passed away that I should take on my father’s legacy. It was painful to skip college because I thought, “Nobody’s going to respect a person who’s not done academics.” But she was right, I was wrong. I owe my father and mother for leading me into music.
What was your musical journey along the way to becoming a fully-fledged composer of film scores?
My father passed away in 1976; I was born in 1967 and was playing my own stuff from 1980. I started setting up equipment, working as a roadie, then spent 10 years as a session musician working on 200 movies. But playing other people’s music became very boring. So around 1989, I built my own studio with a 16-track. In those days, studios had two tracks, one for voice, one for music, and having my own 16-track studio was liberating. That led to jingles. And jingles were very international. You had to compose a tango, a classical piece, a pop hook, stuff like that.
How did jingles lead to your first film, Roja, in 1992?
I had done a jingle which became very famous and won an award. The producer was related to the iconic director Mani Ratnam, and one day she said, “He’s going to come for this party.” It was like Spielberg coming, it blew my mind. I told him, “Why don’t you come to my studio?” He was associated with another composer at the time and said, “He is the best composer in the world.”
Destiny-wise, something happened, a fallout, and he was looking for somebody new and the rest is history. He mentored me and I learned a lot from him. Not about music, but about presentation, about application of music on films, how to stand out from the normal.
How did you find that first scoring experience?
In India, they come and tell you the story and they need four to five songs: the romantic song, the sad song, the patriotic song… With him, it was more experiential and more adventurous. That inspired me to compose for him in a different way and stand out from the others.
I was a big fan of Switched-On Bach, the Wendy Carlos album, when I was growing up – my father had that. And John Williams and [Ennio] Morricone shaped my sound, because I was so tired of listening to my own culture. I would go into that alternate world, constantly; I wanted to do stuff like that. Then in 2001-2, I recorded the London Film Orchestra for Bombay Dreams, the stage musical, which Andrew Lloyd Webber produced. That triggered me to use more Western orchestras for other movies like The Legend Of Bhagat Singh.
How did the Indian film industry react to your less-than-traditional musical approach?
It’s funny. I was not passionate about composing for Indian films at that time because I thought it’s a trap. But I didn’t know my music would be influential because I had very low expectations of [it as a] career. I wanted to do something outside movies. But then the technology changed. There was Dolby Studio, then Dolby Atmos, then DTS. Then digital cinema came in, so all my fears that it’s a useless thing to do movies in mono changed. It was like a beast asking, “Gimme more. I can take it.”
When did international filmmakers start asking you to score their movies?
It started with Deepa Mehta, the Canadian director, who did a [1996] movie called Fire. Very controversial lesbian movie. People said, “Don’t do the movie.” I met her. She was very kind and very strong inside, but a very, very soft person. I had a great experience. Then came Earth, then Water. Mychael Danna scored that one, and I did the songs.
You scored Elizabeth: The Golden Age for Shekhar Kapur, then Danny Boyle approached you for Slumdog Millionaire. How did that come about?
I was not familiar with Danny Boyle, but when I was in England I used to search for great movies, and Trainspotting was one which always kept being recommended. When I knew Trainspotting was this guy’s movie, I said, “I’m in good hands, he’s so good at curating music.”
He said, “It will be a great honour if you can do the movie.” I was fearful he might reject all the music, so I never told anyone I was working on the film. I quietly finished all the cues, sent them to him, and then I heard from my agent. He called and said, “What have you done? Have you done music for this movie Slumdog Millionaire? It’s premiering in Toronto, and everybody’s raving about your music and song!” I said, “Yes.” And he said, “Okay, take the next flight over here. We are going to do some PR for it.” I needed a break, to get away from India, so I went.
Presumably, the two Oscars you won for Slumdog opened doors for you in Hollywood, but apart from working with Boyle again on 127 Hours, you haven’t really pursued that path.
Yes, [the Oscars] did open a lot of doors. At that point, I had been working from the age of 12. For me, it was a great period to just freewheel a bit, enjoy life, drive around, spend time with family, travel, which was not a good decision. I should have been bombastic: “I won two Oscars. Gimme more.” But because I was in that chilling mode, I did less.
I’m not resentful about that. The only problem with doing an Indian movie and winning an Oscar is you get pigeonholed: “It’s an Indian movie, let’s go to A.R.” That is something I hate. That’s not fair. Because I’m not just Indian. I’m less Indian and more international, I think. So that forced me to take my own direction for a VR movie, then I produced a movie in India called 99 Songs and wrote the story. That was fun. And those two projects ignited me into learning more about psychology, geopolitics and the artistry of filmmaking and the future, which is now VR XR, MR and AI.
I took a course at MIT on imaging four or five years back, a short course, but meeting those professors and seeing where music is going, where art is going rather than following somebody else’s footsteps. What are the possibilities to create something unique for your own or for the world with your sensibilities? How to make technology organic so that you don’t abide by technology’s rules, but you change technology to human needs, to human excellence. That process is fascinating.
No comments yet