Sandesh Prabhudesai
13 December 2001
Remo
Fernandes, one of the premier in Indian pop music, is still
regaling the youngsters in the country and abroad, after his
first album ‘Bombay City’ was released in 1987, almost a decade-and-a-half
ago. Having born in Goa during the Portuguese regime, he was
exposed from his childhood to Latin American, European and
Indian music, the ingredients, which are found prominently
in his music.
After having attended school in Goa and
gaining degree of architecture in Mumbai, he hitch-hiked around
eight European and North African countries during two and
a half years with a tent, haversack and guitar, playing in
underground stations and street corners and café terraces,
imbibing cultures and musical styles. He then returned to
roots and set up his own recording studio in his ancestral
house in the picturesque village of Siolim, in North Goa,
while performing all over India and abroad.
Besides being the highest
record-selling Indian pop/rock artist in English with albums
like "Politicians don't know how to rock'n'roll" and "Pack
the Smack" etc, he also became popular among Hindi audience
with his famous filmi songs like "Humma Humma",
"O, Meri Munni" and "Pyaar to Hona Hi Thaa".
After himself scripting,
directing, editing and producing his last pop music video
"Cyber Viber", Remo has now developed a different kind of
music, which he calls , the music of soul, releasing his album
last week - ‘India Beyond’.
Remo performs on stage
totally LIVE with his band, without any backing tracks and
no lip sync. Besides composing the music, writing the lyrics,
engineering the recordings and mixes, and designing the album
covers, Remo plays all the instruments and sings all the voices
in most of his albums.
After losing his four colleagues
including three musicians last year on 18 September in a road
accident, Remo appeared on stage only last month in Mumbai
at Goa Festival. Following this, his soul-searching album
also now contains two songs – ‘A Fishbowl called Life’ and
‘The Empty Stage’ - dedicated to his lost colleagues.
Though pop is primarily
the music of body, Remo went beyond it, spreading social messages
on drugs, AIDS, corruption, communalism, suppression of women,
war and armament and other things. His latest album perhaps
is an intense attempt to reach closer to human mind.
The album, interestingly,
also contains four folk songs, sung by his Siolim village
ladies, known as ‘fugdi’ in Konkani. goanews.com
spoke in brief about Remo’s new attempt, which was experienced
in Goa by several luminaries while his friend and famous fashion
designer Wendell Rodricks unveiled his ethnic Goan collection
‘craftworks’. That is the way his album was released….
goanews
: What prompted you to come out
with this different kind of music ?
Remo : Ever since I
released 'Bombay City' in 1987, a favourite question from
journalists during interviews has been "what kind of music
do you see yourself making 10 or 20 years from now?" I always
answered that, besides rock and pop, I also had this very
'different kind of music' within me which I wanted to produce
and release one day. Their next question would invariably
be "When do you see yourself creating it?" My invariable answer
was "when I'm too old to rock'n'roll."
goanews
: Have you reached that age, you
feel ?
Remo : Fortunately
for me [and perhaps unfortunately for some listeners], I haven't
outgrown rock'n'roll at all; and I guess I never will, because
I have discovered that high-energy music is a life-time marriage
with me, not just a youthful affair. But that 'different kind
of music' got tired of waiting bottled up, and did something
strange when the new millennium struck – it grabbed me by
the throat and told me in no uncertain terms that its time
had come. So in January 2000 I started recording this new
album in a strangely serene and very private state of mind.
No one, even within my own home where my recording studio
is situated, got to hear any of it until it was almost complete
a year and half later.
goanews
: What would you call this music as ?
Remo :
If my past music was music for the body [with a few messages
for the mind thrown in], this one is an album for the soul.
I hope it touches yours.
goanews
: Can we call it spiritual music
?
Remo : Yes, you can,
but I prefer that YOU use the word 'spiritual' to describe
it, not me! Because if I used it, I would find it presumptuous.
goanews
: Is this an indication that you
are planning to slowly divorce from high-energy pop &
rock and diverting to this 'different kind of music' or 'more
mature music' as you call it ?
Remo
: As I have said it earlier, high-energy rock and I have
a lifetime marriage going, not just a youthful fling. I said
I don't see myself ever separating from it or outgrowing it.
We all have a body AND a soul! But I just feel the need to
simultaneously express this other side of me now - and this
is a side which has always been there, it’s not new; it’s
just that it lay unexposed and unexpressed in my music till
today.
goanews
: Is it just a milestone or crossroads
you have reached ?
Remo : You mean
have I reached my final destination in music, or is there
still going to be more evolution from here onwards ? Well,
I certainly hope so! When we stop evolving, we might as well
be dead and extinct.
goanews
: No, what I mean is whether you are
planning to take a diversion and now concentrate more on such
kind of music; or your pop will continue.
Remo : I don't know.
I really don't know. I guess musical directions have to be
taken when they come to you, not by chasing them. I do know
that I will be completing another 'spiritual' album next -
in fact I started work on it even before I started 'India
Beyond', and it is half recorded already !
I will certainly continue
playing pop and rock at my concerts, though, because I just
love the adrenaline rush of such music at live performances;
but I don't envisage recording a pop album in the near future.
But who knows, I just might be in the mood for one next week
!
goanews
: No doubt this is music of soul,
something which is very dear to you. But from market point
of view, which audience are you targeting?
Remo : An audience
with soul !
goanews
: Do you expect your pop/rock fans
will appreciate this effort ?
Remo : Hey, some of
them have souls too! I love pop and rock, but I love this
kind of music as well. And I also love classical, and jazz,
and techno, and ethnic, and world music, and so on and so
forth... no barriers. People with varied tastes will always
have the capacity to enjoy different kinds of music and cuisine
and art and literature, and will even be more understanding
towards those with different customs and religions. People
with limited outlooks will stick to one genre of everything
in life - and probably criticise everything else. But they
don't know what they're missing.
goanews
: You are known for having a good
foresight of tomorrow's music today. You were in the field
of rock & pop much before it became a common craze in
India. In the similar manner, do you foresee a new kind of
music lover emerging in India, who will appreciate this 'different
kind of music'?
Remo : Yes, I do. Especially
in India, because for a while now our music companies and
music channels have been pushing nothing but pop and filmi
music. I think there is a whole lot of people out there who
are tired of it, and are looking for something else... something
soothing and calm and sensitive for a change.
goanews
: Fusioning folk is a new pop trend
nowadays. Rather than this, why did you think of taking original
'fugdi' with ambient electronica ?
Remo : I guess I was
doing more than just following a trend or attempting fusion...
I was attempting a very deep dive into my own roots, cultural
and musical. I have been hearing these very women singing
these fugdis in a temple in a coconut grove by the river by
my house for years, and I know that their mothers and grand
mothers and great grandmothers before them have sung them
in the very same rustic way for centuries. This thought gave
such a sense of continuity not only to their songs, but also
to my own ancestry and origins. I realised that these chants
are part of me, of who I am, and therefore in a certain way
they are part of my musical roots too. So I used them as short
interludes between every two songs, like a little reminder
of where I come from.
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