Pratyul Joshi talks about his journey, influences, career and more
In an exclusive interview with mid-day.com, Pratyul Joshi, winner of Songdew website that promotes independent musicians talks about his journey, influences, career and more.
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We have been performing together for more than 4 years now having played at major venues like Blue Frog, Social, Phoenix Marketcity as well as major music fests headlining Tenheads fest Delhi, Lil flea Mumbai, Rhythm by the bay 2018 etc. 2018 was super special as my second music video "Baadshah" got released by T-series and has crossed 1.5 million views.
Also on December 1, we performed at prestigious Royal opera house Mumbai on our first sold out ticketed event, headlining for Rhythm by the Bay festival. In the last 4 years, I have performed across India as well as countries like the Middle East, Mauritius, Argentina, Kuwait etc. as Solo or band act.
My journey
I belong to hills of North Dehradun but due to my father's transferable job, I lived in seven states and can speak and understand five Indian languages. I pursued music since my early school days but became more inclined to pursue it professionally during my engineering graduation in Delhi. I started working as a studio assistant during nights at that time. Post graduation, much against my parents' wishes, I rebelled and left Delhi. I did my music production diploma at AME (part of A.R Rahman's KM conservatory) in Chennai and then cleared all India examination for Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune for pursuing masters in Audio engineering. It was during this time I travelled across India learning Indian folk and life at grassroots level. Post-FTII Pune was what I call as the turning point when I came to Mumbai in 2012 and even after struggling close to six months couldn't land a project. I was offered to perform as street performer By an NGO NSPA and I reluctantly agreed to save myself from poverty.
For two and half years I performed at every street and station of Mumbai, without microphones, speakers or stage. During this time, one song of mine "Ik Banjara" performed for a charity event, got 200,000 plus views on YouTube on its live recording. After this in 2014 NSPA decided to produce my first music video Patanga (the moth), which was an autobiographical song on small-town boy getting attracted to glittery big cities as the moth gets attracted fatally to a hot light bulb. Patanga was critically acclaimed on YouTube and opened doors for streets to stage events, jingles and films. Since then life healed a bit and yes street performance saved my life in more than ways I can imagine.
Influences
In many ways, I have been influenced more by events in my life than an artist or a genre. I Wrote 'Baadshah' (T-Series video 2018) when I was in Delhi, where the attitude was of king of this world, patanga (independent 2014) was influenced by my own experience of lows during street performer days as how we are attracted to glittery things in life even when they might be fake or fatal. 'Ik Banjara' talks on how we are flowing in life rather than swimming against the current.
My love for Indian folk and languages becomes the fodder for song making. I can say I am very much dependent on life experiences for song themes and song making and for that research, travel extensively.
Latest albums
I have now finished production of one more music video with Tseries called "Kaleena" which is one of a kind trilingual song in Punjabi, Hindi and Russian. I have been working extensively on the creation of a music reality web series and have also composed for a title Bollywood film. I have been as jingle composer/producer for long to having composed for major brands.
Forthcoming tours
The band and I have been touring Baadshah 2019 tour post-release of the music video which will see us hopefully across the country and few countries abroad too.
About the band:
Pratyul Joshi Live is the name of the live band
Chirayu Vedekar on Bass
Prince Bhatra on electric guitars
Sahil Shah on drums
Alok Kulkarni on Guitars
Prasad Satam as a sound engineer
Pratyul Joshi as singer/songwriter/acoustic guitar
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