Background vocalists Dominique and Clinton Cerejo have scaled up the music ladder, earning lead credits on the biggest Bollywood soundtracks this year

THEY'VE been reshaping the sound of Bollywood with their gospel-trained vocals for a decade now. Lagaan, Aks, Dil Chahta Hai, Main Hoon Na, Hum Tum Clinton and his wife Dominique Cerejo have been credited for some of the most successful soundtracks of the last decade.

When we meet the singer-producer couple at their Bandra home, Clinton has just finished work on the soundtrack of Ishqiya and is onto Karthik Calling Karthik and Dominique is basking in all the praise she'd received for the title track of Pyaar Impossible. Clinton too heaped up praise last year for his rendition of Kya Karoon from Wake Up Sid.

The couple tells us that the creative highs have just begun. As recently as last year, Clinton was thrilled to find his name printed on the CD right upfront as a music producer alongside composer Vishal Bhardwaj and lyricist Gulzar's credits for Kaminey. "All this is happening now. It's Vishal Bhardwaj's grace as a composer to acknowledge us as producers. It's only in India that music producers are called programmers.

Luckily for Dominique, who had already gained experience in the advertising music industry singing jingles switched to Bollywood at a time when things were already changing. "Backing vocalists were considered chorus singers. You were called into the studio in the morning, waited maybe even until 8 in the evening, did your vocal take and were paid about Rs 800 and you went home.

There was no respect. But all that had changed by the time we came in." Adds Clinton, "But we're so glad that the scene is changing. I even suggest string lines sometimes when I do a vocal part and Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy give me a go ahead. They trust me because they also know that I'm producing a whole lot of music, so they accept my inputs on their instrumentation."

Composers called for the Cerejos because they could "make a team of four voices sound like 40." In fact composers Jatin-Lalit used these very words to describe what the Cerejos did in the studio. The technique lies in how the harmonies are written, explains Clinton.

"That's what gospel is built on," adds Clinton. While Dominique's talent is purely vocal, Clinton multitasks as a vocalist, vocal arranger who writes all the vocal parts and can design the entire sound production of a track.

"Vishalji sang Beedi over just a guitar and asked me to produce it. So we producers actually construct a song from scratch and the composer decides what parts he wants to keep." Compositions were never the sole creations of the composer, argues Clinton. "It's always a team effort and there a lot of people who take creative decisions which impact how the song finally turns out," he says.

It all started when Rahman was passing by the studio where Clinton was working on an Indipop artiste's album in 2000. "I don't even remember the name of the artiste now, but I know he was impressed with the vocal harmonies and wanted to know who was doing it. Much later, he tracked me down and wanted to sing for the Jana Gana Mana album and I told him that I was the one who did the harmonies."

What happened next totally floored Clinton. "He told me to write some arrangements for the National Anthem and just left the room. I had no clue what he wanted but knew it was a sink or swim situation." Adds Dominique, "With Rahman it's always like this.

He wants you to hit your best shot and he decides whether he wants to keep it or not." Next, Clinton was called back for the Lagaan score where he roped in a massive Methodist choir from Chennai to do the vocal parts. Offers have been pouring in since.

If there's one crib it's writing inane English lyrics for Bollywood tracks. Besides that, life is a song really for the talented couple.

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