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Starting on the seventh note

Photos : Murali Kumar k.

Fab four Sumithra, Sairam, Vikram Joshi, and Siddeshwar did everything on the album themselves, from the song writing and composing to production

The sound is young and bubbly, almost bursting out like a contemporary film soundtrack. There are hardly any real instruments used, and yet the tracks conform to our idea of music. It is an unusual sound in the world of Kannada music. The enthusiasm and energy of “Nee” — the band and the album — is palpable, so is the leveraging of the knowledge of technology to make music.

A motley group of four youngsters, largely professionals from the IT sector, came together to form a band Nee, and cut their own private Kannada album “Nee”, and even released it on their own label! It all started in 2001, when Siddeshwar, now 27 was challenged by a friend — he argued that it was possible to make music on a “virtual studio”, without any instruments.

“It took me two years to get the idea going and put things into place,” says Siddeshwar.

“He wanted to prove that with plug-ins and software, we can sit at home and record our voice and mix it later with effects,” pitches in Sairam, 33, who joined Siddeshwar in his venture in 2004. While Siddeshwar works for Oracle, Sairam is with ITC Infotech. They put together 10 Hindi songs initially, but the duo lost touch over the years.

That is until they came back together, through common friends, with two more band members — 23-year-old Vikram Joshi and 25-year-old Sumithra, who is with Wipro Infotech (and a mom of two!). Joshi is the only non-IT guy, working with Star Health Insurance.

There was a hitch, though. All of them had full-time jobs, and Joshi lives and works in Davangere. It was weekends and holidays that they dedicated to their music, and Joshi would come down for practise sessions and recordings. So obviously, their bosses weren’t complaining either. “Music is a stress-buster for us. It is relaxing and we go back fresh to work on Monday morning,” says Siddeshwar. Sumithra is learning Carnatic classical music, and Siddeshwar takes guitar classes online. Sairam and Joshi have been training in classical and performing on stage since they were kids.

It wasn’t just time that went into the project. They pooled in their own money, about two lakh rupees, just for the music. They set up the Nee Studio in Vijaynagar and got started. “We use the guitar and piano, live. Everything else is virtual,” pipes in Siddeshwar. “We didn’t want to get into the hassles of marketing, so we did the music on our own label. We only outsourced the distribution.”

But what made them want to do a Kannada album? “We did some market research and found that there were no private Kannada albums…but people were willing to listen. Moreover, we wanted to give back something to the State that gave us our jobs,” says Sairam, who’s from West Bengal and speaks Telugu and Hindi at home. He learnt Kannada and worked on his pronunciation to sing for the album. “If Sonu Nigam can do it, so can I,” he adds, grinning.

They explain that “Nee” being the seventh notation on the music scale and everything of importance being in that same magical number — from continents, seas and colours in the rainbow to seven days in a week — they couldn’t think of a better name for their venture, which they see as the re-birth of music. Their title track is seventh on the album.

The album is a potpourri of various genres. There is soft rock, Arabic tunes, classical Indian, pop and light music. The songs are about love, human desire, sorrow, the beauty of nature, a gypsy’s life… The band have penned the lyrics and composed the music. It includes three of the original Hindi tracks that Siddeshwar and Sairam put together in the formative years. They have even gone ahead and done a music video for one of the tracks and are in talks with TV channels. In fact, it was a chance interview on a TV channel that got them all enthused, because of the unbelievable volume of response they got on a live show.

Colleagues too have been encouraging and eager to hear them, says Sumithra. In fact they all started by selling copies of their album at their workplace. In fact colleagues rib them saying they have an alternate career, even if they lose their jobs to the recession.

The album was released recently by noted musician Raghu Dixit and is available in the market for the magical price of Rs. 77. The band can be contacted on 97318-28282.

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