Bringing soul to small screen

American indie musician and frontman of Goldspot, Siddhartha Khosla, tells us why his latest composition for This Is Us is special

It’s funny for a musician — who’s spent more than a decade crafting delicate, emotional (often relatable) indie rock — when his claim to fame suddenly becomes a composition made for a TV show’s most poignant moment.

Siddhartha Khosla, the man behind evocative tales from the Indian-American identity for Goldspot, is talking to us over the phone from Los Angeles, about his latest composition, ‘We Can Always Come Back to This’, for TV drama This Is Us . “The song kind of became a hit. It’s crazy how it became bigger than any Goldspot song I had written in the last few years. It was really special.”

It’s true — the bluesy Motown-era throwback featuring singer Brian Tyree Henry topped the Billboard Blues charts and already has over 1,00,000 plays on YouTube. The show, which airs on Star World Première HD and just wrapped up its first season on March 18, is a real tear-jerker that’s become American TV’s current favourite.

Back in time

Khosla became involved as music producer and composer for the show through its creator, Dan Fogelman, also his college friend. “Our relationship existed outside well before this show came about. This show is incredibly special and beautifully crafted by Dan. I know kind of why the characters are here and what they’re experiencing, because it’s him expressing himself through the show. And I have a deeper understanding of that,” Khosla says.

By the time Goldspot’s third album,

Aerogramme , was out in 2013 — reminiscing about his days living in India while his parents studied and worked their way to live the American dream — Khosla was already composing songs for Fogelman’s other TV show, a family comedy called

The Neighbors . Since 2006, the band’s songs, like their cover of indie rockers Modest Mouse’s ‘Float On’ on

The O.C. and ‘Rewind’ on

How I Met Your Mother have given Khosla plenty of vindication, while also picking up scoring work for TV shows such as the UK drama

The Royals , and a comedy called

Grandfathered .

With about four years of experience now, Khosla still feels he’s “very new in many ways” to the game. He adds, “A lot of producers and directors in Hollywood are hiring me because they like Goldspot — they heard it on the radio or they like the sensibility I brought to the music. They want that kind of outside-the-box, interesting take on music in TV shows. All my years of Goldspot have prepared me for this, and doing this, in turn, will also help influence my next Goldspot album. It all feeds into the same dream.”

Musical connect

Khosla’s popularity was first with Americans, and Indian Americans found a voice they could relate to — coupled with that unmistakable influence of the likes of S D Burman, Mohammed Rafi and Kishore Kumar. He says, “It’s interesting. I think most people who know Goldspot think of it as an Indian American project. When Goldspot was first discovered here on the radio, I don’t think anyone really knew what my ethnicity was.”

The popularity of Goldspot for more than a decade, and now, the connection people have to the music of This Is Us , is something that amazes Khosla. “I feel incredibly fortunate that I’ve been brought in to the career that I have, that I’ve always been able to make music and tell stories that I believe in. I’m just so humbled that it’s connected to people so deeply. That just blows my mind.”

India calling

Being in the entertainment industry, he notes, it’s very difficult to actually come across success. He reiterates, “When you do, you just thank your stars that you achieved it. You’re grateful for the experience and that you made something that connected with people.” And since he saw commercial success early on in his career with Goldspot’s debut album, Tally of the Yes Men , featuring the band’s most memorable songs to date, such as ‘Friday’ and ‘Rewind’, Khosla continues to work towards making music that resonates — that’s what we can expect from future Goldspot material, as well as his work on The Neighbors , This Is Us , plus his work on feature film Basmati Blues , starring Brie Larson, Donald Sutherland, and a cameo from the project’s songwriter, Khosla himself.

It’s one of the reasons he can’t spare much time for any shows in India just yet. He says, “These are really intense projects where I’m working seven days a week and I don’t have time for anything else.” Turns out the last time he was in India, the tour rehearsals and gig schedule clashed with TV work. He says, “I had to find a recording studio and score one of my television shows while I was still in India. That was really hard to do and it was really stressful. I learnt my lesson and I think moving forward, when there’s an actual break, I’ll go to India, or I’ll devote myself totally to Goldspot.”