Longing to do a Western: Justin Prabhakaran

Up-and-coming composer Justin Prabhakaran on his latest hit

Justin Prabhakaran is particular that no two songs of his sound the same. The composer whose stock has risen following the rousing reception to ‘Adiyae Azhagae’ in Oru Naal Koothu , is quite excited about working with young directors. “It’s great that they give us the freedom to explore and experiment,” he says.

He says he owes the success of ‘Adiyae Azhagae’ to director Nelson Venkatesan. “It was his idea to mix rural and Western styles. The success of a song often also depends on the picturisation, and Nelson’s great video helped too.” On borrowing lines for ‘Eppo Varuvaaro’ from Tamil poet Gopalakrishna Bharathi, Justin again credits Nelson. “I had the easy job of fine-tuning it to suit today’s taste, and it quickly found its way into the hearts of Carnatic music fans.” The composer, previously a sound engineer working for Harris Jayaraj, attributes his rise to the knowledge he gained from working on short films.

Justin announced his arrival with a bang in

Pannaiyarum Padminiyum , whose songs were huge hits, especially ‘Pesuraen Pesuraen’ and ‘Onakkaga Poranthaenae’. “Though ‘Pesuraen Pesuraen’ was filmed with the backdrop of a death in the family, the audience could relate to the love blossoming. In ‘Onakkaga Poranthaenae’, the tune had to bridge two generations. Vaali sir’s lyrics were also instrumental in its success, and he promised to work on all my songs in my forthcoming film, but sadly, it wasn’t meant to be.”

Up next for Justin is

Ulkuthu and Kaala Koothu . Justin said, “These will be perfect foils for my previous work. In Ulkuthu , an action film, I’ve composed a few commercial numbers backed by simple lyrics.”

Being from Madurai himself, perhaps he relates more to these action films? Justin says it’s far from it. “Fusion is my forte. My dream is to work on a completely Western album, provided the film has space for it.”