Ten years ago, Kailas Menon was 16 and a student of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Thrissur. As he sat through a tedious lecture, he was struck with an idea to compose a music album. Thus was born ‘Snehathode’. It is a music album with six songs, sung by the likes of Jyotsna (Kailas’ schoolmate), Asha G. Menon, Madhu Balakrishnan and Afsal.
Kailas comes from a family with no musical inclinations. But his parents were supportive and he learnt Carnatic music for eight years. He is also a self-taught keyboard player. He graduated in Visual Communications from SRM College, Chennai, and alongside, pursued a course in sound engineering from SAE Institute.
Lately, the advertisement industry in Kerala has become Kailas’ forte. He’s composed around 400 jingles for noted brands such as Bhima Jewellery, Seematti Silks, RMKV Silks and Lulu, to name a few.
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Says Kailas: “The ad world offers a lot of scope. It is an exciting and rewarding field.”
Mollywood soon beckoned the young music director when filmmaker Jayaraj approached him to compose music for Pakarnattam . “I just knew that I had to compose the music for it. The scope was immense. Music was an integral part of the movie as was silence,” he recalls.
Kailas, who is based in Chennai, seems happy about the changes taking place in the Malayalam film industry but he feels the budget set aside for music is still limited and that there is a lot of pressure on time. Along with a friend, Kailas has set up a recording studio named Octaves in Chennai, where he maintains a healthy mix of music composition, sound mixing and sound engineering.
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Kailas is the recipient of the Chennai Ad Club’s best jingle award for the years 2009 and 2011.