Nikhil J. Menon seems to be making all the right noises and winning fans and friends. The 25-year-old composer-singer makes his debut in Lal Jose’s Nee-Na , releasing today and looks like this songster has just hit all the right notes.
His Aha moment came about when R. Venugopal, scriptwriter of Nee-Na , introduced him to Lal Jose as a potential composer and singer. “Venu chettan (Venugopal) liked the lyrics of ‘Lullaby’, which I had composed and sang for my band Counter Clockwise. When he met me, I told him about one of the first songs I had written, ‘Where gravity fails’. He felt that it could be used in a movie,” recalls Nikhil, who seems to be doing his own version of defeating gravity, as he is walking on air.
He continues: “One day he calls me up to ask if I would do the music for a Lal Jose movie? I was dumbstruck! I met the team at Shoranur and within a day I composed ‘I remember you’. Lal sir, who listened to ‘Where gravity fails’, liked my voice and before I knew it, the song was also part of Nee-Na !,” he says, still a little awed by the turn of events.
Of the three tracks, two are English numbers, a rarity in Mollywood and that too in a Lal Jose movie.
“Well, I have had my apprehensions about Malayalis warming up to English songs in a movie. So it came as a pleasant surprise when the English songs won more appreciation when the audio tracks were released. No visuals of the songs were released since that would have given away a lot about the storyline,” says Nikhil.
While Nikhil has sung his own composition ‘Where gravity fails’ and the male version of ‘I remember you’ written by R. Venugopal, the scriptwriter of the movie, Shakhtisree Gopalan has crooned the female version of ‘I remember you’. The other track, ‘Then Nila’ is sung by Sachin Warrier.
There is no doubt that chef-turned-musician Nikhil has scored high on his first outing in Mollywood. Pausing to take stock of the journey, Nikhil says that cooking and music have always been a part of his life, right from childhood, thanks to his parents.
“Cooking has been a passion while music is something I seem to have inherited. In my dad’s family, they listened to all kinds of music. My mom’s family is from Malaysia and her brother has a band there. I learnt Carnatic music for a couple of years and the piano as well. I am a self-taught guitarist and drummer,” he says.
Born in Thiruvananthapuram, he shuttled between the capital city and Kochi till his class 12 owing to his father’s job. He completed his graduation in hotel management from Aurangabad and later worked in Bangalore with two companies in the sales and marketing section.
In 2013 he came to Kochi and joined Springr Café and Studios in Mattanchery where he worked as their café manager and did menu planning and execution for 12 music events. It is there that he met Baiju Dharmajan, former lead guitarist of Motherjane, and started performing as the lead vocalist and guitarist for The Baiju Dharmajan Syndicate (2013). That was around the time he met Venugopal too.
In October last year, Nikhil launched his band, Counter Clockwise (with bass guitarist Rashik M.S. and drummer Sibin Paul K) and released the single ‘Lullaby’. The rest of his music trip was on track. He is keeping his fingers crossed as D-day is here. However Nikhil is on cloud nine because of the director’s confidence in a newcomer like him. “He told me that I should take full responsibility of my work. The work was challenging in that I am not used to working within a time frame. I am very particular about lyrics of a song and I am comfortable with English lyrics, that too which I have written. I give a lot of thought to my lyrics, which has much to do with my reading habit. But I have never lyrically connected with Malayalam. So it was not easy composing the Malayalam number. But Venu chettan ’s lyrics were so beautiful that it made my work easy. We are confident about the output since the mastering of the work has been done outside India by expert technicians,” he says.
Meanwhile he is buoyed by the vibrant independent music scene in Kerala. “Now there are a lot of opportunities for bands and artistes to perform. There is a genuine respect for good music and the musicians on their part are paying attention to having the best equipment to give the best result.”
Short takes
* A foodie, Nikhil loves cooking. “My mom had to keep me out of the kitchen due to safety reasons. From my mother’s side I have learnt cooking – Oriental and Continental cooking. And my paternal grandmother, whom I consider the best cook on the planet, taught me to cook naadan food. I think I make good seafood dishes.”
* He has acted as a musician in the movie Nellikka and is open to do “challenging roles”.
* Nikhil has his own interior design business and has designed three cafes in Kochi.
