For singer and music composer Vishal Mishra, 2019 has begun on a high note. The musician, who has composed songs for Veere Di Wedding, Race 3, Munna Michael and more, has an entire album to his credit this time! We don’t see that happen often nowadays but Vishal has made it possible with Notebook. What’s also special about his album is that there’s a song sung by Salman Khan called ‘Main Taare‘. So to know more about it, we got in touch with Vishal and asked him about the album, his career, what his first meeting with Salman was like and much more.
Excerpts from the interview:
Congratulations on the Notebook album, it has been loved by the audience. How do you feel about it?
Thank you so much. I feel that a person will seek remuneration and praise at one point in life, but I feel creative understanding is hard. As a creative person, I want to make music that is understood and liked by people. People now understand what I’m trying to portray, I’m really glad and grateful for it.
Nowadays, we rarely see composers work on the entire album and you have done that with Notebook. How did you make it possible?
I give the whole credit to my producers for trusting me. They gave me an opportunity to score it. I collaborated with over 200 musicians and also travelled to Europe. I have composed the original background score and many other songs, but never a whole album. Responsibility brings the best out of me. So yes, it has been a long process. All the hard work is satisfying when people listen to the song and like it as it is their song. I feel very overwhelmed.
How important is this album in your career?
I don’t know about my career, but I would certainly rate this as one of the most amazing moments in my personal creative front. This is a memory that I will cherish for a really long time. It is an album related to the script and I have longed to make one such album. It has given me a different level of creative satisfaction, it is faring commercially really well so I’m happy about it. All in all, it gave me an opportunity to explore heights that I have had not explored before, I’m really glad that I did this.
What is special about the Notebook album?
This album is imperfect. It’s all folk music. People relate to imperfect music now. 90 percent of it is music and 10 percent is magic that I have left to work on its own. I hope people like this and enjoy Notebook as it is a very honest and beautiful film. It is a love story that people might have heard every now and then, but now they get to see it on screen.
Moving on, we all know Salman has sung ‘Main Tare’. Can you tell us about your first meeting him?
This is actually my fourth collaboration with Salman sir. I have known him for 4 years now. It is always beautiful to work with him. His experience is more than my age. He has worked for 30 years now, and when such a magnanimous personality and star opens his heart, it is always a bliss to have him in the setup. He has mentored me through a lot of things and he never counters the creativity. He suggested adding the Kashmiri language in the song Bumro for the movie and it turned out really well. His vision is so clear. He sang a song for the movie, as you mentioned, and when he does anything it reaches to thousands of people. We are blessed to get his guidance. And no one could have done this better than him; he has done wonders to the song.
Since you know Salman sir for so long, can you share some anecdote about him?
The best part about him is that the tag he has “Being Human”, it suits him. He has given me small inputs that have helped me so much. There is a song called “Nahi Lagda” in the movie, I made the chorus of the song differently and he suggested taking it high and that turned out to be really nice.
Was music something you were passionate about since childhood?
Music was something that I use to breathe since my childhood. My family is a typical middle-class family. My dad is a lawyer and a builder and my mom is a simple housewife. There was nobody in my family that was intrigued about music. I was doing a lot till 2012. It started out with one audition that I happened to drop for, and since then I have never left Bombay. All of this has been like a dream. People ask about my struggles and success but I never really realised all this until now. This is my life now, I work 20 hours a day. I feel blessed that god has given me an opportunity to create music.
We wish Vishal and the team Notebook good luck for their film which is releasing tomorrow, 29th March.