[Answered at Delhi Airport and Cal HHI Hotel, on 29th December 2007]
Tell us about your growing up years in Goa? Was your family a musically-inclined one?
Growing up in Goa was like growing up in a natural, beautiful, friendly, caring paradise, where human relationships counted for more than anything else. Not just my family, but everyone around me was musically inclined. At cousins’ and friends’ birthdays, guitars would invariably be brought out, while uncles and aunts played violins and mandolins and pianos. People turned to themselves for entertainment; not to mechanical sound systems which prevented conversation and communication. Besides music, one other thing I heard a lot of was laughter. People laughed easily, and at things one would find naïve today.
When was the first time you realized that you could sing? How did it feel like when such realisation dawned on you?
Funny thing is, I cannot remember ever not thinking of myself as a singer or musician. Since I was about 4, it was accepted and instilled in me that I was this kid who sang and played the harmonica, then the eukelele, then the banjo, and eventually, when I was big enough to hold one, the guitar. And frankly, I was not the only one. Many kids in Goa sang, and played one or several instruments. This was considered natural, as common an activity as playing football.
How did your journey as a musician begin? How much influence did the green green grass and deep blue sea of home have on you?
I first went up on stage when I was five, formed my first kids’ band [helped by my Dad of course] when I was ten, wrote my first song when I was fourteen. But all this as an amateur – I was never expected to turn a professional musician, but to follow a ‘respectable’ profession. I guess that’s why I got myself a degree in architecture.
I’m sure Goa, and the Portuguese/Latin music I grew up to, influenced me no end. But this influence is sub-conscious, something which just seeps unnoticed into everything I do.
What is Remo minus Goa…
Ah… but then again, what would I be without my years in Mumbai, in Paris and the rest of Europe? Most places I have lived in – and sometimes even visited for a month or so, such as Africa or Brazil or Maurtius – have tended to influence and mark me forever. But I’m always grateful that my foundation roots, before I discovered the rest of the country and the world, belong in Goa. I could not have asked for a better formation ground, specially the Goa that was, that I was privileged and lucky to grow up in.
King of Pop – what have you done to sustain the image of ‘Remo’… spike hair, beads and bindaas clothes…
Sustain? Image? That sounds like too much trouble! I’ve worn bindaas clothes and beads and had freaky haircuts since I was in college, to my parents’ great distress… there was no reason to change myself after I became a little famous, was there?
You are not the regular rock star—no scandals, no publicity stunts, not many albums…but Remo still rules many a heart. Why?
Guess you’d have to interview some of my music listeners for that one. But I think that, in a country which glorifies lip-syncing actors and playback singers, some people know how to appreciate complete musicians; those who compose their own music and lyrics, who have an individual style of their own, who besides being pretty voices are also multi-instrumentalists and arrangers, and who have a certain ‘something’ on stage. At the risk of sounding pompous, I’ll say there are very few of us such musicians in India, and we have the appreciation of people who discern.
Can we have a glimpse into the private side of Remo? What were the emotions like when you had your firstborn?
Sometimes I think there is no difference between my public and private sides. I think I’ve laid all my thoughts and emotions bare for everyone to hear and view through my songs, often at the risk of compromising myself or embarrassing the people around me.
I think I’m a very good father, though of course you’d have to ask my sons that! But I read what my elder son said about me in an interview recently, and it brought tears to my eyes… He’d never said such wonderful things to me in person before …
My emotions when I saw both my sons at birth were like everyone else’s, I presume: I felt as though this miracle of life was happening for the very first time on earth!
Why do you maintain a distance from Bollywood in spite of hits like Jalwa, Humma Humma, Pyaar to hona hi…
I don’t maintain a distance from Bollywood, I just don’t embrace it too tight, I guess. I refuse to see it as the be-all and end-all of culture and showbiz, the way most of this country sees it. I see myself primarily as a composer and creator of my own albums, and I keep the occasional song I do for Bollywood just that: occasional. There’s a slogan which I’d love to engrave on the foreheads of the corporates, advertisers and media of this country: :”HELLO, THERE IS SOMETHING BEYOND BOLLYWOOD. AND IT IS CALLED LIFE.”
Are you averse to glamour and money? What kind of lifestyle do you lead? Are you brand conscious when it comes to the clothes you wear, the restaurants you dine in or the hotels you put up in?
I truly believe that being glamorous requires too much effort, and I’m too lazy for that. As far as money and lifestyle are concerned, I love beauty in simplicity, and sensuous comfort. I hate ostentation and pomp, in others as much as in myself – I find these cheap, in bad taste, something which any clown with money can buy.
Who competes with Remo today? Any new Indian singer/band you like?
I don’t know who competes with me, but I certainly don’t compete with anybody. I mean, if we each have our own style and original things to say, how can we compete with each other? People only compete when they’re trying to outdo one another at the same thing – say singers in the bhangra mould, the ghazal mould, or whatever mould.
Unfortunately, most Indian singers and bands I liked, which promised to shape the future of Indian pop, like Silk Route, Lucky Ali and Colonial Cousins, are near-extinct due to lack of continued backing from record companies and music channels, who are now only interested in promoting music which pays them big bucks: Bollywood soundtracks. The last ‘private albums’ I liked coming out of India were Rabbi’s and Kailash Kher’s – but unfortunately, Bollywood tries to recruit and harness anyone who creates something original, and that kills creativity, because Bollywood requires assembly-line production delivered on order. Maybe that’s why I could never turn full time Bollywood music director.
You’ve rocked the nation with Politicians don’t know to rock’n’roll during the Ayodhya demolition. Then there was Jalwa on drug addiction… Today we hear no such songs from you. Has the passion died? The fire snuffed out?
These songs which I wrote 20 years ago, on communalism and corruption and so on, hold perfectly good even today. So why should I keep repeating myself? I’ve moved on; two of my more recent albums were rather introspective, journeys of the soul and the mind: “Symphonic Chants” [containing the Gayatri Mantra and Om Jai Jagdish Hare], and “India Beyond”, tracks from which have been released in compilations in Europe and the USA. No, the passion and fire are very much there – they’re just not about the same old things, that’s all.
We’ve heard that President Kalam said, ‘Remo I am your fan’ when you went onstage to collect your Padmashree. Is it true? What did it feel like?
Yes, its true. It totally melted the official ice and made me break into a happy grin. His comment showed me what a great President he was, to make a small man like me feel at ease and comfortable at such a formal and potentially tense moment.