Anirudh Ravichander has worked with the same band since he was in school. The Chennai-based artist works with the same musicians on a daily basis at his studio. His latest single, on his label Albuquerque Records, “Aravindh” addresses the angst and journey of a “young, struggling independent artist”. Ravichander came up with the idea of composing a song from this alter ego artist’s point of view. The song, while rife with satirical take on the music industry today, gives some hope towards the climax. “Whatever may be the system now, that one day I will break it because my music will,” explains Ravichander.
His hack for composing effective music is to follow his usual pattern of making music irrespective of film assignments. “90-95% of the music that I make or we make in the studio is not for any specific film. What we did back in school and college where we just make songs on a daily basis, depending on our moods, depending on situations around us, depending on what my friends are going through, what I am going through, or something that we see, something that we hear,” shares Ravichander. They then try to fit them into the current film projects that they have. “So, that way I’ve kind of kept that independent artist within me intact,” he adds.
At the end of the day, whether as the alter ego ‘Aravindh’ – dedicated to his late best friend Aravinth Baskaran – or as himself, Ravichander says he is making music for people to enjoy.
“That’s been our aim since day one,” he states. While the “Chaleya” composer may end up making a song that he really loves, but is also aware of how it may not resonate with the majority of the audience, he thinks it is acceptable to a limit: “Still for the satisfaction you can. At the end of the day you’re still in the entertainment business and if you’re in an entertainment business it means you have to satisfy the customer and the customer is the audience and they are number one in the tree.” Ravichander confirms that this process has been his “game from day one” and plans to maintain that modus operandi.
As for the algorithm, he thinks he may be subconsciously making music for short-form video content consumption. “When I started off maybe ten years ago you wouldn’t be thinking I need to have three-four 10 second portions of the song which need to click. But now even if you don’t think that way subconsciously you are doing it. Which is fine, which is great because you have to move with the times. You got to move with the trends. I am a product of that myself,” elaborates Ravichander who points to having special lines or areas of a song that are more catchy for the algorithm.
His label has identified ten artists who will be dropping songs soon on a regular basis.”They’re really wonderful artists I must say. Not because it’s my label but I really like what they’ve done. So, hopefully even you guys do,” he tells Billboard India.
Watch ‘Small Talk’ with Anirudh Ravichander below:
