SALIL
Hullo and welcome to this Special. Aap Salil ke sath hain, aur hamare sath do saal baad, dobara is studio mein hain, Aryans.

Narayan and Sadu- thanks so much for joining me.

ARYANS
Thanks for calling us.

SALIL
Kuch time ke baad, actually kaafi time ke baad, aap aayein hain yahaan! Beech mein jo kaam kaaj chal raha tha aapka, apart from the shows and all, why this long gap?

ARYANS
Why not…..we say that! I think this question is asked only in India. Yesterday or day before yesterday, there was a news report- ACDC coming after eight years. People should wait!

SALIL
I guess log bahut utsuk ho jaate hain, kyunki kai baari kaanon mein awaaz aati rehti hai. Fir log boltein hain “arey ye toh disappear hi ho gaye hain.”…….

ARYANS
Nai basically kya hota hai na, ki to keep up the expectations, of our audience, ek class hai jo hum log ko milta hai! Matlab jo melody hai, jo lyrics hain, jis tareeke se hum log mehenat kartein hain, usme time to lagta hai.

And pyaar ka pehla khat likhne mein waqt to lagta hai, achhe compositions likhne mein, karne mein bhi, waqt to lagta hai! And apart from that, “Aankhon Mein”, “Yeh Hawa”, “Dekha Hai”, they all had the saturation of hits. Is se upar mere khayal se karna bhi bahut mushkil hai albums mein. And that’s how we tried to get into movies and all. So that was the second platform or plateau, what you call, to usi ko hum try karte rahe!

We tried to create some new sounds, and experimented with lots of stuff. Last two years we did lot of experimentation.

So it's all now settling up. Till next one year, you’ll see lots of Aryans.

SALIL
Toh bahut baari show par aayenge. Achha lagega.

ARYANS
(laugh)


SALIL
Abhi bahut kuch dekhne ko milega jaisa ki ye log keh rahe the. Lekin…..inki jodi badi, well ajeeb si jodi hai- ek scientist hain, aur ek IIT ke pass out hain, aur you’ve been enthralling us for the last ten years. The two of you all are still together. It’s very nice to see that! Abhi bhi achhe dost hain, ya abhi bhi kuch problems ho jaati hain beech mein.

ARYANS
Problems hum log ko nahi, hum logon ki wives ko hoti hai! Because they think that we spend more time with each other rather than spending with them. We’re the best of friends.

Raat ko kya hota hai na, ki it’s like “Pak gaye hain. I don’t wanna see his face only!” But once I get up in the morning, it’s like “AWW phir wahi”!

We travel so much together, we stay so much with each other, and we are best of friends.

SALIL
Kabhi-kabhaar wives ko bhi saath mein lejaya karo; ye road shows jo aapke chalte rehte hain……

ARYANS
Ya ya. At times they do come.

SALIL
Nahi to unhe lagega- “pata nahi, may be they have different ladies on the road shows!” In one year you must be visiting a city four- five times.

ARYANS
Ya. Certain cities to bahut zyada ho jaatein hain! But yes, this friendship has helped. The trust, the bond- which is a very important thing for a band to have, to make it a long journey and still keep doing well! It’s very important.

SALIL
Lekin ek baat mein kehna chahunga, bahut saare band jo itne length of time ke sath hote hain, kuch log aate hain Band ke andar, some people leave, some new people come in. You all haven’t really added too many new people to the band in the last 10 or 11 years, which is also interesting! Normally people go through great changes in their band.

Aur aapke abhi tak gaane hit chal rahe hain. Wahi gaane aap perform bhi karte rehte hain. So the origin still remains the same for this band.

ARYANS
Yes the origin’s the same!

SALIL
Why is that? Haven’t you ever thought of bringing fresh perspectives inside?

ARYANS
You see as Aryans, the core remains just Sadu and me. But for the live performance band, we have a group of five, i.e. 2 plus 3 more. So we have a lead guitarist, a drummer, another player to support us on the guitar as well as some other things. So we have five people.

Aryans is two, but as a performing rock band, we are five. And we enjoy doing that!

Iske alava, there was no requirement actually. Because zaroorat kisi aur ki tab padti hai jab requirement ho. Because I play the keyboards, I write the lyrics, I compose, I sing. The same with DJ also, he plays the guitar, he writes, he composes.

We have brain storming sessions for lyrics and composing, both. We fight a lot.

Kisi teesre ke aane ki zaroorat hi nahi padti.

SALIL
Kabhi teesri ladki ke bare mein socha hai?

Ek Black-Eyed Peas the, their fortunes changed jab Fergi ek baari andar aayi. She sort of gave a whole new look to that band also! Did you ever think of bringing in a female singer?

ARYANS
If at all we get, may be we’ll get our wives. Because they sing very well!

SALIL
Is it?

ARYANS
Yeah! They sing very well. If anything that stops us, is the question of “imaging” at the moment. And hopefully, when we do some films this year, we’ll have lots of freedom to put them at different places! They’re damn good singers.

SALIL
Oh really? This is a lovely little revelation. It’d be lovely. The four of them are traveling- two of them, their wives. It’ll be really great.

ARYANS
I’m sure all of us after some time would be unhappy! Because neither they’ll be able to have a good time, nor us.

SALIL
I guess, but if you’re all together, it always helps!

We’ll take little break and come right back.

Ye jin filmon ki baat kar rahe hain- filhal to hum “KYUN” ki baat kar sakte hain, from “Woodstock Villa”. Sanju baba ke sath ek jabardast composition! And as Narayan said, it’s a great rock, which is greatly lacking these days. So we’ll talk about that when we get back. Don’t go anywhere……

SALIL
Alright you’re back on Special! The Aryans are with us.

Narayan and Sadu, thanks again for joining me.

It’s nice to see rock in films. Filmy gaano mein aksar hum aajkal bahut saare beats dekhte hain, the trend is also becoming much better. There’s lot of drums and base aajkal kuch… new sound! But rock we still haven’t seen………………..

ARYANS
You know what! Hindi mein jitna bhi hota tha, darr-darr ke hota tha! There are lots of composers and musicians who’re good. They know their stuff! Par to put it across the film medium- on big screen, on the CD covers, to take it public, they were not having the heart! I don’t know why- either the directors not wanting it, the crew’s not wanting it, or may be its a problem with the cast- they don’t want that kind of imaging, or not taking risk!

But here is one film, where Sanjay Gupta, Sanjay Dutt, they all had straight away liking for this thing- ki “this is it”! It was such a beautiful rock song, and, “this we’re gonna take as it is, the way Aryans have done it”.

SALIL
Did you make this rock song before you had heard the story of the film and all- Yeh aapke pass pada tha aur aapne fir isko thoda sa change kiya

ARYANS
No no. We were briefed about the script. You see we keep doing similar stuff all the time. It was very easy for us to do.

We’re actually known for nostalgia, you know dark! As we grow na, we become darker in songs.

But they gave us a brief, and I think we came out in a week’s time! And it was instant liking, and it is “THE ANTHEM” song for Hindi film. I can bet on it!

After this song, you’ll have a new benchmark, a new opportunity, for whole lot of youngsters- new genre all together; lots of rock people, lots of people who believe in good rock, “ki are yaar, now this is legitimate”.

SALIL
Which is very good, because I think Hindi filmon mein yeh “Rock” shabd mere khayal se istamaal nahi kiya gaya tha! And like you said, log darke kar rahe the! Neha Uberoi ka yeh favorite gaana hai film mein……

ARYANS
It is a great song I can tell you….

SALIL
You know what I like about it is that that you managed to incorporate Sanju Baba also in it.

And now when he’s involved- first of all, he was away for a while, so I guess you all were one if the first people to meet him?!? It must’ve been great!

You were interacting with him? Were you on the sets throughout when you were interacting with him?

ARYANS
Yes. During the course of this song shoot atleast, we were there all the time! And discussing not only this, we discussed lots of more songs, we all freaked out, and we jammed in the evenings. “Oh wow great song, let’s take this.”

What happened is that for “Aankhon Mein” he didn’t listen to any other songs, of the same album! Toh baaki we had this song called “Raju”. Yeh song sunaya, toh he jus weeped for that song, you know!

SALIL
I’ve heard he’s a very emotional guy.

ARYANS
This song “Raju” is an all time with any campus rocks. We might just redo it again all-together and bring it out in public. It’s a great song! So we were doing it all the time!

But here we brought it out.

After this, Aryans and Hindi film music, would be different.

SALIL
Actually inhon ne mujhe ye bhi bataya ki Alibagh ke liye bhi ye kuchh kar rahein hain! Toh will that also have a rock feel to it?

ARYANS
Yes

SALIL
So great you gotta maintain this rock feel in all the songs.

ARYANS
It’s not heavy rock feel, because emotions are not exactly very heavy. But yes! It’s jus the guitar and the drums! Just pure! We don’t want any confusion with the sound. This is it.

SALIL
And the beautiful thing is, ki this is actually their debut in Hindi films. Toh pehli debut, aur who bhi Sanjay Dutt ke sath, aur ek jabardast rock gaana jo kabhi suna nahi gaya hai. Toh I think it’s the dream debut, for atleast you all in Hindi films…..

ARYANS
Ya definitely. We’re like very lucky to be associated with Sanjay Gupta ji for this movie.

SALIL
Yeah I think. “Woodstock Villa, with the Aryans making their debut”, it’s funny to say that actually, because they’ve been here for a decade!

Good things, you always have to wait for! And now that it’s out for us, we’ll be able to see a rock song in a Hindi film.

It’s definitely gonna be a first filmy rock song also.

We’ll take a little break and come right back. There’s lots more to chat about, and yes you will get to hear them sing that track also, but that’s gonna be in a bit. Don’t go anywhere.

SALIL
Alright. You’re back on this Special. Humare saath,

“The Aryans”.

Narayan and Sadu, thanks again for joining me.

Inki debut song Hindi film industry mein “Kyun”, jo Woodstock Villa ke liye banai gayi hai, that is out for everyone to sample!

The first people who heard this, and did your wives like this song?

ARYANS
They all freaked out! Everyone who heard it freaked out. Everyone in the unit freaked out yesterday.

We were launching this music on one of the television reality shows. All those who heard it, I mean there was a big crew of lots of eminent dancers, and television personalities, they listened to it for the first time. They heard it, and they said “Wow”.

And while making the demo also, we were making and even the sound-digi guy was like “Kya ban raha hai yaar. Kya hai yaar!”

In certain things when it’s happening na, you start to know.

SALIL
Also when something is new, ek sound engineer bechara wahan baitha hoga, roz wahi gaane usko mix karta hoga, aaj ek naya gaana suna hoga, toh he must’ve been excited or so.

ARYANS
He was saying “We haven’t heard this kind of drumming. Are you sure you want it this hard?”

SALIL
And who’s done the drumming for this? From your crew only of 5?

ARYANS
Yes, we did it.

SALIL
So who’s got the inputs? Apart from you guys, who’s been that one person who’s given most inputs?

ARYANS
Basically we do it- just Sadu and me.

When we were doing this particular song, we also interacted with Bappa Lehri. Toh Bappa also helped us a lot with this song.

SALIL
Bappa actually aajkal kaafi kaam karne lag gaya hai, uske dad kaafi khush honge.

Baat sahi hai vaise, because you know, he can be viewed as Bappi Da’s son, but today he’s also created an identity for himself.

So brilliant, so he’s the one who actually helped arrange it also?

ARYANS
Yes

SALIL
So brilliant! Bappa Lehri also in the house! It’ll be nice also. One day we’ll get them all across and we’ll jam.

The most beautiful part about being a musician, would you say is the concerts, the fame, the live shows- what is it that is the most beautiful part after all these ten years.

ARYANS
It’s very difficult to answer. I think the joys are different.

When you create a beautiful melody or a beautiful song, you feel, “Wow yaar I’ve done something special. This is it”. You see you create 100 stuff. Out of that, ultimately you keep 10, 90 you leave out. But with 10, you say ke, “I’ve done very special”. You feel happy working! Every time Sadu makes something and says “AH DJ”, and I know he’s done something special. This is one point……..

Then about concerts, it gives you a kick, which is much better than what Sadu takes. Especially in campuses, all this is electrifying!

SALIL
Lekin thoda mushkil ho gaya hai. Aajkal itne saare bands aa gaye hain, lots of people. Jaise ki aapne kaha, log experiment kar rahe hain, lekin itna zyada experiment kar rahe hain. Aapko kayi baar lagta hai ki Aryans ko thoda sa unnecessary pressure aa jata hai ki jaise, sabse pehla savaal jo maine aapse kiya tha ki aap itne saal baad aa rahein hain vaapis!

Jaise aap hi ne kaha, ki do saal itna lamba time nahi hota. Lekin aapko lagta hai ki yeh unnecessary pressure create kar raha hai to create magics, so to say?

ARYANS
Nahi experimentation in the sense, we don’t want to do it in lyrics and melody. It’s only arrangement part, which we’re gonna experiment on. Kyunki “Aankhon Mein”, “Ye Hawa”, “Dekha Hai”, are known! People know that we are better at melody making.

Wo to rahega.

SALIL
‘Cause I’ve always remembered that! Aapne always ye kaha hai ki Aryans ki pehchan hai, usko hum kabhi badalna nahi chahte.

ARYANS
Matlab pehchan achhi cheeson ke liye!

Achhi cheesen nahi badalna chahenge. It is that! Its not that hum same hi geet gaate rahenge- pedhon ke peeche bhagte raho, “Aankhon Mein” ga rahe hain, yahaan vahaan ga rahe hain. We’ve matured. Matured in the sense- our love is not necessary, that puppy love, Shahid Kapoor and the dog- puppy running around, or Shayan Munshi going on a trailor and visualizing and dreaming about a girl who’s not there!

May be we’ve matured. Matured with age and whatever!

Jo jitney bhi gaane hum likhte hain, there is no doubt, it is our personal experience.

We wont……agar purana gaane likh bhi rahe honge, suppose we’re remembering someone very special who was15 years back, then it would be nostalgia of that time in today’s time! But its not that we go back 15 years before, become 20 years, and start saying “Hey I love your face. Sorry”.

SALIL
Change is a good thing!

Lekin hum intezaar karenge aapke ek aur video ka. Koi nayi ladkiyaan launch karenge aap.

Jin bhi new faces ko aapne launch kiya hai, vo jaake bade-bade stars ban gaye hain.

ARYANS
I’ll take your number…….

SALIL
We’re waiting for the new launches to happen.

Jaane se pehle, ofcourse apke fans puchhna chahenge, “Kyun” is very exciting for them to have come out.

Kuchh soch vechar hai dobara koi album release karne ka jald ya…………..

ARYANS
Yes. I think another 3 – 4 months. We’re ready with the kind of audio stuff, it just needs a little bit of placing here and there, and then shooting the videos you know.

After this already a couple of music companies are saying “Hey where’ve you been. Please come over”

SALIL
Where’ve you been is a lovely statement!

“Kyun” is out right now! They’re right here, aur jaisa unhon ne kaha. ki is saal mein kaafi kuchh aane wala hai, jo aap dekhne ke liye utsuk rahenge.

I’ll be waiting for you all to come on the show once again. Thank you so much for joining me.

ARYANS
Thank you so much. Cheers buddy.

SALIL
It’s been great listening to your music over the years, even though I’m not that old! But it’s always fun!

So till the next time, on this Special, mein vida leta hun aapse…...


You canwrite to me at salil@b4uworld.com