Lyricist Rocky Khanna recently joined NewsX for an exclusive interview as part of NewsX India A-List. In the exclusive interview, the lyricist spoke about his latest projects, bond with Jubin Nautiyal and much more. Read excerpts:
Speaking about his journey till now and revealing whether he always inclined towards music, Rocky said, “Not really, I was a writer director. I used to live in Bombay and met Mohit Chauhan. We used to live together in a room; basically we created lot of music that is how we made Guncha Koi in a film, “Main Meri Patni Aur Woh”. We made a lot of music that time and that is how my musical journey started and I got inclined towards music.”
When asked about the reason behind your successful partnership with Jubin Nautiyal and how did it all start, he responded, “Actually I was doing a film and in that film I was working with Jubin. Jubin was very new at that time and we started making music, that film didn’t got made but we started making music. We made some 7 to 8 albums at that time. It is all thematic based songs, so we wanted to experiment and release a song and see how the response is on the music. So, we released Humnava Mere and that got a major success with the audiences. That is how we started making music.”
Talking about how the mountains are now taking them to Hollywood and the big secret behind it, he revealed, “During the pandemic, we got a chance to do this Hollywood called ‘Initiation’ and we had to unlearn everything and start on a new slate in that film because the sound over there what they like is a very different sound than what we do over here in this country. So, we created this song called ‘Breaking the Rules’ with Jubin Nautiyal and one more song called Boujhi Boujhi for that film.”
Expressing how the pandemic opened up new ventures for him and made the process of creating music easier, Rocky said, “In the pandemic, we got a chance to make this Hollywood film called Initiation. We made music for that film and we created a lot of other songs as well. I was not getting that time to make that music because we were busy working. In the lockdown we all got time to make music and that is how we made these English songs, and also we made a lot of other songs as well which you will hear in the coming times.
When asked about his process of creating music, he said, “A song is a feeling basically. You get that feeling and then you start going in that journey of that feeling and you start getting all sorts of nuances of that feeling. That is how you end up making a song.”
Sharing how coped up with the past year and a half and what were some of his key learnings during this phase, Rocky said, “We actually got how human lives can be so delicate. We all can be so easily affected by a certain thing which can come anytime. That is how when we all learned the basics well in this pandemic.”
On a concluding note, Rocky shared some of his upcoming projects and said, “With Jubin, we have made Humnava Mere and that got success. So you could say you know we are making a song right now where it will come out and you could say it is on those lines basically, it could be Humnava 2.”