Samar Mehdi, a performer, and songwriter recently joined NewsX for a musical conversation as a part of NewsX Influencer A-list. In the exclusive interview with us on NewsX Influencer A-List, Samar Mehdi shared his journey of making music, dealing with rejections and creating a one-man band.
Samar started off by talking about the initial stage of his journey where he faced major rejections and how he turned that into motivation. “I emulate the sounds of a bunch of instruments on a guitar and as most things in my life, it was motivated by rejection and that’s a part of music life. What I did with rejection was, I tried to make it work with 2-3 bands in my life. Not being able to be in a band made me so angry and that’s when I said to myself that if I can’t be in a band, I will be a band. That’s where it started for me”, he said.
Speaking about the process of emulation, the songwriter exclaimed, “This is frequency thing. Like keyboards, when you want to make them work, count the melodies. By now, I know that a base guitar and the rhythm section can create harmony in the background. I also realised that an acoustic guitar is a very complete instrument. It has so many possibilities. I genuinely had the tendency towards emulating this kind of stuff from the beginning.”
When asked if his social media journey and his stage journey have grown simultaneously, he positively responded and said, “They definitely went hand in hand. Honestly, there’s no such thing as virality for Indie music. Someone has to really bless us for that.” He jokingly said that their virality is that their neighbour knows them.
Samar then spoke about his journey towards fame and said, “The first taste of semi-virality was when I stopped making music for a year. The hunger and the longingness to feel the magic of music bought me close to this style of music. I used to play guitar and make music in a regular way, but this break inspired me to create music in this different format.”
He further shared, “The first song I created was ‘Azzad’, which is very symbolic to where I was in my personal journey. I hadn’t been on social media for a while. I posted a message along with it sharing my journey of hardships and that created a wave of support that actually changed my life. Bosses of my friends from different cities recognised me and that’s when I realised that there are endless possibilities if you take that leap and there after I got opportunities to play, and I’ve been growing as a performer and composer ever since”.
Sharing his mantra to handle pressure, Samar said, “At the beginning, the whole reason why I started this, began blurring. It was because I started getting affected by opinions. I realised that if I sit with the wrong intention, the music just doesn’t come. I took a step back and reassessed why I started this. I want to keep my process honest. It is very human to get affected by opinions. The moment that awareness comes in, it’s important to grab hold of it. In this beautiful journey, I believe, my fans are my gifts. The days when I feel unmotivated, this love and fire motivates me to make more music. I have been saved by music, that’s how it started for me. My connect with magic in this world has been music”.
On a concluding note, Samar advised all the budding artists who are still figuring their way to just take the leap in life.
Check out the entire interview on NewsX YouTube: