In his latest movie ‘Wazir’, Bejoy Nambiar tells the story of two unlikely friends who team up to fight a common enemy. Nambiar employs the same gambit off the camera as well by bringing together the diverse worlds of Bollywood and indie music.
It is this ability to ‘bridge gaps’ that has made the Wazir director’s filmography exciting. Nambiar managed to convince Delhi-based fusion band ‘Advaita’ to rework their original- ‘Mo Funk’- for the Amitabh Bachchan- Farhan Akhtar starrer ‘Wazir’. He didn’t exactly have to convince Advaita to sign on for the film. Nambiar heard the band’s composition ‘Mo Funk’ (recommended by his friend Prashant Pillai) and a few months later, ‘Mo Funk’ became ‘Khel Khel Mein’.
The director currently has his hands full – working on a web-series and a music video. “I am working on a video for the Kerala-based band Thaikkudam Bridge’s single ‘Aarachar’. This is another song that I really liked and would lend itself very well to video. The composition is a political satire, and we tried to make the video as classy as possible, so that the message passes through,” he said. ‘Aarachar’ becomes the second music video for the director after AR Rahman’s ‘Raunaq’.
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Nambiar’s penchant for indie music began even before his directorial debut. “I have been listening to these artists for a very long time now. The quality of music and what remains to be explored is immense. I continue to try to get as many artists while making an album,” Nambiar told Radioandmusic.com. “The music you hear today is mostly ‘mainstream’. The fact remains that independent musicians deserve more recognition.”
Nambiar does not focus only on better known bands like Advaita and the Mumbai based Bhayanak Maut. He heard about a three-piece band from a Mumbai suburb from a friend, and discovered another gem. “A friend of mine heard The Lightyears Explode and honestly, the music was impressive. Good music is good music, no matter who does it. The important factor is that the music should excite me. Nine out of ten times, I take the initiative and approach the artist,” he says.
Nambiar believes in providing artistic freedom to the composer, but expects the outcome to meet the demand, as any director rightly would. Not only has he managed to promote certain artists to the mainstream audience through his movies, Nambiar also became the first director to convince Farhan Akhtar and Amitabh Bachchan to sing together ‘Atrangi Yaari’ for Wazir. So how did he manage it? “It’s a tricky business. Having said that, I am grateful to my producer (Vidhu Vinod Chopra) and the actors for executing the idea into a reality,” he says.
Nambiar belongs to the small set of filmmakers who prefer multiple composers for a film’s soundtrack. An interesting quality about Nambiar’s movies has been the diversity of sound and genre in the soundtrack and the 36-year-old plans to continue with the formula.
“More and more filmmakers are using this formula for the movies. One can notice a change in how music for a movie is made,” says Nambiar, who has extensively made the most of his music knowledge that often ends up with a new voice or new artist for his soundtracks. “Having multiple composers or musicians working for the soundtrack is always an advantage. I would not trade the formula for anything else. I prefer style and mantra over traditional approach,” adds Nambiar.
