suraj mani- the singing sensei

“Let’s make a song” – how we do it now

I keep hearing about how bands find it so difficult to practice or stay together, because they live 20km apart and I point out that my band lives in different states. In fact it takes me 30 hours by bus over 1200km to make it for practice each time. It can be very challenging to do all that, walk into the jam room and suddenly create a song together. I mean, the mental framework of the band members does affect our creativity.

 

But we do what we can do. I tend to write the lyrics and keep them ready so that when a riff, or chord progression or something comes up that matches the lyric arise, I go for it.

 

One of the things that works well for us a group is that we discuss the song lyric and see what it stands for. After that we all discuss the same topic from our own different perspectives and with our respective instruments. This is what makes motherjane sound like motherjane. No formula is more sacred than this mutual discussion and musical dialogue among 5 friends.

 

This band is aimed at exploring and exploiting the potential of its members. We make music that is true to what we believe in and comes naturally to us. We are in love with the process!

 

The music that comes out is nothing short of a miracle for me still. I don’t know how or where the songs come from. Sometimes they appear almost fully formed and sometimes they take you thru long and torturous routes before relenting and surrendering to you. Maybe it’s the other way around. Maybe it is the musician that takes the time to surrender to the song! I truly believe that the best work you will do as an artist is when your ego is left out of the picture.

 

For eg, when I write, I just go bust and concentrate on the emotion that is taking hold of me. I remember a movie called “Finding Forrester” or something like that, where Sean Connery (who plays the role of a writer) tells a budding writer to first write with his heart and then edit with his head. Nice, profound and very effective if you are able to let go of your ego and flow with the moment.

 

Of course, all this wisdom (if you can call it that!) sounds great when one is retrospecting. The first time we made a song together was an event in itself and deserves a separate telling.

The Ancient mariner- sometime in august 2000

Sometime in August 2000, a drummer called Jerry (who I had played with briefly and liked a lot) took me to the Ancient mariner for a life changing cup of tea.

 

It was largely empty, not surprising, since the owner Niyas would allow a metal band to practice there on a decrepit drum set and lousy speakers, sans a vocalist for more than a year.

 

Well, there I was, sipping on my cup of tea and watching Baiju and John jamming together. I was reintroduced once again and I remember joining them on some or the other song. Nothing spectacular. What I remember is how after John walked off with some friend, Baiju and I did a version of “let it be”. He was playing it in some manner that was alien to the song as I had heard it. I remember how I also went along, not knowing where the song was going. It was the first time that a song took me somewhere new and was completely different from how I felt while just reproducing a song.

 

Within a week or so, John had extended an invitation for me to sing with the band. Another guitarist (Rex) also joined the band around the same time. We hit upon some common loves like Maiden, Deep purple, Metallica etc and soon I was learning the lyrics for the same including bands like Dream Theatre, Megadeath etc.

 

A month later, I wanted out. I just wasn’t enjoying all the work of learning these new songs and lyrics while juggling my career as a businessman and the role of a married man.  I met John in the evening at his home along with Nithin (rage) and said the same. He called a band meeting the next day and I laid it on the table. I hated what I was doing to the guys after seeing how they had struggled together without even having a permanent vocalist in place, but it seemed to me that there was no future for motherjane.

 

I remember noticing the poorly masked despair in Baiju’s face following my announcement. In order to fill the uncomfortable silence that ensued, I pointed out how in 10 years from now another bunch of youngsters would be singing maiden with a lot more energy than we would and remarked on how pointless our career as a band would seem then. I then uttered what I believed would be my exit lines to motherjane.

 

I said, “at least if were making our own music, we would have something”.

 

Baiju looked up and said, “let’s make a song.”   

1997-2000. The lull before the storm

Every musician seems to go thru a journey on his way to reaching what he /she will finally consider as his/her band. In 1995 -96, I met and briefly fronted a Bangalorebased band called Stone Cold. Though my relationship with the band stopped with my relocating to kerala in 1997, it gave me two awesome musicians and lifelong friends who are probably a part of my psyche even if they are not part of my everyday life. We all meet people like that, don’t we?

One of them was an awesome drummer called Hamesh and another, an equally awesome guitarist by the name Sanjay Chandrakanth. My first professional shows as a rocker (actually the word “singer” would be better since I was so hesitant on stage with my performances) were with these guys. Their dedication to their art and professionalism was inspiring, to say the least.

I moved to Kerala as a result of my starting of a business there in the year 1997. I now know the reason we didn’t stick together as a band was because we never made songs together. (To give them credit, I never acted as if it was possible!To give me credit, I didn’t even think it was possible). Why I say this is because today, I am still with motherjane 7 years after relocating to Bangalore for my business.

I worked for 3 years in Kochi without doing any music. I was like any one of you blokes who sings in intimate gatherings with friends where everyone is generally merrily working their way into a drunken stupor! Fortunately for me, while doing this one day, my neighbor a friend and wonderful human being called Arun ( better known as “Kaka”) heard me.

He proceeded to introduce me to some of the local musicians and soon I was guesting with a band at some shows in Kochi. That’s where I met Clyde for the first time. He was also a temporary bass player for the band. He was a great guy from the moment that I met him. Still is. However, I got bored with the kind of music that we were playing and decided to move on before someone forced me to sing songs I didn’t vibe with.

 I’ve always been pig headed that way and followed my bliss, so to speak. It has led me to where I stand today and I am still following my bliss!

 Which reminds me, I got married in 2000 on January 2^nd. A millenium wedding. I remember doing a show on the 31^st night and driving back home early next morning. Not done in our community, where the groom tends to get virtually locked in at home a week before the wedding!

 P.S:  I love my dad for letting me do the things that he never agreed with and didn’t understand! He would tell me exactly how he felt and then let me decide since there is no real right or wrong on matters like this. I hope to display the same maturity with my kids when the situation presents itself.

Anyway, I got married to Vidhya Achu Roy, who doesn’t like being written about in public blogs (even one by her husband). I bring her in here, because she started me off on writing.

I had always wanted to write songs and never managed more than 3 lines together before I would rip the page in frustration. I just couldn’t do it!

She told me I could.

Encouragement from a woman is a very powerful thing for any artist & I proved no different.

I wrote and for the first time, I didn’t judge myself while writing. I knew that there was this person in front of me whose love for me wasn’t dependent on whether I wrote something sublime or sheer crap. My talent or lack of it had nothing to do with it. It was a liberating feeling and one that strikes a chord with one of my favorite observations on creativity where someone ( I forget who) said, “creativity is about allowing your self to make mistakes. Art is about knowing which ones to keep”

Slightly better armed than I have ever been as an artist before, I soon moved to another band that covered Santana. The band members all had awesome talent. Enough to blow the scene apart. But it wasn’t really a band but a bunch of hired guns (yourself included) and that’s why, like so many of these kind of line ups, it fell apart.

We performed once in Kochi at Music world with the support of Christy (the company manager and a good friend of mine). It was a great show and I met John there, who introduced himself as Clyde’s friend and the drummer of some band called motherjane.( I didn’t even remember the name after the show nor did I think we would meet again).

I did meet John again, because we went to borrow some gear from him for some show. It was at his house and I remember seeing him, Clyde and another guitarist called Baiju practicing together in a 8 feet x 8 feet room.

It was hot, humid and unbearable in there. I think they were playing some trash metal song. I couldn’t stand the noise. I smiled at everyone, made polite conversation and scooted asap. That kind of music, simply didn’t seem like my cup of tea.

A month or so later, sometime in August 2000, a drummer called Jerry (who I had played with briefly and liked a lot) took me to the Ancient mariner for a life changing cup of tea.

to be continued...

1994-97 . First steps in “mindstreet”

The greatest thing that I have loved about work is that it has pushed me! All thru my school, college etc, I could always step back from something that I was hesitant to do. In fact, I found that with the necessary panache, even cowardice can take the semblance of “cool”! At work no body cares if you’re cool if you are not delivering.

 

Work, redefined me in many ways more than one. The most significant of them was that I had to face my definitions of “what I was” and finding myself woefully short of substance, I had to change. In fact I started on my journey of not wanting to describe myself, because I remember being impressed by the realization that a definition sets boundaries and limitations.

 

I was fresh out of college and I started working in an air conditioning company as a sales engineer. (I still love air conditioning & now I head my own company.) I absolutely hated the fact that I was recruited for sales. The word held so many negative connotations for me that I spent a soul racking 6 months before I really sold anything on my own.

 

In those six months I faced my fears & prejudices one by one by reading books on selling, people management, value addition, philosophy, Zen etc, etc, etc. What I loved the most was how philosophy & spiritualism were so centric to management that aimed for results and vice versa.

 

I had long and intense conversations with some really great minds in the world at my leisure, one of the greatest virtues of being an avid book reader. This habit of mine that I loved led me to a postulate of Taoism that, “If one finds the truth of one thing, then the truths of the universe reveal itself”. What is marvelous here is that there are so many different ways to reach that truth and each of those ways reveals itself to various kinds of people. Please remember, no one is excluded! There is a zen saying that, “the finger pointing to the moon, is not the moon”

 

I am a better musician today because I’ve pursued and glimpsed truth in many of the things that my work demanded of me. Today I am also a better businessman and engineer because I keep glimpsing truths that reveal themselves thru music. It is the desire to excel in whatever you do that makes work play. It is that desire to immerse yourself and explore your creativity in whatever you do that makes every action a possible path to self awareness.

 

I stopped asking myself why I was failing at something, or “WHY” something was difficult to achieve because I realized that my brain would give me thousands of reasons why. Instead I started asking myself “HOW” I could reach what I wanted. And believe me, I got an equal number of answers. Try it.

 

What is so delicious about this attitude & approach is that one starts with the assumption and intention of eventual victory and not with the excuses and justifications that lead to an impending defeat. Success is really so much about the nature of your journey than your destination. If you need a simple example of this, watch a really great sportsman and you will observe his/her unshakable belief in the possibility of a victory. In fact you will thrill with it.

 

Out of the seed grows the tree!

 

Thru my initial years of my “conventional” career, I read about the id, the ego, the subconscious mind, the collective unconscious, so on and so forth and I never knew that someday, all this would find its way into a song.

 

I lived this song, long before I ever met motherjane. In fact I would confidently say that each one of the band members in motherjane has lived this song because it is my belief that if you’ve lived a song you become its instrument. I feel that one can always sense when a band is thinking about a song and hear when a song is revealing itself to a band. It’s the same with every art form and even life. Everyone has been there and keeps coming back, though our paths are so different.

 

For some it is thru music, religion, spirituality, books, art, sex or whatever it is that you can find yourself in. In fact it seems appropriate to say that we are talking of an activity in which we can find ourselves and not one in which we lose ourselves.

 

So if you are ready to take the steps or if u have already started out on your path, come and join us the next time motherjane is playing for you in your town and sing with us...

 

“Come act your dream in mindstreet”

"Ssh..listen" - your comments please

Ssh..listen

Ssh.. listen to the cry of a child
A new beginning and the truth implied
Ssh…listen to the vagaries of rain
That stop short of the desert and deluges the plains

And listen to the nature of your love
Your reasons for living, when reason’s not enough

Ssh… listen to the paradox of youth
The feeling when life is pregnant with truth
Ssh.. listen to the reflections of your worlds
As the mirrors of paradigm and life unfolds

And listen to the kingdoms choice bequeaths
From the elysian fields to beyond the river styx

And listen to the insane prediction
Reality wavers in the face of conviction

"Walk on" - your comments please

Walk on

 Lost, now that I can see
The future ain’t what it used to be
Like a poet without a vision, an object of mockery
A dreamer who’s lost his dream to reality

I won’t give up, though the going is slow
I’ll trade all my footsteps for a shot at tomorrow
Tattoo my intentions across these streets of time
And fight till the future is once again mine

Cos I’m the immortal, baptized in fire
Unable to die unless I desire
I’m the light piercing the darkest dawn
I’m the human spirit walking on

Down and so close to out
I’m the foot soldier who’s suffered the rout
But I’ll stand again in conquest of pain
To walk on as a king among men

Cos I’m the immortal, baptized in fire
Unable to die unless I desire
I’m the light piercing the darkest dawn
I’m the human spirit walking on

I’ll make mistakes,of that I’m sure
Lose my strength, when I need more
Taste my fear in life’s battlefields
But I won’t trade my sword for the shield.

Cos I’m the immortal, baptized in fire
Unable to die unless I desire
I’m the light piercing the darkest dawn
I’m the human spirit walking on

"An ode to life" - your comments please

An ode to life

 Death continues to stalk us
Sometimes gently, mostly not
I’m at the age when loved one’s die
And as I live I understand why

"Prison Chains" - your comments please

Prison chains

Wake up, alarms in your head
That keep going off thru the day
Another deadline to separate time
As you ease into your prison chains

You’re human fuel burning out
Fulfilling your destiny
As a plunging line on a time graph
An art form of this century

These prison chains are your making
A disease you embrace
You’re smiling but the gaps start showing
It’s like a cancer in your face

Prison chains, didn’t see them coming
Till they were firmly in place
You’re still smiling, an emptiness growing
Where you once had a face

You gave up so much of your life
You couldn’t have known what for
Nothing you built was meant to last
And no one was keeping score

You’re a victim of the surmise
That these chains were too strong
They were nailed to the open skies
Untested far too long

These prison chains are your making
A disease you embrace
You’re smiling but the gaps start showing
It’s like a cancer in your face

Prison chains, didn’t see them coming
Till they were firmly in place
You’re still smiling, an emptiness growing
Where you once had a face

And as I watch you multiply
Into a vortex of human pain
Can I smash the mirrors between you and I
The last of my prison chains.

"Soul corporations" - your comments please

Soul corporations

The cross maybe the ultimate metaphor
For religion sold as a brand
A sacrifice exchanged for the almighty dollar
With the tacit blessings of the  Vatican

We all have guardians trading faith for power
Businessmen by whom we swear
Betraying every one from eshwar to allah
With their holy wars for market share

We’re losing our religions, entrusting our gods
To corporates that prostrate before balance sheets
Unsuspecting pawns initiating brethren
Into the oldest MLM to stalk our streets

Behold the soul corporations, the spiritual supermarts
Dispensing salvation with a price tag
Mocking the truth that resides in our hearts
Paralyzing the human conscience with practiced art

And of the various hues of desecration,
this makes them the hardest to beat
the unsure can’t endure the liberation
the pious don’t discern the need

for if there’s a truth to be told
religion’s just a shadow of god
illumined by thought and understanding
sullied by the ambiguity of words

And of the various hues of desecration,
this makes them the hardest to beat
the unsure can’t endure the liberation
the pious don’t discern the need

"Maya" - your comments please

Maya 

Born in a hovel,
her mother cried too
The village named her maya
As her father started anew

Never told she was human
Never knew otherwise
Never doubted life’s lessons
Stolen from her mother’s eyes

Ignored, she grows older
unknowing of her plight
dreamless, life has nothing to offer
never given her a reason to fight

Falls prey to a young man
Gotta leave before he changes his mind
Got nothing much to carry
Everything to leave behind

Sold into a brothel
Girlchild is just fifteen
Maya the name suits her well
This little life has never been

Eighteen she’s got the disease
Forgotten everything in between
New girl has come in from her place
Gonna welcome her into sin

“Little sister, your name won’t do.
Choose maya , that was mine.
In this place that is nothing new
It’s all I have to leave behind