Saturday night fever with Ehsaan & Loy

Music composers Ehsaan Noorani and Loy Mendonsa are all set to perform at ‘Johnnie Walker: The Journey’ on Saturday at The Westin Hyderabad. Ahead of their performance, the duo share details of their upcoming gig, stint in music industry and future plans

Ehsaan Noorani and Loy Mendonsa are an important part of the famous musical trio Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy (SEL), who gave Bollywood many memorable and foot-tapping melodies. But, to begin with, Ehsaan and Loy were part of a band ‘Instant Karma’ and together they delivered a huge hit – ‘Dil Kya Kare’ – a version of the popular song ‘Dil Kya Kare’ from the hit film ‘Julie’. And there was no looking back for them, ever since...

In Johnnie Walker: The Journey, we will play as a band, which we put up many, many years ago called ‘Instant Karma’. And we have a phenomenal catalogue, which we have put over the years - Loy Mendonsa

I think Raja sir is lucky that a lot of his old songs got contracts where rights came back to him and it is completely okay for him to say that he should be compensated for his music. And one of the big problems in India is that composers don’t get royalties. Raja sir signed contracts, which were only valid with the record companies for five years before they came back to him - Ehsaan

The duo is set to perform as ‘Instant Karma’ in the fourth edition of ‘Johnnie Walker: The Journey’ on March 25 at The Westin Hyderabad, where they will render foot-tapping tunes from the Bollywood of the ‘90s and other hits. Speaking about the event, Ehsaan shares, “In this show, we will re-launch our old band ‘Instant Karma’. We will be performing a few ‘Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy’ songs, but it is all mashed up like pop and western pop songs.”

“In Johnnie Walker: The Journey, we will play as a band, which we put up many, many years ago called ‘Instant Karma’. And we have a phenomenal catalogue, which we have put over the years,” Loy echoes. About their expectations from their event, Ehsaan says, “It will be a fun concert, with a lot of twists and turns in music.”

Sharing about their band Instant Karma and collaboration as SEL, Ehsaan informs, “Instant Karma is something, which happened before SEL and Shankar did sing a lot for us. And later Instant Karma kind of died because of the whole scene then. We did not do remixes, we did new versions of old songs and that was overdone by the industry and at that time it was best to step out of it. Now it is pretty good because we are bringing back the hits of old Instant Karma.”

Ehsaan states that he just doesn’t draw inspiration from one thing but many things. “I am inspired by the entire world, a lot of people; lot books, a lot of movies, etc.” Ehsaan is the first guitarist from India to be endorsed by Fender guitars and has signature models to his name and about the collaboration he says, “Well, it happened because of my visibility and my passion for the instrument. I was approached by Fender to endorse and I have two signature models and it is a thing of lot of pride and it is an honour to be endorsed by Fender.”

Before becoming part of the band and the trio Loy Mendonsa played piano and keyboards for the likes of AR Rahman and Nadeem-Shravan. Sharing about his favourite part while performing live he says, “The very fact that songs are yours and as composers they belong to you and it is our music, so technically we should be the people playing and we do and that is the best part of performing. People love songs and what more you want.”

The duo says that as part of Instant Karma they will be performing and are planning to record songs, which will be original compositions. “As Instant Karma we will be performing a lot and we do plan to record and it will not be the same kind of mash-ups, which we did earlier. We will keep them more original. And as part of SEL there are many projects and among them, one is a Telugu project, which will come to light very soon,” Ehsaan shares.

“Once the band is on the road performing we all chip in; we all write and we are planning to come up with a lot of originals,” Loy adds.
Sharing their view as composers on the latest issue of Ilayaraja sending legal notice to singer SP Balasubramanium, Ehsaan says, “I think Raja sir is lucky that a lot of his old songs got contracts where rights came back to him and it is completely okay for him to say that he should be compensated for his music. And one of the big problems in India is that composers don’t get royalties. Raja sir signed contracts, which were only valid with the record companies for five years before they came back to him.”

By Navin Pivhal