Sreejith Edavana: Didn’t want to sell my music through sensual videos in Bollywood

When music director Sreejith Edavana composed Nenjodu Cherthu, along with Saachin, it became one of the first Malayalam music videos to go viral. The duo’s songs for Sugeeth’s Madhuranaranga in 2015 spawned a few more chartbusters but Sreejith, instead of playing it safe, decided to go solo since then – collaborating with multiple artistes for his Hindi album and also working in a Tamil movie.
His latest Mollywood venture Shikkari Shambu has once again proved that he has not lost his magic touch, with the film’s songs Mazha and Thararaathara Moolana finding place in the music charts days after its release.
The songs take the listeners back to the 80s and 90s, when melody reigned supreme. Sreejith says that the reason for that is because the songs were indeed composed in a similar fashion.
“We started composing for the songs six months ago. Like in the 80s and 90s, director Sugeeth, scriptwriter Nishad Koya, lyricist Santhosh Varma and me got together and tuned the songs. I got instant feedback and instructions from them,” he says. “I was with the team at the location, which was 16 km from the Bhoothathankettu forest. It was a unique experience, unlike working in most movies where the music director composes the song in the studio and mails it to the director, who then sends his feedback.”
Being in the forest during the monsoon had an effect on the songs too, says the composer. “Sugeeth’s instruction was to compose songs that stood close to nature. For instance, he wanted people to feel as if they were drenched in the rain after listening to Mazha,” he says. “Fortunately, based on the feedback from the audience, we could bring that feel.”
Sreejith himself has sung a fun, peppy number titled Puliyunde Nariyunde while he has also collaborated with Vijay Yesudas, Vineeth Sreenivasan, Haricharan, Roshni Suresh and two newcomers Deepak and Nabeel Aziz for the tracks in the movie.
Shikkari Shambu is Sreejith’s first Mollywood film project as an independent music director, and it had its set of challenges. “It’s always difficult to please Malayali listeners because we listen to each song intently, and if it’s bad we criticise it and if it’s good we enjoy it immensely. We give a lot of importance to music,” he says.
While his latest Hindi album titled Dhuun didn’t make waves, it was a learning experience, he says. “It’s true that the album didn’t get the reach we had hoped for. However, it was appreciated by those in Hindi pop circles, saying that it had a fresh appeal. Also, because I worked on the album, I could make a lot of Bollywood contacts,” he says.
The Hindi music market has been a frontier that South Indians including KJ Yesudas has found hard to crack, and Sreejith says he too had faced a lot of hurdles trying to market his content.
“A major record label was ready to ink the deal. However, they wanted to change the visuals we had already shot. They wanted more skin show, saying that’s how they usually market Hindi songs. I told them that for me the priority is the music and not the visuals, and there was no need to market music through sensual videos,” he says. “Also, the attitude of the people is different once they know we are from South India.”
Not backing down because of the hurdles, Sreejith vows that he would be doing another Hindi project soon. Currently, the music director has composed two songs for debutant Anil’s project titled Avalum Avanum and Samuthirakani’s next Tamil movie.