Lyricist Rocky Khanna recently joined NewsX for an exclusive interview as part of NewsX India A-List. In the exclusive interview, the lyricist spoke about his latest projects, bond with Jubin Nautiyal and much more.
Excerpts:
Speaking about his journey till now and revealing whether he always inclined towards music, Rocky said, “Not really, I was a writer-director. I used to live in Bombay and met Mohit Chauhan. We used to live together in a room; basically, we created a lot of music that is how we made Guncha Koi in the film Main Meri Patni Aur Who. We made a lot of music at that time and that is how my musical journey started and I got inclined towards music.”
When asked about the reason behind your successful partnership with Jubin Nautiyal and how did it all start, he responded, “Actually I was doing a film and in that film, I was working with Jubin. Jubin was very new at that time and we started making music, that film didn’t get made but we started making music. We made some seven to eight albums at that time. It is all thematic based songs, so we wanted to experiment and release a song and see how the response is on the music. So, we released Humnava Mere and that got a major success with the audiences. That is how we started making music.”
Talking about how the mountains are now taking them to Hollywood and the big secret behind it, Rocky revealed, “During the pandemic, we got a chance to do this Hollywood film called Initiation and we had to unlearn everything and start on a new slate with that film because the sound over there, what they usually like, is a very different sound than what we do over here in this country. So, we created this song called Breaking the Rules with Jubin Nautiyal and one more song called Boujhi Boujhi for Initiation.”
Expressing how the pandemic opened up new ventures for him and made the process of creating music easier, Rocky said, “We made music for Initiation and we created a lot of other songs as well. I was not getting the time I required to make that music because we were busy working. During lockdown, we all got time to make music and that is how we made these English songs, and also we made a lot of other songs as well which you will hear in the coming times.”
When asked about his process of creating music, he answered, “A song is a feeling basically. You get that feeling and then you start going further in that journey of that feeling and you start getting all sorts of nuances of that feeling. That is how you end up making a song according to me.”
Sharing how he coped up with the past year and a half and what were some of his key learnings during this phase, Rocky said, “We actually got how human lives can be so delicate. We all can be so easily affected by a certain thing which can come anytime. I feel that is how when we all learned the basics well in this pandemic.”
On a concluding note, Rocky shared some of his upcoming projects and said, “With Jubin, we have made Humnava Mere and that got success. We are making a song right now where it will come out and it will be on the lines of Humnava, it could be Humnava 2.”