MUMBAI: After the launch of his solo album by nouveau label �Vishal & Shekhar Music', Bengaluru based composer cum singer Raghu Dixit has his hands full with composing for three Kannada films.

The music for his first Kannada film, �Psycho' directed by Devadatta V, was released last May and is still ruling the charts. My debut Kannada composition was well received by the audiences with one ringtone of the track, �Mahadeswara' downloaded by 3,00,000 people in two months," claims the singer.

Dixit has experimented with all genres in the album, retaining his Indian folk essence in the tracks. Psycho has six songs and a theme instrumental track; I have tried different genres for each song. While the first song is somewhat an alternative rock song named �Neene Beku', the other track, �Mahadeswara' is a Kannada folk song with latino chords progression, the other track is a lounge track....

Apart from Psycho, Dixit is also composing for two other Kannada movies, �Just Maatmaathalli' and �Superman' starring Prajwal Devang, which is lined up for a May 2009 release.

Dixit believes that the Kannada film industry is experiencing its best stage now with some original work being delivered. The Kannada film industry was dead about one and half years back and it was revived with the release of movies, Mungaaru Malai and Jogi. It was after these movies, that there was a surge of good talent fed by young blood in the industry....

There are some great music directors in Kannada industry now like Hari Krishna, Mano Murthy etc who are contributing to the industry. The filmmakers are also ready to invest more now; instead of the earlier meager film budgets, producers are willing to invest some millions in the making of the movie....

Quizzed if he would be joining the Bollywood bandwagon after making his mark in the Kannada industry, Dixit retorts, I am a Kannadiga and would like to stay in the Kannada industry for the time being. There is a lack of good talent in this industry and new talents are welcome, so I would like to take advantage of this opportunity and compose Kannada songs....

The self taught artist recollects that he became a guitarist and composer by chance. I was a Bharatnatyam dancer for 17 years and used to perform at college festivals. A college guy teased me about my makeup in one performance and challenged me to play the guitar and croon rock music. I took up the challenge and within a month, learnt the guitar basics. That was my brush to the music field....

After his college days, Raghu Dixit was a part of a band, �Antaragni' and performed at various gigs and colleges fests. The band split after seven years and I started the Raghu Dixit Project.We are performing around the globe now.... Raghu's music is a seamless amalgamation of Indian ethnic music and styles from different parts of the world. The USP of Raghu Dixit's songs are the intense lyrics which speak every common man's emotions and experiences.

As a part of the Raghu Dixit Project, the band just had their first world tour and are geared up for a tour around India in the coming month. It was a great experience to see Chinese and Japanese audiences jumping to our Indian music. Our music is widely accepted among audiences abroad and it is a good sign. We carried about 500 CDs for our world tour and didn't bring back any!...

Talking about the commercial viability of non-film albums, Dixit says, The sales numbers do not matter in the true sense as many of these numbers are just marketing gimmicks citing sales figures from chosen retail outlets. It came as a surprise when after four or five concerts in the North East, we sold out 400 copies of our album....

Music composer duo Vishal Dadlani and Shekhar Ravijiani had launched Raghu Dixit's solo album, �The Raghu Dixit Project' under their new independent label �Vishal & Shekhar Music'. The songs from the first album garnered a lot of popularity with songs like Mysore se aayi, Mumbai, Antaragni, Hey Bhagwan, Har Saans Mein, Gudugudiya and others becoming popular among his fans. The artist is busy composing for his second solo album which might again be launched under the same label.