MUMBAI: The king of melody, Shaan returns to the music video space with Gaana Originals’ Surilee. The track is composed and sung by Shaan. The Tanha Dil singer has been composing songs from the past three to four years.

Sharing the origin of this track Shaan said, “One day the Gaana team approached me with the unique concept of Gaana Originals. I liked the concept and presented a few songs that I had composed. Amongst all they selected Surliee, of which only the ‘mukhda’ was ready at that time.”

After Surilee was selected, Shaan started making the entire song. He was pressed for time, but that did not affect the track in any way. “I believe if you keep doing something rigorously it will lose the flavour. I believe in spontaneity and I did it (Surilee) just in the flow,” Shaan exclaimed.

He later realised the audio would also require a video to connect well with his audience. So, just a week before the release date Shaan started looking for help in making the video. A good friend of him finally came into the picture, to direct and produce the video.

“It was during Diwali when I took some break from my busy schedule and started looking for ideas to shoot the video. While my friend and I started catching up in evenings to keep our ideas on the table. This is when I realised that his ideas were way better than mine. While browsing the internet I came across Preetika Rao’s video on Hotstar enacting in a serial Love Ka Hai Intezar. That is when I decided to have her in my video instead of a model because when a model comes into the picture, there is a little stiffness which I wanted to avoid. I somehow managed to get her contact and in spite of festival days, she agreed to be a part of the video,” added the Chand Sifarish singer.

The video was shot in two days at Madh Island; the song was initially set on a different pitch. “The lyricist who wrote the song within 10-15 minutes asked me to take it on a higher note and that is how the song was prepared. Kunwar Juneja is a fantastic lyricist and he gave the song the face it required,” said Shaan.

Here is the song that we have been talking about -

The romantic number has been a special one for Shaan as he could express his thoughts on love through this.

He said, “Surilee is a sad love story where my singing is a little drawl and music too but the lyrics are positive. It shows no matter what I am in love. Moreover, love can’t be your weakness it has to be your strength. Something that makes you happy, it has to be joyful.”

Having started singing jingles at the age of 17, Shaan slowly moved to playback singing and he believes to be blessed for not have seen a darker part of his journey. “Singing was a casual part of growing as my father was a musician and my sister started singing. It’s been a very long journey but doesn’t feel like one.  It feels like a very fun ride, met a lot of wonderful people,” said Shaan.

Apart from singing, Shaan has also been a great composer and lyricist. “Somewhere coming from my grandfather who was a songwriter and a classical artiste, my father was also on the same lines, so at an early age, I understood that it is in my system and I can do it. Also, I got into composing as my father was into this so I had that confidence in me,” said Shaan.

Well, not many know the reason for him to start lyric writing in the era where Javed Akhtar and Gulzar Saheb ruled the industry. “I wanted something into the Indie pop genre but did not get the right lyricist for it. In those days if I asked Javed Sahab or Gulzar Sahab to write lyrics which are in Hinglish, they would have surely not let me stand. So, I started writing on my own,” added Shaan.

Not settling to one project, Shaan is simultaneously working on different things in his best way to connect with his audience with a hope of giving them something new each time.

Currently, Shaan is on a project called Return To Romance for Saregama Music. In the first episode, the singer sang a beautiful mashup of the songs from the 80’s – Chand Mera Dil and O Hansini. He is ready with four songs till now. The second one is all set to release with a mashup of the two hit songs from the 90’s featuring Shah Rukh Khan - Jadu Teri Nazar and Tujhe Dekha Toh.

In the fast-moving digital world, it is important for an artiste to be active and connect with its audience through various media portals. “I have realised that artistes are doing so much work outside that they have no time to put up things on their channel. Also, the trend of getting more of views on the videos is too much. I am not in the race of viewers, but it is just that there are hardly people watching television these days. So it is mandatory for us to be on portals most used like YouTube,” added Shaan.

He is also doing a series #GiftHappiness. Here people who do something good for the society by going out of their way are interviewed by Shaan. “Sometimes it’s just your time that is required instead of your money, affluence, and power. They are family people who have their own jobs but still take out time for the society,” he ended.