MUMBAI: JioSaavn Podcasts has launched the third season of 'Talking Music', an engaging chat show where singers, music directors, composers, and artists from the Indian music industry candidly share unheard stories. 

From first-hand experiences to personal journeys and what it took to create some of their biggest hits, season three of 'Talking Music' has 30-minute episodes every Thursday, which began on 28th November 2019. Kicking off with Kanika Kapoor, this season will have a host of names on the podcast, including Armaan Malik, Shalmali Kholgade, Badshah and many more. 

Recent episode featured Raghav Mathur the voice behind the popular song Angel Eyes. Sharing the highlights of the conversation on the podcast

Raghav: “Angel Eyes changed my life. It’s been the two most impactful words of my musical life. There is not a day that goes by that someone doesn’t turn around and say, ‘Hey Angel Eyes,’ more than my name. More than people saying, ‘hey Raghav."

Raghav Disappeared for a very long time, what were you doing then?

Raghav: “Having hits! Fire came out in Canada and it was a huge hit. I did 3 tracks with Labrinth, I did Ishq Shava with Mr. Rahman so I was working, I was touring and I was doing stuff. I do understand though to a great extent why in India people felt like i just went away and that was because I wasn't coming at you from an American angle where you were hearing my records over there and you weren’t hearing my stuff over here because Bollywood was so prevalent and Radio stopped played pop records.”

“If you really look at the lineage of pop music in India, there is a bis gap between 2007- 2015-16. People are being forced to look at other avenues of music.”

What was a challenge then?

Raghav: “It was difficult then because a lot of radio stations in India said no we are not playing anything other than Bollywood. I kept the lane open and markets in India were like no we are done with the pop. Bollywood houses (labels) were like why are we giving these guys from England and Canada the same stage when they pay one-hundredth of the money we pay to put songs out and a lot of them got hidden in that.”

Q. How were things post-Angel Eyes?

“UK also was very supportive with Indian sound at that time, we were all over the radio, our posters were all over. But after a while, they felt that the Indian thing was done and it made me feel I like I was a fashion accessory. I was told you should pull out the Indian stuff from music, should be less desi, you should do less Indian stuff. When it comes to failure, it may have been my failure to not recognize that that was something maybe necessary that time. I thought it was culturally defunct to do that, whether it’s good or bad only time will tell.”

Q. Is it easy to approach labels and companies?

“ It's never easy to approach labels or labels coming to you, you could be Mariah Carey and still, it’s not easy.”

On his thoughts on the Indie scene here in India:

Raghav: “I love Prateek (Kuhad) I think he is super dope and I know Sid (Sriram) very well. I’m a little familiar with what’s going on in the Indie scene here.”

His thoughts on AR Rahman -

Raghav:  “He is amazing, he’s great, he has taught me a lot. We have had a lot of meals together talking about music and him telling me what he thinks I should do in giving me advice and I have learned a lot from him. He is like a musical parent for me.  He is way too humble but the biggest thing that I took away from him is I work a lot. I worked to the detriment of my health, I work hard on my music, I won’t stop and I don’t work anywhere near as hard as AR Rahman. He is the hardest worker I’ve ever seen in my life and I didn’t think anyone will be able to take that away from me. This man is from another planet, I’ve never seen anything like it, the man doesn’t sleep. Then you feel like he deserves it. Despite the fact that he is probably the most god-given gifted guy in the world when you match that kind of work ethic and the open-mindedness that he has, you feel like okay this guy deserves it, he deserves it forever.”

Raghav: “India is one of the most difficult territories in the world to have a comeback in coz our Indian nature is like- ‘arrey woh toh ho gaya, not next’ But at the same time we are also very nostalgic people and if the music moves us, no rules matter. We think with our hearts. So my goal is that with the music i create is to tug people’s emotions; to make them wanna dance, make them wanna cry, make them wanna party, make them wanna call their ex-girlfriend, make them do whatever they want to.”

“I wrote a song about my daughter when we were expecting and penned a record with Stephen Mcgregor who is one of the best producers on the planet. It’s about the emotions of someone about to come and how it matters so much more than all the minor stuff that you have to overcome at that point.”