We will rock you

Rockers are the luckiest sods in the world They get the screaming fans the hall of fame the women So when actor Suchitra Pillai asks this writer I want to know why only these two are being interviewed indicating Indus Creed frontman Uday Benegal and prog rocker Siddharth Basrur playwright and midday columnist Rahul daCunha cuts in Theyre rockers yaarPillai Benegal Basrur and a few other actors are rehearsing in Khar for SingIndiaSing an upcoming musical to be staged in October which has been written by DaCunha and Bugs Bhargava Krishna and directed by Nadir Khan 12 Angry Jurors The plot follows a bunch of singers competing against each other to win a televised singing contest The writers had conceived the play eight years ago Theres a reason why it took so long says DaCunhaBecause every three years something came into the system that made it richer In 2010 reality shows werent that big Bigg Boss came in and became an asset to the musical The power of the Internet wasnt there in its Twitter and troll form Each phase in Indias growth has added to the story It needed the last eight years for the urgency for the country to change for the Internet to get more viciousThe cast of SingIndiaSing includes 11 actors and 18 dancersAs a musical SingIndiaSing crosses genres mdash rock pop Bollywood Carnatic and hiphop Theres no lipsyncing and no spoken dialogue it is a narrative but in song form Benegal and Basrur who were approached to play the leads last year are aware that they arent actors Benegal admits as much to Basrur Im probably a shier actor than you areBut the opportunity was too good and too rare to pass up In principle I said yes because Im always up for something new says Benegal Of course Clinton Cerejo being the music composer was very reassuring because the music will be of a certain standardBranson meets AmbaniBasrur plays Vishnu this quintessential angry rocker whos trying to use his anger for the greater good says Basrur He is extremely righteous A little too righteous Benegal plays Channel a media baron along the lines of Richard Branson DaCunha says Hes the younger Ambani Hes not Mukesh looking at only those businesses that will 100 per cent make money Hes Anil who thinks of himself as a little sexy DaCunha had locked Basrur in his mind eight years ago but Channel took some time to castChannel became truly interesting because we didnt have a genre of music sorted for him he says We wrote this song called Ching Ching where Channel needs help and he sings to god We see his roots as it were So even though in life he is quite a sophisticated guy eventually he is Tirupati When Clinton composed it we knew theres only one guy in this city who could play the partBenegal has another theory on his casting The first time they played the music DaCunha told us We kept in mind your personalities and created these characters around them Suddenly a revelation happened Rahul thinks Im a bad because thats what my character is DaCunha wisecracks We thought a lot whos a bad in the rock worldTo give them due credit Benegal and Basrur have stepped out of their comfort zone for SingIndiaSing Theyve been through a few essential movement and character workshops and inessential mdash according to me mdash vocal training But Basrur corrects us After I started coming to Marianne DCruz Aiman vocal coach I realised that my technique is extremely wrong I have been putting unnecessary strain on my vocal chords There are so many muscles you can use to propel soundBenegal says Marianne has certainly introduced me to a whole new universe With each of us shes analysing our voices and figuring out where our strengths and weaknesses are and employing techniques to smoothen those things Its helping me in my regular stuff I felt it very much at my gig in Delhi recently Every time I would slip back into the pattern of the old ways I would consciously bring back Mariannes technique about taking the pressure off the larynxHorror of horrors Basrur also had to take dance lessons Benegal says supportively Arre hes become a champ Basrur adds I have two left feet It took me a while to loosen up On a song called Citylights I was doing almost everything the dancers were doing but I just could not keep up with them So they stripped stripped away and now its barely like 20 per cent of what it was Im actually enjoying itThe wishlistDaCunha got his dream cast because before being their leader hes their fan When I hear these two guys sing I cant explain it he says All my favourite rockers like Chris Cornell their ability to scream theyre going into some foghorn situation and then they go ballad You think that cant be the same voice Its another level of control where youre going up five octaves and then you climb down Sid has that He has two songs one where he goes insane with screaming and then he sings the most poignant song The rock voice when it goes into ballad mode it kills meCatch up on all the latest Mumbai news crime news current 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