So how did it all start?
Raghav: With my father’s harmonica. I asked him for one too as a kid and spontaneously began to play it while a song was being aired on television. I was around 4 when my dad, now a retired DIG of police, made a deal with me - every birthday I would get a new instrument if I mastered it in one year. I enrolled in a music school at eight and later graduated from the Monash International Music School and Conservatory from Australia.
Aditya: Actually, Raghav is very good at observation and at pick-up. And I don’t mean about music alone. Whether it is sports or video games, he is equally fast at learning new things!

You did your share of ad jingles too.
Raghav: Yes, and I also played at Shubha Mudgal’s concerts. In my first album there were three originals and four adaptations of Hindi songs besides an interpretation of Sting. I have also collaborated on concerts with Sunidhi Chauhan, Niladri Kumar, Louis Banks and Sivamani.

Among your 30 instruments, are there any rare ones?
Raghav: Yes, and they give my music that extra edge. While the bongo, drums, guitars and flute are among the common instruments, the zuzuk, digiredoo from Australia and the darabuka, an African percussion instrument are some of the rare ones.

How did you get your first film break?
Raghav: It was Vijay Kumar of Yash Raj Films who called me. I had played on Hum Tum and Dhoom:2 and had been a part of the rock band Canzona that had played all over India. I then did theatre in Delhi and went into jazz and funk. Then came my albums. So I was asked to do instrumental versions of YRF hits for an album that did not work out. But when Kabul Express came up, he suggested that I pitch for it. And Adi liked Kabul fiza and I went on to do a full album of 6 tracks.

But it was an OST album that was not a part of the film itself. So Sunday, in effect, was your first film.
Raghav: True, but that was just one track, Manzar, which was highly appreciated. After that its producer Kumar Mangat came to me for a club song for One Two Three. But I told him that I was not interested in doing films for one or two songs. Kumarji was looking for a generic and non-situational club song and after I composed Rock mahi he decided to give me the complete film.

Composing for a film is different from doing an album. Did you enjoy doing it?
Raghav: Yes, except for the title-track of One Two Three, which is more of a promotional song and was the last to be recorded, the rest of the songs are all situational. Ashwani Dheer is a good narrator and I needed to get into the pre-song and post-song scenes to work on songs like I wanna guy and Gupchup, the latter being the most challenging track.
Aditya: As you know, Tusshar Kapoor, Paresh Rawal and Suniel Shetty are all named Lakshmi Narayan in the film and in this single song Gupchup we have all of them singing - but while Tusshar is in a romantic mood with Esha Deol and Sameera Reddy and Paresh Rawal are in seduction mode, Suniel Shetty is doing some gangster rap. So the lyrics and music had to make sense of all of these within one song.
Raghav: And Aditya had the bright idea of turning Ninad Kamat’s Lakshmi Narayan into a promo track by adding dialogues from the film. Ninad came in because we knew that he was good at voices. But to answer your question, doing an album is much easier. When you are in a sad mood, you can write a sad song, which need not be the case in films!

You have sung one version of the title-track in both male and female voices. That’s another first.
Raghav: Yes, but that was due to practical reasons - there was no female singer available when we did the song late at night. I have a well-developed falsetto but I would not like to do this as a habit. Even here my different texture matched because we needed a fat ‘50s tenor.

Being a master of so many instruments, you must be completely acoustic in your sound.
Raghav: Absolutely. I believe in looking into each and everything - I play the instruments, I arrange, programme, sequence and do the final mix myself.

What about background music?
Raghav: I would love to do background music, but everything should fit, and primarily I should get complete liberty. I have done a 3.5 minute theatrical promo for U Me Aur Hum and Ajay Devgan is very impressed. In comedies there is very limited scope for background scoring because of the effects and noises needed but a thriller would definitely excite me. Like in my song Kabul fiza I used the saxonet, which is a blend of the saxophone and the clarinet.

Whether in your albums or music, the two of you seem to come as a package deal. Is this going to be a permanent situation?
Raghav: We have known each other since school.
Aditya In fact, I began writing lyrics because of Raghav. He had composed a melody in Standard XII and at that point I hated writing. But I wrote something and he liked it and slowly I started writing for him. Initially it was all basic writing, a mix of what we hear in film songs, but later I began reading and studying the works of greats like Ameer Khusrau and Mirza Ghalib and realized that depth was needed. In films, I am a crazy fan of Gulzar.
At one point, Raghav went to Australia and I went to do stage as an actor in Bangalore, where I also taught theatre. Whenever Raghav came home on a holiday, I would take leave and we would work on more songs.

Has either of you worked with others?
Raghav
: Munna Dhiman was to be the original lyricist of One Two Three. But we did not really get along and the song was completed by Aditya. So I made Kumarji listen to it and he agreed to let Aditya complete the film. Munna is of course very talented and has done some great work in U Me Aur Hum.
Aditya: It’s just that we are very comfortable with each other and know exactly what the other wants and likes. But I have written the song Hey Bhagwan in the recent album Raghu Dixit. Raghu hails from Bangalore and we came to know each other there. But I had actually written the song ten years ago!
Raghav: And honestly, we have no time to spare where we can work with someone else enough to develop a rapport.

Had Raghav not made you write, what would you have done?
Aditya: I always wanted to direct films, and it was Raghav who again pushed me into moving to Mumbai after he shifted here. I have assisted Vidhu Vinod Chopra on Eklavya as well as Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra on Rang De Basanti and Rohan Sippy too. I am working on my directorial debut that will happen this year.

What is the kind of cinema that you like to watch?
Aditya: I love early Ram Gopal Varma and Vidhu Vinod Chopra. I am also a fan of some of the older movies of Hrishikesh Mukherjee and Yash Chopra.

What do you think about film music today?
Raghav: People are becoming more experimental, which is good. With more and more young people coming in, the need is for different sounds and the rigidity that was there in film music has been modified. The structure, format and sound have changed and so have the lyrics to a more Western kind. There is also a great challenge in making promotional songs that get maximum airplay on television.
But what is not good is that music is not being given importance. Music decides the first look of the film and I do not agree with multiple composers doing a film. A common string must run through the songs and the feel of the album should be right. When I did one song in Sunday, I was a part of the film for three minutes, which makes no difference and no sense either!
Aditya: The songs of the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s remain evergreen because there were specific briefs for them. Today it is about making five songs from which one will be chosen! With so many new music directors and lyricists coming in, there is also a lot of undercutting. The briefs too are really absurd - we have some filmmaker saying, “Bas jadoo kar do” and another who says that the audience must be so excited that they should tear the theatre seats!
Raghav: In this, we really respect Rahman a lot. He goes with the trends, and if his song sounds a shade weird by itself, in the film it fits the situation to a T!