Real artists are the same on stage and backstage, Arjun Kanungo is one of them.

Having been part of the Indian music industry for a decade now, Arjun Kanungo is one popular name in music circles. The year has been a busy one for the 31 year old who not only tied the knot with his sweetheart Carla Dennis, but he has also released a full album of 12 songs, 11 of them penned by himself.

The strapping actor, singer, composer, now songwriter and last but not least sports enthusiast, recently performed at Dublin Square, Phoenix Market City, Kurla, sending his growing number of fans in a tizzy singing on top of their voices to every word of his songs like Baaki Baatein Peene Baad, Ek Dafaa and many others.

Prior to the performance, Kiran Holkar met the singer backstage to know more on his debut album and his plans for the future.

Let’s go first to your debut album ‘Industry’. Nowadays everybody is into singles and you've decided to come up with a whole album?

Yeah, I am realizing part two of my album soon, so I think it's just the next step for an artist whose been around as long as I have been, as I've done so many singles and I am bored of doing singles, singles are more like a making a hit song where as in an album you got to tell the audience more about you, what’s artist's point of view, expressing  his/ her way altogether it’s a bigger story something deep to dive in for audience more than just a single. A single is about one situation and an album is about the whole perspective.

For the song ‘Everything Sucks’ you collaborated with an international artist, how did this happen, how did you get in touch with him?

Vault boy is the name of the artist who came up with the original song it’s a big international hit, so I think I was very excited to be approached for the song, he got in touch with me and informed me that I just did a Korean version with ‘Eric Nam’ I wanna do an Indian version with you, so I said that sounds great and we connected and it just kind of happened we did talk about it a few times, then he send me the track I recorded my vocals here, we made a little lyric video for it hopefully one day will make a music video for it, he is in America and our schedules are not matching at the movement but I would love to go to the US shoot some videos and come back at some point probably this year I'll do it.

We have seen a lot of your music videos and would love to know what the inspiration behind it is?

I have one rule, do not copy. Make what you feel out of your own song. Do not refer or don’t see, I mean like I hate working with reference because it’s such a common thing over here to come and say that-like I want this scene like they did in that song and this should be shot like that way and all together you make a new video out of copying works, I say no I would rather bring a thought to life, so for me specially In my new album which I have got complete freedom for the first time in my life you know, we got a whole team from US to shoot it for us. We did it exactly like we wanted to do, we didn’t care if it did well it didn’t do well. We went and did whatever we just felt of, it’s me and my brother who make the videos his name is Dhruv Kanungo. He is very talented guy and he is the brains behind the whole outcome, it’s his vision from the start but being the writer and singer of that particular song I give my inputs like this song is about this, this is the feeling and we need to capture this particular emotion in the video, that’s the way it goes.

So can you give us an example of any song?

Suppose you take the song Ilzaam, we did recently which has become a big hit got about 50 million views, and it’s completely organic it is a beautiful song. ‘KING’ has done an amazing job on this song he is always been a great collaborator, me and King both wrote lyrics on the song together, and king has this amazing ability to write lyrics according to me he is on the next level when it comes to songwriting. He came up with this hook line which is “ilzaam lagae ke main badal gaya, kyu badal gaya kabhi poochh meri jaan aasuon se bhara samandar tha mera tu tair na saki aur main doob gaya”.(You blame me saying that I’ve changed, but have you ever asked why you have changed, I’ve filled sea’s by tears in which you never tried to swim where I drowned).

That’s some really great lyrics.

So the idea was about you know toxic relationship about 2 people and why they broke up and he is asking what did I do that you keep accusing me. I told Dhruv that the emotion here is the betrayal that you have to show that this guy’s intentions were good. He may not be the perfect guy but his intentions were good so how do we capture that. So Dhruv worked on it and came up with these ideas, that's how it works I tell him the emotion and he finds a way to capture it on screen and give it a visual avatar, that’s how we work that’s how we made Ilzaam and already people are copying our video but that’s a different thing altogether but we did that with Bura Bura Sapna, Wapas aa Jao. Also with Wapas AA Jao we created this cute little animated ghost, everything is a new experience to me and I like the whole process of making it you know, there is a small inner child in me who is always excited to do new things.

How does singing and acting work for you? Do you feel both are different from each other and what part is difficult?

I think I’ll get crucified for this but to me, they are not different. I think art is art. Eventually art needs to be felt so that the audience needs to feel it. Whether it is singing or acting I think the approach is the same you want to present something which is a feeling, not a thought, you don’t have to understand it to feel it you just know, when we see some good or bad we know inside and that’s what an artist supposed to bring to the table without knowing you are bringing out, you look at a painting we don't know why we feel what we feel especially modern art that’s what art is about.

What song or situation changed your life as an artist?

Baaki Baatein Peene Baad song, till then I was struggling and from that point on it has been massive, nobody knew me and after that one song I got so many opportunities to work in this industry and I think I got to work nonstop since then, that’s what I always dreamed of and my dream was never getting famous my dream was to have enough work to keep working and that by itself is a privilege in this industry to always have work.

You have been a basketball player so are you in touch with your game?

I play but not like competitively, I used to do pistol shooting as well and yes basketball, now it is very difficult to get time, we have a couple of basketball groups on whats app sometimes we meet up and play, all my cousins play basketball too so yeah.

Will your fans expect more party songs in future from you?

I've done more ballads than I've done party songs, but yes I am excited to do party songs.

People still love the 80s and 90s songs, what’s your say?

I think it’s about who you are asking our parents grew up in the 80s and 90s so they love that era if you ask today's youth they like the new pop culture which is making a difference in real-time in their lives, I think if you ask me this question after 30 years let’s see if still my songs are playing.

Will you remake some of the songs here after?

I did a song called Zara Zara which everyone knows and it is one of my favorite songs from childhood itself. It is awesome to do it. I did it for television for a sequel and it is a big hit. That was the song I always wanted to do if you ask me what other songs I would like to do, I like all 'A R Rehman' music I am a huge fan of him, he has shaped me as an artist for sure, he was one of the measure reasons back in the day when I started my carrier in music.

Any collaboration in future?

Part 2 of my album is coming and I think that’s gonna surprise a lot of people. Part one of the industry is so different from part 2.

The music industry is getting Hing-lish or mixing English Tamil and Hindi languages and capturing more listeners, please give us your perspective on future comings of music industry?

I don’t think any musician who is not thinking about building a global audience is gonna be relevant in 5 years, everything today is about building a global audience because you know, 1st of all Indians are everywhere in the world, so if you are not thinking about those guys, and not about English or Spanish speaking world eventually somebody is gonna do it and I think those guys who are not thinking about it will get wiped out soon.

Interviewed by Kiran Holkar