Features

Singer Songwriter Prabhtoj Singh Talks About New Singles

features May 15, 01:49pm

Prabhtoj Singh witnessed the evolution of Delhi's live music culture as a fan. Now, the singer-songwriter prepares to witness it once again; this time, as a performer.�

Randeep Kaur

In 2016, Mr. Big's Eric Martin was performing in the capital when an unforeseen damage to his guitar led to a dream come true for an aspiring local musician. Prabhtoj Singh, singer-songwriter and an avid classic rock fan, not only lent Martin his guitar, but joined the legendary musician on the stage and performed two iconic songs at the Hard Rock Cafe. Two years later, Singh is celebrating another occasion with equal zeal.

With two singles released, Prabhtoj Singh carves a way for himself in what looks like only the beginning to a long and promising journey. Singh admits the theme behind the two singles reflect a cliched attempt, but the fact that love and heartbreaks happen to everyone acted as the driving factor in releasing them (Singh had written one of the songs at the age of 19). "Both of them were inspired by what was going on in my life for a brief period of time. I was still trying to understand my emotions and yes, I do over exaggerate sometimes but I had to write them down to get it all off my mind," says Singh, who pursued music full-time after graduating from college. Singh, here, is talking about the two latest singles that were uploaded on streaming services only lately - Fool For Loving You and One Sided Love Affair. "I'm always impressed by artists who can touch your soul with their craft so that's exactly what I went for with these songs." adds Singh. Acts like Bon Jovi, Michael Learns To Rock and Coldplay influenced Singh's songwriting abilities early on, while John Mayer influenced the persona. Among the Indian counterparts, the Delhi-based songwriter made the most of the then diverse and buzzing live music scene of Delhi. "A lot of indie artists like Five8, Advaita, Them Clones, Jester have also influenced me a lot. They are great bands but more importantly they are great songwriters as well," believes Singh, as he continues to explain, "Again, I would say that I was lucky of them to meet these guys quite early in my life and I learnt a great deal by just watching and listening to them at their gigs."

However, what Singh had the pleasure of as a regular 'scenester' of live music scene, did not really extend to as a professional performer. The diminishing trend and importance of live music 'bands' in the capital has been an issue for several emerging acts. Open to the idea of performing at house parties, rooftop gigs and intimate venues, Singh also wishes that more venues follow the path of The Piano Man Jazz Club and Depot 48, and encourage live music. “Yes, I agree that there are lesser ideal live venues in the city to play independent music to an audience who cannot get over 'Hotel California' till date. I'm not saying that I hate the song (I love playing it), but there need to be more people who are open to new music at venues in the city. There are extremely few venues in the city known for programming bands that play original music," explains Singh.

Writing music began at the age of 15 for Prabhtoh Singh, and that evidently gave birth to his first act - Evenodd (earlier known as The Fringe). Other projects like Hightime, PAN!C and The Copycats followed later. Singh juggled between blues and punk rock and rock n' roll while expressing through this bands, however pursuing music as a solo singer-songwriter always seemed to be his final calling, in a way. Singh elaborates, "I felt the need to write music that I could honestly write. Basically, I wanted to explore the singer-songwriter version of me and started consciously writing music where I could do justice to my ideas. I didn't have any other band where I could explore a pop/rock/bluesy sound so I started working with my friend and guitar player Aman Sagar who is currently studying at Berklee College of music in Boston. We started making demos of the songs I was writing and finally got our musician friends to play on those songs and record an EP titled 'Lately'. That's how I began my singer-songwriter career.”

Singh wanted to ensure a smooth and ideal execution of the two singles. And a huge list of collaborators joined the songwriter for the same. "Aman Sagar, currently an A.R Rahman scholarship holder at Berklee College of music has played guitars on both the songs, and recorded them in his Boston's home studio. Aveleon Giles Vaz (Drummer at Five8), my super senior and favourite drummer in the city has played the drums. Rythem Bansal and Pranay Parti helped the songwriter in recording the keyboard elements. And bassist Danik Ghosh recorded for both the songs. These songs were mostly recorded at Ferris Wheel Studios in Gurgaon. They were mixed and mastered by Ritwik De at Ghar Ka Studios," educates Singh.