Thaindian News

Toronto, July 5 (IANS) Loy Mendonsa, who along with Shankar Mahadevan and Ehsaan Noorani forms Bollywood’s most successful musical trio, ascribes their success to one word: chemistry.

And after delivering 30-odd chart-busters, he says Farhan Akhtar’s Don 2 is their next ‘big one.’

“Our success lies in our chemistry to work with one another, and bring the best out of each of us,” Loy, who stayed back here after performing at the IIFA awards last month, told IANS in an interview.

The keyboardist of the trio, which has given Bollywood chart-busters from ‘Dil Chahta Hai’ to ‘Kal Ho Na Ho’ to ‘Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna’, says, “We are three radically different people. There is no overlapping and we are very objective about our music and what we do.”

He says each member of the trio “brings his own colour to our music and enriches our work. We have been together for more than 10 years now and we have developed that level of deep understanding and communication. We enjoy working together.”

Loy says they spend so much time together that “we virtually live together while doing our music. It’s fun. Anything can be the trigger for our music. Any one of us can start the process and the rest of us contribute to its completion. Then there is the process of elimination… to leave out what is not needed. That’s how we complement one another.”

To create what he calls their ‘fusion music,’ the trio listens to a wide range of music.

“It is very important because Bollywood music is still developing. It is not even a hundred years old compared to folk music, and Indian or western classical music. We always try to incorporate these influences into our music,” he says.

“I personally listen to a lot of Arabic and Indian classical music.

The music goes much beyond the film. It has an identity of its own. That’s what we try to create,” says Loy who is trained in western classical music and has worked with the great A.R. Rehman.

Among the 30-odd chart-busters delivered by the musical trio, Loy rates ‘Dil Chahta Hai’ as his best.

The man, who started his musical journey in Delhi with jingles and signature tunes for Siddharth Basu’s Quiz Time and Prannoy Roy’s World This Week, says the trio is looking forward to Farhan Akhtar’s Don 2. “That’s a big one for us,” he says.

(Gurmukh Singh can be contacted at gurmukh.s@ians.in)