In the footsteps of Rahman

AN 11-year-old boy picked up a guitar for the first time. He knew he’d be a towering statement in showbiz one day. Two decades down the line, a brawny figure pulled out a sleek Gibson from his professional kit, hastening to the studio, making sure he wouldn’t let pass his recording with A R Rahman.

The boy in him still remains as Steeve Vatz talks about his life, but more evidently when he plays ‘pirate’ with his little daughter. The man has plenty on his mind and so also on his flamboyantly eventful schedule, for the guitarist, now having extended his horizon from being just an instrumentalist to more of a resource person, his musical boundary seems stretched out.

Catching up with him on a weekday is perhaps something close to a sin as that means keeping him from the discussions in the many studios with the top shelf music directors of the country.

Stepping into the movie industry, barely a year ago, rendering his guitar skills for a slew of movies, beginning with Bhima, but after music director Dharan noticed his beyond just ‘the rock star guitarist’ label, what occupies Steeve now is a role of a creative person who imparts novel ideas to music directors.

“What I do is sit with them as we figure out what course each song is taking. The idea I give is basically the pattern on which the melody is placed. The basic creation of music, to call it in simple terms. People look at me as a resource guy who can give fresh elements to a track especially when there is the cliqued masala music doing its rounds,” he says. Perhaps parallel to what Rahman did for Illayaraja years ago.

The rock-based guitarist candidly admits his love for the labour, rock music only helping him in the process of ideation. “These days, with the onslaught of action movies, there is a lot of rock music deployed. The action hero movies require a lot of power musically.

And the only thing that comes into the picture is an electric guitar,” he notes. With two albums (John 3:16 and Close your Eyes) to his credit so far and a firm footing in both Hindi, Tamil and English music, a third one is thickly brewing in the backyards; a folk rock multi-lingual fete with a strong social message and poetical lyrics.

That’s what he’s ascertained so far. “But with my new found role and with all this running around, it might be next year that I release it,” he says.

Working in both Kollywood and Bollywood, what he’s noticed is a stark difference in the tastes of the audience when it comes to choice of rhythm and melody. “Hindi music has a lot to do with groove while in the South, melody takes over. But if I am able to bridge the two, then there’s nothing like it,” he says.

Religiously setting sail his musical boat, he looks at the fast unravelling horizon. Looking sure-footed, at the same time, fingers crossed, he waits for perhaps the next big break-music direction. But he confesses, “If I have survived so far, it’s nothing but God’s talent embedded in my life, for which I’m grateful for.”

Courtesy: newindpress.com