As the sun sends out its first rays to welcome the city of Mumbai, the sunshine boy is ready with a bowl of crispy cereal and a tall glass of orange juice.
He knows that he has a long day ahead of him. After the song Give me Some Sunshine from 3 Idiots became a chartbuster, Suraj Jagan has his musical casket overflowing with a slew of offers.
Kites, Lafangey Parindey, Action Replayy and I Hate Love Stories...the list spells out a melting pot of genres.
The singer who performed at The Lalit Ashok recently has a story to tell his fans — that of dropping out of college to pursue a career in music. “Education has been an adventure for me.
I changed nine schools. And by the time I reached college, I didn’t want to lay my eyes on a textbook,” recalls Suraj. That was the time when the jazz rock band Aurora was looking for a lead singer. “Somehow I made it, and for the first time I sang on the microphone,” he smiles. Though the band lasted for only one show, that gave the man the much-needed morale boost.
“It’s been a long journey from there, but an adventurous one,” remembers the singer. Suraj set up his first band Krysis that kept the rock scene alive in Mumbai. “I just wanted to be in a band. But keeping a band together was difficult. You can’t survive by singing.
Most band members have to have an alternative career,” he notes. But singing is all what he wanted. Krysis dissolved, and the man made his way to Hong Kong. There he set up a band that kept the restaurant music scene alive for two years. “I was doing what I loved,” he says. But back in India, the ad jingle scene started taking a solid shape.
And after coming back to India, Suraj saw himself tour with his new band, Dream Out Loud, apart from lending his voice for ad jingles (You and I in this beautiful world). And that proved to be a stepping stone into the Bollywood music industry. With the movie Rock On! where Suraj played the role of Farhaan’s rock rival, people got to see the face behind the voice. “After doing the small role in Rock On!, surprisingly I got a few offers to act. But I’m not an actor. I’m a musician. So I turned them down. But I would still say that Rock On! was a turning point for the music industry. People started experimenting with genres from then,” he notes.
Currently, the man is busy with his new projects. “I am singing for Zoya Akhtar’s movie, Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara.
I have also lent my voice for Patiala House and Vishal Bharadwaj’s Saat Khoon Maaf. There is also Zokkomon, produced by Disney,” he points out.
The man who began with rock music says that when he started off, the pub rock scene was in its nascent stages.
“I remember performing to huge crowds back then. It was the era of live shows. What I’m doing with Bollywood music is pretty similar to that — huge shows with lots of people,” he says.
And the singer seems to be happy with what he is doing. “People always ask me whether I am planning to bring out a solo album. I don’t want to get involved with a record label, and I’m not dying to do a video just to be seen,” he signs off.