Rabbi Shergill is not your run-of-the-mill musician. And he has no intentions of becoming one either. Aabhas Sharma talks to the singer about Coke Studio, music and why he wants to stay away from Bollywood.
Shergill did one Bollywood movie — Delhi Heights — but since then says he hasn’t found people who match his sensibilities. “Independent music in India is dead,” he says, “and I do music because I love doing it, not because I want to be popular.” It’s obvious that his music has touched a chord with many as there are reports that Shergill is the first Indian artist to have been invited to perform by Pakistan-based Coke Studio. Shergill neither confirms nor denies it. “I have met Rohail Hyatt [a Pakistan-based musician and the man behind Coke Studio] but I cannot say anything about it now,” he says, adding that given a chance he would love to be a part of Coke Studio.
Shergill comes across as a rebel with his choice of music and the distance he keeps — a senior executive at a prominent music label says he comes across as a bit “snooty”. “I am not rebellious at all. I just know what I want to do and I will stick to that,” Shergill says.
His interest in music was fuelled by a Bruce Springsteen concert he attended in the late 1980s. Needless to say, he considers “The Boss” as one of his biggest inspirations. “I look at people like him, Nirmal Verma, Dr Harbhajan Singh and see that they do music because they love doing it,” he says.
Shergill grew up in Delhi and even went to a management school but dropped out after the first year. His first album, Rabbi, was supposed to be with Sony but there were problems; it was the same with Magnasound. He finally released the album with Phat Phish Records. “I wouldn’t call it a struggle as I continued to make music,” he says of those years. Shergill has a house in Bombay but loves staying in Delhi. “Delhi gives me a homely feeling,” he says. He does tours — “I love to travel” — but is not much into “gigging” as he loves to perform in front of live audiences.
His second album, Avengi Ja Nahin (2008), which wasn’t as much acclaimed as the first, had songs about communal violence and collective morality. Shades of Springsteen? “No, it was more or less a romantic album but I did try to bring some social issues into it,” he says. Shergill is sure that he doesn’t want to be an assembly line, churnning out album after album. Shergill is working on a new album which should release in the next few months. Will we see him promote it? “Nothing over the top. If the music is good it will sell on its own,” he says. That will be in sync with his low-key image.