Performing live is fun: Mohan of Agnee

Before they met, Mohan Kanan had a secure banking job, while Kaustubh Dhavale (aka Koko) had stuck it out through difficult times, including the trauma of the death of two of his fellow band members in 1995 (now defunct band Agni). But a chance meeting at a common friend’s wedding, a phone call and a jamming session later, Agnee was formed in 2006. And since then, they haven’t looked back. Their first album Agnee (2007) was an instant hit, and they have earned accolades for songs like Sadho re, Lamha yeh jayega kahan from the film Dil Dosti Etc. and theme songs of shows like Roadies and Splitsvilla. The duo, in Vadodara to perform at a college fest, spoke at length to AT about their music, upcoming projects and more. Excerpts: “The last timewe performed in Vadodara, the crowd response was as good as in Mumbai orPune!” “Weperformed in Ahmedabad recently too, and Gujarat has become our favouritedestination now. I really mean it! What’s more, the crowds here know thelyrics of most of the songs reallywell.” “We are themusic directors for the films Aalaap and Gulab Gang, and also doing a Marathifilm. But we aren’t going to become full-time music directors. Being in aband and performing live in front of thousands of people is morefun!” “Thefact that film directors are approaching us shows that we are doing qualitywork, and it’s really satisfying. We will continue to work hard and neverdo anything frivolous.” “After films like Rock On!! and Life In A...Metro, a lot of wrong notions that people had about rock bands have finally disappeared. Things have changed a lot in the last few years and it’s a far better scenario now compared to a few years back, when the common perception about rock bands was that it was a bunch of long-haired guys dishing out some noisy music!” “Some of the biggestmusic directors, including A.R.Rahman and Vishal Dadlani, have come from bandbackgrounds and people now look at bands with renewed respect.” “Till now, themaximum time taken by us to compose has been one-and-a-half hours for Sadho re.We composed the Splitsvilla song in five minutes!” “But there is nocompromise on quality. We first listen to what we compose for a month or so andmake changes, if required, before it gets released.”Follow us on Twitter for more stories