Music Room - Dhruv Ghaenkar

“It is deeply satisfying winning an international award that has been adjudged the best work from entries across the globe.” - Dhruv Ghanekar

An accomplished and celebrated musician, Dhruv Ghanekar is a name to be reckoned with in the world of music. In an in-depth interview with Sumita Chakraborty, the amazing Dhruv Ghanekar talks about his action packed musical journey, producing two songs for the Beatles Documentary, winning accolades and awards, working with music bests and more…

Dhruv Ghanekar, the super-talented music composer, producer, and guitarist from Mumbai is a musician par excellence. Recently, he won the award for ‘Best Music’ at the UK Asian Film Festival for his documentary film, ‘The Beatles and India’! Not only that, he has forged ahead with his work in the recently released Jimmy Nelson documentary film, Save Our Sentinels - his exceptional composition added telling layers to the visual storytelling. Not only that, he has also garnered rave reviews for the same from critics - winning him the Kyoorius Award for Best Music and the Best Music Award at the D&AD Awards London 2021.

This year has seen Dhruv scale even greater heights with three of his projects getting nominated at Cannes - The Jimmy Nelson film, The Fevicol Sofa Ad (It has won the Spikes Asia award for Best Music) and the Ad for Vaseline! Building on the what is turning out to be a very successful 2021 - Dhruv has a host of exciting projects in the pipeline. He’s composing for two major commercial films - Choona on Netflix and the Kangana Ranaut starrer Dhakkad that releases in 2022. …Read on as this exceptional musician talks about his musical journey and more.

“Before I became a guitar nerd, I started as a singer in my childhood singing professionally for albums etc.”

Dhruv, you are a music composer, producer, and guitarist from Mumbai who has carved a niche for himself in the global and Indian arena, how has your musical journey of two decades been?

It has been incredibly rewarding. I never imagined that this journey would (a) Be this long and (b) Take me down so many different paths. Along the way there have been amazing experiences: from scoring Bombay Boys within the first year of my 56 composing life,to having a golden run of doing an insane amount of advertising and television work. In the mid 2000s we set up Blue Frog, thanks to which I met so many brilliant artists from all over the world. The last decade has been about going back to my roots using all those experiences and channelling it into my music. Of course, all the international accolades have been extremely gratifying. I’m just lucky to be doing what I do, but the amazing thing about music is that after all these years, I feel like I am just getting started! There have been massive challenges along the way, but hard work and sincerity to your craft always pays off and that keeps me grounded.

You have produced two songs on the Beatles Documentary film, which has won many awards at the UK Asian Film Festival. Tell us a bit more about it.

The Beatles and India documentary was an incredible opportunity for me to revisit my childhood. I had a Beatles mixtape on loop for over three years when I was 10 years old, so it literally was the soundtrack of my wonder years. I have the honour of contributing to this incredible project about The Beatles and their time spent in India. I have performed, arranged and produced 2 songs on the CD.

1. Julia by John Lennon

2. Love You To by George Harrison

Being a long time Beatles fan, this was a marvelous opportunity to re-interpret these classics whilst giving it an Indian tilt. Reinterpreting Beatles songs is a daunting task, as there’s such a plethora of already existing covers by many a great artist. But I am pleased with the outcome and I am certain the end result will surprise audiences as well.

Besides winning accolades and 50 international awards for your composition for the film Jimmy Nelson Blink & Save Our Sentinls, you have also garnered rave reviews from critics - winning the Kyoorius Award for Best Music and the Best Music Award at the D&AD Awards London 2021, this is quite a feat, how do you feel garnering such wonderful reviews and accolades?

It is deeply satisfying winning an international award that has been adjudged the best work from entries across the globe. This year has been even more difficult as its 2020 and 2021 combined! The aim of the Blink and SOS films is to mobilise an international audience to help preserve the world’s collective cultural identity. The film is a powerful visual commentary on the cultural identity of the last sentinels of our natural reserves. It is stitched together from thousands of original documented pictures of the last few indigenous tribes interspersed with the unique footage of their ancient habitats in the previous twenty years by celebrated photographer Jimmy Nelson and his team. We worked on the Blink film in 2018 and it was the most awarded campaign of 2019, winning over 50 international awards. SOS was a follow up that I worked on in 2020 and hence had to have a larger scale, so we recorded music from tribes all over the world, from Central Africa to Siberia, from Senegal and Cameroon to Tibet and of course, India. I have a great relationship working with Senthil Kumar (CCO Wunderman Thompson). He’s a fantastic creative person to work with who knows how to create a healthy atmosphere where all teams are moving in the same direction. He gives a lot of creative space to me and the result is the music for Blink and SOS. Both the films were challenging to compose. But we share a history of doing tricky work – The NIKE films that I scored in 2013 & 2014, were also crazy editorially and challenging to execute. So having done a lot of this sort of work , I guess now I am typecast to do complicated scores that require a lot of detailing. I actually welcome the challenge of doing complicated and difficult work now, I get a bit of a kick out of it. The awards are always a welcome pat on the back.

“We had a packed auditorium full of Norwegians dancing to a jazz band from India! It looked like the scene from Back to the Future and I was Michael J Fox!”

2021 has been good for you with three of your projects entered getting nominated at Cannes - The Jimmy Nelson film, (Shortlisted) The Fevicol Sofa Ad (it has won the Spikes Asia award for Best Music) and the Ad for Vaseline! Congrats, is there any magical formula for success that you’ve hit on (haha). But seriously, how do you decide what works and what doesn’t with the audience and critics?

There are no formulas, every job is unique. As a creative person, you are ultimately hired for your aesthetics and intuition. As a Film music composer, I am always at the service of the film. Every morning you start from scratch on a blank canvas. One has to keep aside personal indulgences and objectively look to enhance the visuals, but an important piece of that puzzle is the director of the film. The Fevicol ad is directed by Prasoon Pandey, who is again an incredible director and a phenomenal creative person. His knowledge of music is second to none. We have a long history of doing amazing work over the years. When you get into a room with someone like him, great things are bound to happen. Awards are always flattering and rewarding but nothing can match an organic reaction of the audience to your work.

Your resume is brilliant –- according to you which was the most exciting musical moment and can you share any anecdote – funny or otherwise about anything that was memorable?

Life on the road is full of stories. The most fun I’ve ever had performing was back in 2012, I was on tour with my band across Norway. Our second concert was in this place called Vadso, which is in the Arctic circle. Vadso has breathtaking beauty and in summer it has 24 hours of sunlight. We were scheduled to play at 9 p.m., so after what seemed like an eternity, we finished our set and the crowd went wild. They wouldn’t let us leave, finally after the 3rd encore, we ran out of songs to play so we started jamming on tunes we hadn’t ever played or rehearsed. We eventually landed up playing Johnny B Good - the old rock n roll classic and it was surreal! We had a packed auditorium full of Norwegians dancing to a jazz band from India! It looked like the scene from Back to the Future and I was Michael J Fox! We finally finished our concert and as we walked out of the concert hall, the sky had turned the most beautiful purple I had ever seen. We were escorted to the pier where we ate giant crabs for dinner and hung out with some Norwegian musicians under the midnight sun. It was an unforgettable evening.

“Dhaakad is directed by Razy Ghai , whom I have worked with on several occasions in the past. He is a fantastic visual story teller and I am really looking forward to seeing what he does.”

You are an exceptional guitarist – how did your journey as a guitarist begin?

Before I became a guitar nerd, I started as a singer in my childhood singing professionally for albums etc. But my voice changed when I turned 14 and began to look around for something to do and eventually picked up the guitar when I turned 16. Those early days were amazing, because I had all the time in the world and I would be practicing for 8-12 hours a day... After a couple of years of playing in my bedroom I formed a band called “Chakraview” while I was still in college. We became quite popular playing a unique style of progressive rock music. But the band split up in 1996 and I went off to pursue my studies in the States. After I got back, the opportunities to perform were very few and my composing career had taken off. In 2007, after we set up Blue Frog, I began playing more frequently again, often finish my recording through the day and jumping on stage at night , as my studio was right next door. After I released my two albums “Distance” and “Voyage”, I travelled and performed a whole lot more, touring really interesting places that I never thought I would visit. Performing live is something that I wish I could pursue more often but my studio commitments always take precedence. I hope that I can do a better job of managing my time so that I can perform more often!

“Unfortunately most remixes that I hear are lazy productions. It’s usually the flavour of the year mixed with the original melody with tons of auto-tune. That’s terribly boring.”

You have rubbed shoulders and composed, played and jammed with some of the best in the music industry, could you tell us more about playing with AR Rehman, Trilok Gurtu, Ustaad Zakir Hussain and so many others?

I worked with A.R. Rahman arranging and programming some songs for a couple of film projects, way back in 2003. A.R. only works in the night and we weren’t prepared for that as we had a session that morning at another studio, so we landed up back at our place at 9 p.m. completely exhausted only to begin working with him on a film called Boys. We landed up working all night. I was eventually falling asleep on the mixing console. Trilok Gurtu is someone I have admired since I started playing music. He was performing at Blue Frog and invited me to play on a few songs. By the end of the night, I had played most of the set. Every song was at a tempo that was faster than we had rehearsed. By the end of the night, I was ready to collapse. I have also worked with him on my album.

I had the opportunity to work with Zakir bhai on the film Saaz, the RD Burman biopic. We were very young and had to learn a complicated rhythmic phrase within a few minutes as we were about to start shooting. We were super nervous and made a mess of it, but Zakir bhai was so gracious and patient, he allowed us time to learn it. Over the years, I have had the opportunity to spend time with him and with Taufiq and Fazal bhai as well, both of whom I have performed and worked with on various instances. Working with these great masters I always learn something new and keeps me in a student frame of mind. I love it.

You also have a host of exciting projects in the pipeline including two major commercial films – ‘Choona’ on Netflix and the Kangana Ranaut starrer ‘Dhaakad’ that releases in 2022. Tell us about this?

Dhaakad is directed by Razy Ghai , whom I have worked with on several occasions in the past. He is a fantastic visual story teller and I am really looking forward to seeing what he does. Unfortunately the project is in the works so I am not allowed to reveal much about it. Choona is a crime heist comedy web series with a terrific cast and directed by Pushpendra Mishra that is commissioned by Netflix . I am really looking to scoring it. Again since it’s in the pipeline so unfortunately I can’t reveal much.

You have composed over 3,500 ad commercials for global brands, with many of them bagging prestigious awards both at home and abroad. What gets your adrenalin pumping most – composing for films, live audience or commercials?

Each discipline has its own reward and USP. Performing to an audience is exhilarating. Even better is performing to international audiences, which is is always exciting as there are always pre conceived notions watching an artist from India. But I revel in breaking the stereotypes as my music is anything but...... Composing for feature films is extremely rewarding as you get to paint on a bigger canvas, making a musical statement on a scale that is larger and of course one also gets

“I won a Stardust Award for my work on Drona way back in 2009. Time sure flies when you are having fun!”

exposure to a global audience. Listening to your music in a cinema hall is a surreal experience. And finally composing commercials… I get to work with amazing craftsmen in advertising, many of whom are my friends now. It’s always challenging and a whole lotta fun to create a musical statement in 60 seconds. After all these years I don’t have a personal favourite, each has its place and I have made peace with it. It keeps me on my toes and keeps the ideas pool fresh.

There’s a lot of talk about politics in music, have you ever faced it in your career, what do you feel about this.

We are living in a time when politics has permeated every part of our culture. Of course politics exists in every business and the music and film business is no different. I think if you want to play with the big boys, you have to roll with the punches. Its a part of life so one has to learn to deal with it.

Remixes are big now... what do you feel about them?

I have just finished doing two reinterpretations of Beatles songs for a film, so I am certainly not against it. I think, if there’s a fresh take on a song then it’s definitely refreshing. Unfortunately most remixes that I hear are lazy productions. It’s usually the flavour of the year mixed with the original melody with tons of auto-tune. That’s terribly boring.

Films, documentaries, commercials, live gigs – you have covered all bases? What’s next for you?

Of course there’s a ton of stuff left to do. Ishitta Arun (my wife) and I are working on a really

“The stereotypical Bollywood song is morphing into a newer more international sound. There are so many influences and directors are willing to take risks.”

interesting project that she is co-producing with Abhinay Deo, that he is also directing. The film is a hilarious look into music making. I am involved in the scripting stage as a consultant.

What about Bollywood songs, do you enjoy composing them?

Of course I do. The stereotypical Bollywood song is morphing into a newer more international sound. There are so many influences and directors are willing to take risks. I always look to push the envelope where ever I can. Composing songs is extremely gratifying to me and will always be my first love. I love the process of working with directors on a brief and creating and crafting a melody – it’s a bit like trying to catch a butterfly in flight.

You’re a Stardust awardee too - I believe you’ve won the Stardust Award too, tell us about that?

I won a Stardust Award for my work on Drona way back in 2009. Time sure flies when you are having fun!