IT’S NOT A LOVE SONG, INTERVIEW WITH A YOUNG INDIAN INDIE ARTIST JNAAN

Today’s interview is with a young artist Jnaan from India who has released his first single “I Know How to Love You” that’s being applauded by music lovers across the globe for its very unique flavor and been making his name in the industry, the musician is ambitious and has a head full of dreams this is an effort to take a sneak-peak into his dreams and his origins

What is music to you? How did it all start?

I was a geeky kid through high-school who was very much into physics and computers, I don’t even remember consciously listening to music whatsoever, my parents were big fan of regional movie music, in India we have a huge culture of following movie music unlike other countries, so they used to listen to allot of those songs and I’d be busy with my things and then in college my mom forced me to learn music for some reason, she said she was scared that I’d become a mechanical being, a robot in her words, so I chose to learn guitar as that seemed cool to do in college, that’s how I started off, and now music has replaced all my other interests from my early days, it has become a part of me, the whole creative process breathes life into me and I’m glad this happened, there couldn’t have been a better place than this to be.

When did you feel that you can make your own music? So many of us who learn music stick to playing existing songs and we never make that transition of creating own music, how did that happen to you?

Luckily for me, I was introduced to independent music scenes very early, as my guitar tutor ran a band himself and certain scenarios that happened at right times, I got an opportunity to play with them in a gig and from then on I played in allot of amateur bands, some of which made original music some of which were cover bands, I started learning the process by looking what happened around me, I started doing my own stuff at home, when I was alone and gradually I developed my own process and style of making new, original music that was influenced by allot of the music I heard over the years

What artists have influenced you the most?

My listening choices have drastically been changed over the years, I started with bands like Greenday, then allot of pop bands and artists to finally resort in artists like John Mayer, SRV, Frank Ocean, Bob Dylan, Passenger, Jacob Collier, Tinariwen, Bon Iver, Weeknd and so on

When did “I know How to Love You” happen, how did it become your first song?

Technically this isn’t my first song, neither did I dream of releasing it as my first single in my wildest dreams, before this I worked on so many other songs of mine for months and planned on releasing them, some of them were half produced, some of them I flushed out as I didn’t quite like them, and then while all this happened, lock down was induced in India due to the ongoing corona virus situation and I couldn’t efficiently collaborate any of the artists and producers I earlier was collaborating with to make my songs, and one random afternoon I was just recording all kind of random things while I came up with the chord progression for “I Know How to Love You” I was suddenly hooked to it, I started developing it, I wrote a sample lyrics and started making progress and before I know the song was roughly complete, it took me 3 hours 20 minutes to come up with the whole thing, and that’s it, I knew it was there and I knew that this was the one, I sent to few of friends and artists who liked the song as well and I decided to release it right on that day.t

Anyone who listens to your song for the first time thinks it’s a love song, but I read otherwise on your press release, can you elaborate on it a little?

Yeah, actually all the texts and calls I’ve been receiving from all random people since the day of release, most of them thinks this is a love song and I blame my lyrics for it, I mean technically it is a love song, but it talks about self-love and about the bond we share with the life energy in us, that keeps us alive.

An individual spends more time with himself than any other person in his life, he does all kinds of random things with himself that he actually overlooks and doesn’t acknowledge

And the lyrics tries to remind all listeners of those moments that we share with ourselves.

We really need love and value ourselves and the song’s motive is to ignite this light in all of us.

What next? What have you planned for the future? Can we expect more songs in 2020 from you?

I don’t quite plan very well, I’m a very impromptu person, but I do have desires and dreams to accomplish in music and art, I’m working on a lo-fi mixtape that I aim of releasing next month, and I really want to concentrate on my piled up short film projects as I parallelly work on my other unreleased songs, may be couple of years from now I’d want to do something with Indian folk music that greatly interests me given that this corona virus situation fades out and normalcy is restored.

At last, what do you want to say to your fans?

Haha, I really really don’t think that I’ve grown as much to acknowledge that I have any fans, I’m just new fish in the sea and not half talented as so many unknown, underrated artists out there, but what I want to say to my LISTENERS is that, we all are undergoing tough times right now that’s taking a huge toll on our mental health and more than ever now is the time we start loving ourselves a little more, and I believe if we love ourselves enough we’ll love the people around us better, let’s be humble, kind, compassionate and help one another during bad times and sail this storm like it was nothing,

Love, Always.

Follow Jnaan at Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/apoorva_jnaan/