Stage Matters
Stage Matters is the podcast that pulls back the curtain on the art of live performance. Hosted by Aravind Murali, this show delves into the profound transformation artists undergo when they step onto the stage. It's more than just a presentation of talent; it's about the vulnerable, exhilarating, and often unpredictable interplay between countless hours of dedication and the raw energy of a live audience.
Join Aravind as he chats with a diverse range of artists, from established icons to emerging talents, to uncover the secrets behind their transcendent moments. "Stage Matters" explores the highs, the lows, the practical techniques, and the critical mindset that define a performer's approach to their craft. If you've ever wondered what it truly takes to command an audience, connect deeply, and consistently deliver breathtaking artistic experiences, this podcast is your backstage pass to understanding the true essence of performance.
Stage Matters
Ep. 2. Vijaynarain - Thunder from down under
IIn a "Stage Matters" podcast, singer-composer-lyricist Vijaynarain shared insights into his journey in live performance, highlighting its profound impact on his artistic development. His passion for performing was ignited by early childhood musical training and the unique intimacy forged with audiences.
Vijaynarain recounted pivotal moments, including his participation in A.R. Rahman's "Unity of Light" concert, and a significant personal milestone in 2023: a performance for 11,000 people in Malaysia, which occurred after he transitioned to pursuing music full-time.
He underscored the importance of continuous learning, particularly from audience feedback, and emphasized meticulous preparation for shows, including adhering to a specific diet and vocal rest. Vijaynarain described performing as a "deeply spiritual" act, where improvisation is dynamically fueled by audience energy. While personal experiences are central to his storytelling on stage, he admitted that show promotion remains his biggest challenge. He also expressed a belief in the generative power of mistakes, advocating for openness during performances.
Vijaynarain stressed that the value of live performance lies in its unfiltered human connection, a quality he believes will become increasingly precious in an evolving digital age. His advice to aspiring musicians includes discovering their unique sound and actively engaging in live performances early in their careers to foster growth and genuine connection.
A seriously talented singer who's lent his voice to some massive film tracks and also got some incredible independent music out there. He's also a brilliant composer and a lyricist. He's the one and only Vijay Narayan.
Hi Vijay and welcome to Stage Matters. Hi Arvind, thanks for having me on your podcast and it's great that you're starting something that's dedicated to the live performance. So let's get straight into it.
So what drew you into performing? Um parents, they pushed me when I was like three or four years old when I was in school and I think I would have been on stage like reciting Bharathiyar songs or whatever. But I grew up learning Carnatic music for a bit like in bits and pieces for about four years totally by the time I was in my 12th standard and a lot of it was centred around like you know performing live or performing in a class right so in front of people so I think that that was the roots but obviously you see people around when you're as a musician when your career graph you know starts to take uh you know shape you see people performing and the high of you know live performance when I think through college when I would perform for like smaller audiences that was really the spark and you know I saw like bands performing in culturals wanted to be a part of that. So you said like what drew you to it first what keeps you coming back to it? It's the uh it's the intimate connection that you have with uh the audiences there because in that moment you're human you're flawed and you know you are the artist in you is unfiltered there at least I don't like use autotune live so I would like to say that you know yeah.
Can you describe to me a like pivotal performance that you saw either as a performer as an artist which has like kind of um and something I witnessed. You witnessed or you were part of whichever. Okay see something I witnessed would be uh 2001 I think the Unity of Light concert by R. M. Anand in Chennai.
Okay. So my dad bought a new bike and he got like a free pass with it and I went alone for that concert and I was like two uh I think two months away from like my board exams. Okay.
And so that was incredible because you had like all of these massive legends you've only heard of watching them live for the first time and uh massive crowds as well that was probably my biggest concert experience and my first concert experience I think so that is my that's that's left a lasting memory on me so yeah that that was one and in my own personal uh journey would be uh 2023 Malaysia that was the first time I performed my film songs in front of a crowd of like 11,000 people in the Axiata arena and that was the biggest crowd I performed. This is for whom? Santosh Narayanan's live gig and I was one of the singers. Okay.
And I had just made the decision to quit my day job in Australia after eight years and come and
do this and so to actually get that validation from like such a big crowd singing along and the fact that everybody knew my song so that was really nice. Super. So how has your understanding of performance evolved over your career? Um that's a very good question because uh you get inspired by various acts that you see and you start emulating them and then you realise that you know there is always a strife you're always striving for perfection when it comes to live performance because like I said there is a lot of room for error and you know it immediately shows but then over the years you also you know pick up some techniques pick up some just in the choice of songs or the choice of phrases that you want to do there's a lot of learning that happens the more you perform and I think uh yeah the more live shows I've performed I've also sort of understood what my healthy vocal range and what my kind of songs are and also what works with the audience you you know the feedback is instant most of the time so that also gives you like a good rough idea of you know what kind of music you can perform to them and that has actually helped me sneak in a lot of my independent stuff that they've not heard before in my live gigs and you know sort of also get like a decent response and some curiosity around it.
Okay wonderful. So how do you prepare for a performance? Do you have like some specific rituals or some things that you do? I don't really have any specific rituals but I like to get in at least two rehearsals if it's my show just to make sure that everybody is like you know perfectly like ready for the gig and I also don't like to go unplanned between songs in the sense that I also like to like chart out what's going to happen between two songs if I'm speaking or if there's going to be silence and those kind of things so we don't want to be like you know setting our patches and you don't want to you know the keyboard tones or like somebody playing like the riff of the song just before starting the song so those are the kind of things I learned also by being part of larger shows like Santosh so I usually have like you know my bassist is my band leader and he usually is on our earpieces telling us what's happening next so to the audience it looks like it's like a you know seamless transition. Is that Naveen? Yes of course it's Naveen Napier.
Do you have anything that you do like on the day of the show or the previous day of the show like something that your diet? Yes so I was just going to talk about diet and I missed that so I have acid reflux so I try not to eat too fully before the show and I usually don't have a meal at least like you know within four hours of starting a show. I still do like have hot liquids but I don't eat heavily just before the show. I know for a lot of people like going on a relatively full stomach is helpful but I usually go on an empty stomach that's the only ritual I follow and I usually give my voice rest in the mornings because in the mornings I always freak out when I wake up and you know my voice sounds a bit hoarse and that's that's like just the nature of my voice so that is one thing.
The other thing is I don't have hot water when I'm performing because it dries my throat up so I prefer like normal temperature water. Okay that's interesting. So obviously you have skill and technique and you're trained for it and all but is there something beyond skill and technique something more like I don't know if I I don't use the word spiritual usually but something like
that which is more personal to you in in the whole performance aspect.
I think look performing itself is a deeply spiritual thing if you ask me because when you're in the zone you know it's it's not just connecting with your audience but you're also connecting you're tapping into something within yourself that's bringing out sort of the best in you and you are hyper focused on what you're doing then so it's a sort of meditation if you may right but for me there are moments when you just feed off the audience's energy and that really helps with your improvisations as well like in you know you are inspired in that moment and something comes off you cannot plan for that and when those kind of planned things go well I really like it. Okay. And I wouldn't say like they go well all of the time but you know when the energy is there and you can do something that's like slightly on top of what you've already planned and you know sometimes it works and it's a great feeling.
Since you just said improvisation how do you like balance improvisation with the planned aspects do you like like leave space for it or? Yeah we pre-plan the spaces where there is room for improv so if there's like you know call and response kind of a thing we may say that you know there's like six instances of call and response that will happen during this song. Okay. And then we'll be like okay your turn your turn your turn but then what we do within that is up to us and sometimes when there's like audience interaction we also plan for that but we leave it a little more flexible saying you know we feed off the energy and then we'll just count in and continue so those kind of things.
Does your identity or your personal history inform your performance? It absolutely does because like I said I've been also you know incorporating some of my independent music into my gigs and so just the flow of the songs is I like to tell a story through it so it's it's heavily based on my personal experience the independent songs that I write they are all you know based on experiences that I've had in the last few years and so there is a sort of chronology in how I present the songs as well and sometimes even film songs like Porai Na Porai for example leaving the house and you know going out right yeah my you know my apartment got robbed right so that's a nice story arc actually because the song talks about displacement from home yeah and when I actually went back to perform that song in Sydney I spoke about this feeling of home and how you know this song came back as sort of a return gift for like leaving the place and now that I'm back you know it completes the story arc so these kind of things happen so there is definitely like some amount of you know storytelling that I try to incorporate. What's the most challenging aspect for you? I think it's I'd like to say it's like vocal techniques or preparation but I really think it's the promotional aspect of it okay because a lot of the shows you know how it is right the onus is also on the artist to make sure that people fill up the places and yeah I'm I just get flustered be it even independent releases or live music it's just one of those things that I'd rather let people do and have an ecosystem do it but you know I'll have to get to a point where I can I can just delegate it to other people so right now I till till you see the people show up in a show it's always like okay will people come do they know me so those kind of things right so I think promotions are the toughest aspect. So do you have like some kind of strategy to navigate this thing? Not really it's I'm still figuring it out because different shows I
mean I do play all sorts of shows like like I said I'm part of like Santosh Narayanan show which is like you're talking about thousands of people yeah and then I'm also playing to like 60 people in an intimate venue so once I am there and you know the audience is there it doesn't matter what the numbers are to me even if it's 10 people there are 10 people who have come to listen to the music so you perform to them but it's just till up to that point you also want your promoter and your organiser to be happy right so that's that's what is is the bit that gives artists anxiety so I just go all out with like you know whatever I can do with social media word of mouth and all of that but that's about it.
Okay I want to talk about risk what do you like to take risks in your performance or or is it like you like to play it safe and what would you define as a risk can you give me an example? I don't know suddenly like doing a song that is not planned for or doing something which is totally wild which the audience might not I think I think from an audience perspective yes I do take risks in the kind of music that I play to my audiences because like I said I feed the audience's songs that they may never have heard like unreleased music at least three or four songs that I perform are unreleased because the release process is cumbersome but with my band I don't really like throw them off guard by like playing you know suddenly suggesting something on the fly that they may not be prepared with occasionally it may happen if there's like a request for it and it feels valid okay but even then I try to make sure that you know there's at least one person is comfortable playing or you just do it acapella but it depends on I don't like do it every show so okay I would say I'm like generally like I manage that on the safe side yeah okay. We all know unexpected things happen on the show fuck ups happen screw ups happen how do you navigate that and and do you think they can be generative as in like a mistake can lead to something better um or something new I think I think mistakes can lead to something new because every every show experience is learning you definitely like learn from like what happens and as musicians we will always have shows that get cancelled like two days before for whatever reasons and so it is extremely disappointing because it's it's it's not just the financial loss of it right you're looking forward to like performing and then my next weekend show got postponed oh well uh look I had my bags packed to Canada and I was supposed to fly out the next day and then um you know the show didn't happen and we got to know like a week later so okay those kind of things happen so it is quite soul crushing when that happens but like I said there is there is definitely learning to it in the sense that you also understand how to communicate next with organisers and you know what kind of emails to like have what kind of agreements to make so those kind of things have been learnings for sure but uh from from like a creative aspect I feel like suddenly when time frees up you do tend to like you know want to use it for musical purposes and so sometimes I end up spending that time like composing something new and you know that that's actually helped what about on stage mistakes and on stage mistakes you just have to like you know be nimble and recover from it so I don't I don't let it bog me down because if you start like thinking about it fixating on it then that can ruin the rest of the flow so I usually like try to like improvise or you know just sometimes if it goes to the point where you've started the song on a wrong pitch and you're struggling it's okay to stop and admit it to the audience okay and then start again so I've done that okay so in fact recently
at a house house gig like an intimate gig yeah started off a song in a completely wrong scale okay and I realised that when I reached like the charnam because it was too high and I couldn't hit it okay and so I was like okay looks like I've started the song on the wrong scale let's do it again okay and then you just do it so but would you do that in 11,000 people show in 11,000 people show I would not be the stakeholder making that call but if I make a mistake I will own up to it and I think it's better to own up to it and restart then wing it unless it's some of one of those improvisational kind of things where you can actually recover from it so I think it's a it's a bit of a creative call at that point okay so yeah let's talk about the audience what is your perception of the audience are they like passive observers or are they like active participants or something else totally so I think that varies from gig to gig setlist to setlist and location matters a lot okay because if you're playing at a pub gig you expect the audience to be responsive and a bit boisterous you feed off that energy but at the same time if you're playing at a more intimate you know formal gig then you don't really get that sort of uh you know feedback it's more like you know they're like attentive but they're quiet and then there are uh you know especially like these uh gigs that I used to do in Sydney where I would be like one among other singers singing film songs you would find that you know these are all typically like some um Tamil associations organising it and so typically all the expensive tickets would go to like you know the uh families of the organisers are like basically senior people right yeah and so it's all older people sitting in the front rows who will be absolutely stone-faced and just stare at you even when you're belting like a fun number yeah right and so you just have to like play the audience on the basis of what happens there and then I remember once I asked like people at the back to come to the front and people really got offended because they paid 70 dollars versus like 25 dollars and it's it's yeah it's a case to case yeah but uh I do like when the audience is responsive and my setlist is a mix of you know songs that people can respond to there's like a lot of interaction in certain songs but certain songs you just want to like sit back at the end the song you want the audience to like acknowledge it so it's a mix of those things but towards the end obviously you want everybody like you know uh participating and just at least like grooving along so I like I like the audience that's uh fairly interactive and I also talk a lot between my uh okay like during my set because of the storytelling aspect of it so I like it when people actually like respond to those things so do you recall any like uh time in your performance career that the audience made it so magical for you also as a performer also as an audience as an audience I think jacob collier's first concert that I went to this was in sydney before he won those grammys right so it was like a small concert at the sydney state theatre or something there must be like 200 people in it and he did the okay what he's now famous for the whole you know multi-part harmony thing and you could tell the audience was just music geeks everybody could okay to some extent in key that was a truly magical experience because it was it was unlike anything I'd been part of okay um personally I'll just have to like think because there there've been a lot of moments okay but yeah I'll think and get back to you on that how do you handle audience feedback like does like negative feedback kind of make you want to change something or or positive feedback it's like see positive feedback obviously is extremely motivational and especially when it comes uh for my independent music because that's what audiences are discovering in that gig right so that is a great thing because that's validation that
I'm doing something right with negative feedback it it is uh I do take pains to actually think about what that feedback is and you know validate it okay a lot of the feedback can be emotional sometimes but some of the feedback can actually be useful because at the end of the day you are finding that uh core audience of I don't know it could be 100 people tomorrow you want to grow that to a thousand people but that is the audience that is actually going to keep coming to your gigs not somebody who uh you know saw like a promoted reel and just flip through it so you do want to take your audience feedback seriously so I try to do that for sure like so do you like go back and tweak your set or your music I absolutely do like especially when somebody tells me that you know a song is not working I try to ask what doesn't work for the minute and if it's valid and and then you can validate it with other people who came to the show as well okay so that is that is actually and today it's very democratised you can actually like put a poll on instagram saying which of these songs you want to see in my gig and then take a call on it so I think that's that's another feedback mechanism that actually works really well like what what's your thing on stage appearance and persona is it like are you the same person on stage as you're off stage I think I am a slightly different more excited and energetic person on stage than I am off it and I also like to think my sense of humour somehow suddenly becomes better when I'm on stage it's for the audience to decide but you know in that in that adrenaline rush you feel like your jokes are all like hitting the spot and your songs are like you're nailing it right so you have to be in that mind frame yeah to be able to pull that gig off so yeah I do think uh I am in a better frame of mind for sure when I'm performing so I like to like be happy when I'm performing what about like appearance do you like to dress up so this is interesting because I never thought of as somebody who would actually take pains to like dress up for a show but when that Malaysia show happened right that's when I saw all the other singers during rehearsal they were talking about what their costumes were going to be and I just assumed I could like rock up in a jeans and t-shirt but then when I saw the pains that everybody was taking like for example this other person they had like two songs and they were talking about what their first song costume was the second that's when I realised you should actually have like different costumes for singing three songs yeah and then unfortunately I don't have a great fashion sense so my sister thankfully came to help with that and we did end up like curating a look for the stage and it worked really well and I actually felt good about myself when I saw myself in the picture so from then on I decided you know it is good to put some thought into the the appearance I'm not saying I'm going to like suddenly become like extravagantly like a completely different person to look at but I do depending on the scale of the show again like you don't want to like wear sunglasses in an intimate venue in a house show yeah in a house show so it's like that yeah so I want to talk about broader impact of performing arts on society what do you think is like unique in a live performance that cannot be recreated in any other medium the obvious answer is of course that recorded music can be edited any number of times before it's put out yeah and I mean the recording of a live show can also be edited yeah but then in that moment when you're singing live I think that is your most unfiltered natural self and that is the most intimate connection you have with your audience and so I don't think that can ever be replaced by anything like unless we are like cloning human beings I don't think that's going to be one of those use cases that AI is going to satisfactorily
you know fulfil so I feel like that will command a premium in the future in my opinion this whole you know actual human performance like like every other service where there is a human required you know it's getting more expensive correct because AI can do it cheaper it's going to be the same except this is not service it's art yeah so that's actually what I was going to ask in an increasingly digitised world what's going to be the value of this in the future I think people are going to crave human connection more and more in the future and music performing arts will be one of those avenues where they will actually be able to like you know get that connection so at the end of the day we are you know the difference between us and AI is that we have souls and we need like you know fodder for the soul so I'm sure performing arts is not dying anytime soon if anything it'll actually like I said command a premium and it'll start becoming more valuable is there anything like beyond entertainment as in is there any other purpose absolutely like art has always had a purpose beyond entertainment which is like you know it's a reflection of society and it's a medium to convey thoughts it's a medium to convey ideas and I think music has always been that so right now the ideas I'm conveying are not anything revolutionary because they are about things that affect me and why I've written those songs but I do feel like that is like I said like it's a medium of you know change if you may so I think that is definitely it's still having its impact like you know in various even in like short social media reels where there's original music right yeah people are making music about issues about social causes and whatnot so I think I think that's definitely there how do you define success or failure in a performance success in a performance is basically no mistakes the audience likes it you get a lot of positive feedback it generates more shows and everybody gets paid on time okay okay that's like that's like very straightforward yeah it's easy okay I wanted to touch upon some personal aspects sure so like the starving musician starving artist trope is like very world famous yeah and I don't think you yeah I know your background you come from a IT this thing and but I know you've quit your job and gotten into performing and all that so what's your relationship with money when it comes to how do you deal with it it's tricky as you know and while I may have quit my job in the two and a half years that I've been doing this full time I did realise that you know the money is not that easy to come by in in shows especially in a place like Chennai where you know yeah basically it's not like a city where there is a lot of money in the business of music so you have to be nimble as an artist and find other sources of income be it making ads being beat playback be basically like multiple sources of income and I also do a bit of writing both creative and technical okay so there are side income streams so my advice usually to artists is to not just rely on one you know stream of income especially when it comes to music and do multiple things because I mean you're the best example for that you've been doing so many other things outside of you know live performance and I think it is also good because the moment that one source of income becomes your livelihood then you start taking up work that you may not necessarily like for the sake of money and then that starts to affect your creativity as well so and you need to be in a good mental space I think for me also that started later only after I realised yeah we all have our challenges in life personal struggles so how do those things affect you like do you like suppose you had like a bad day a bad something in your relationship something does and you have a show today what is how do you deal with that um yeah that's a great question because I kept saying you have to be happy to be able to
like perform well but musicians like you know they are humans at the end of the day and there's you may have a bad day on the day of a show and these things do affect your performance but I think the moment you get on stage you forget all that and you become one with the music so I think it's just that commitment to the art that you need to have or you need to have the boldness or rather the sensibility to call the show off if something is affecting you so badly that you can't perform rather than like go and do a half-hearted job of it because I feel like and then own up to the consequences of it be it financial or otherwise but I feel like reputational consequences people will always understand if you've like had a solid reason for not being able to show up but uh financial consequences of course there's like you have to own up to it so I think it's an individual call at the end of the day personally I have had days when you know there's been like other things going on in life a lot of anxiety basically but I also feel like performing in that moment it actually helps you like forget all those things for for a bit so for me that's how it worked when I was really anxious the moment I was on stage I forgot all of that and I was just like performing it all comes back right after the show is over but at least for those few hours you're like in a good space so yeah we've heard all these stories about like legendary rock musicians like not getting on stage without like alcohol or drugs other stimulants what's your relationship with that what's your opinion how has there been a evolution like I said for me I get freaked out by like excess food before the show so I don't think I'm ever like trying anything else before my show because I don't trust myself to like be in my senses and as it is I'm like over enthusiastic when I'm on stage so I yeah I don't I haven't tried it and I don't know if that will necessarily enhance my performance so okay I feel like those are things you should be you should partake of when you're in like when you're relaxing and I don't treat this as leisure if you know what I mean like the performance is not leisure yep but these are other things that you do in your leisure so I think that that demarcation is something that I've sort of there was once when I like I think I had a few beers when I went on stage and it was in my own college it was like a guest performance and that's when I realised I really suck when I'm tipsy so not doing that again okay we are almost at the end okay what is your like to future generations if you have to say something about performance and somewhat any kind of advice or tips or I think my advice would be to find your sound and find what you want to say through your music because it's very easy to get carried away by being just a cover musician because there's lots of people there who are cover musicians on Instagram for instance with like huge followings but when they do live shows you know they may not necessarily have the same turnout that their social media following messages and the reason for that is because people don't just want to like you know hear the same stuff that they've already heard so it's very important for musicians to find that space for themselves and find their musical purpose so why for example if you're a singer apart from being able to sing other songs well you should start exploring how your voice can be part of something original be it your own composition or collaborate with someone to make new music right and once you start doing that that gives you the opportunity to test it out on an audience and like I said live music is actually practise it makes you a better performer so every musician should actually even studio musicians should prepare for live acts and definitely dabble with it because that gives them a special it improves their skill it improves their appreciation of audiences and it's a real connection with their
audiences so my advice would be to definitely consider live performance as one of the things that you're doing very early in your life when you're exploring music and continue to do it instead of waiting for like a time when you will start performing live the other thing is like I said explore your musical sensibilities and find your musical purpose and eventually bring that out in your live concerts okay there's one question I forgot which just came to my mind so like performing on stage can be like physically very demanding sometimes and you have any kind of fitness routine that you follow and I want to but I absolutely don't and I also have scoliosis so I can't stand for like a long time okay so sometimes I actually just request the organisers to have like a bar stool or something okay so the maximum I've gone is like two and a half hours of performance without you know exiting okay but I don't have a fitness regime I just have like a like I said a diet which I take care of but yeah that's pretty much it I'm like the last person who should be asking about fitness because I'm not very fit no but different people have different yeah absolutely no but I also I also think fitness is important for musicians because it is a very sedentary lifestyle for studio musicians yeah so especially instrumentalists who are like session artists right yeah it's just sitting and playing for hours but we're not talking about that we are talking about live music no but even them they eventually perform live right so it is still like a lot of yeah it is a sedentary lifestyle so apart from you know especially like musicians who travel a lot for music right yeah they've got odd sleeping hours odd food schedules so it's important for musicians to take care of their health and have like you know I don't know like a music nine to five is something that should be aspirational rather than you know glorifying this whole middle of the night musician trope yeah okay the last question if there was like we are talking about the essence of performance if you had one philosophy to underlying philosophy to define what the essence of a performance is what would you I know it's a deep question okay firstly it is a privilege to be performing to an audience not everybody gets it you may you may get a stage but you may not get an audience so when you have both it is you have to realise that you are very special when you have those things and so you should aspire to be the truest self in that at that point and be true to your music I think that will come out and just appreciate the connection that you form with your audience at that point so it is I think like I said I think we've spoken about this earlier it is a sort of meditation and it's also a sort of intimate human connection that you make with people you don't necessarily know or know
