Ep. 11 GVV - The reluctant Performer

In this compelling episode, music producer GVV steps out of the studio and onto the stage, sharing his journey from a behind-the-scenes creator to a live performer. For years, GVV's music lived in the digital realm, a solitary process where he'd release songs without knowing "who's hearing or who is hearing."

He candidly discusses the "eye-opener" moment when he experienced the raw energy of a live crowd and felt truly "alive." This discovery, fueled by a desire to break out of the monotonous loop of studio work, led him to pursue performance. GVV also reveals how his passion for cinematic scores by legends like Ennio Morricone shapes his sound, creating vivid, emotional "soundscapes" that transcend words.

Join us as GVV explores the challenges and triumphs of his new path—from battling stage fright and the pressure to improvise, to the ultimate reward of directly connecting with his audience. He shares the most difficult part of performing: trying to stay true to the song's core and convey its deepest emotions on stage. It's an insightful look at the journey from producer to performer, and the vital role of authenticity in art.

Transcript

What first drew you to performance? I'm more of a music producer. I work in studio, like we just produce songs, we'll release it. We don't know who's hearing or who is hearing. 

But I think three years back, I did my first show. Me, CNR, and two or three performers, we performed together. And that's the first time I experienced how it feels to perform in front of people. 

And before that, I didn't realise that this much people have listened to a song. And it's the first time I've seen people reacting to the songs which I produced like one year back, two years back. So it's like an eye-opener kind of thing. 

You feel alive when you perform, because when you're doing in a studio or something, you just produce. It's like a monotonous process kind of thing. You just produce the sounds like what you like, what you feel. 

You don't know how it reciprocates with the people who are listening. And I performed after that, I performed like three or four shows, but it's not like a continuous thing. I didn't take any initiative on my side. 

Like in the first show, there was an initiative called TIC, and they invited us to perform, I performed. The next three shows were like that, some of my friends performed and they invited me, I went on to perform. But the May 4th, the show which I performed was the first time I want to do something on my own. 

I want to push something from my side. Because recently I'm getting bored. To be frank, that's the thing. 

Because everything's getting like, I'm using the same samples, same thing. Even when I play something, it may seem unique to some people, but we know that there's a pattern in what we are doing, the chords we are playing, everything is getting like a monotonous kind of thing. And I really got bored. 

I've been doing this for the past four or five years. And you kept on making songs, and you don't know how it reciprocates with the people. If you want to see, or if you want to get on the stage, only if you get on the stage, you can see like how people react, like what you're trying to create. 

And so I think the getting bored is the first thing. And I want to do something, explore something, that's the main thing. Do you recall any performance that you saw first first, and then said, Wow, like, like, or something like videos or something like video, whatever, which you saw and said, I want to do this. 

Okay. There's a performance I saw on YouTube, like Ennio Morricone's Cinema Paradiso score. First of all, I'm more of a score person. 

Yes. Like, I didn't start making songs at first. I started by like, I started listening to scores first. 

I listened to Ennio Morricone, John Williams. I'm also not like a great listener kind of thing. I like before college days, I'm not even connected to music. 

Okay. Like I don't want a musician. I don't have any idea about playing keyboard or something like that. 

Even now I'm clueless actually. But at that time, I don't even know like, what's being like musician how to play this thing. I grew up listening to cinema songs, film. 

So even now, the main inspiration or something comes from visual thing for me. Okay, so it's not like something I grew up watching movies, and you want to do something. If I play some chord or something, the visual imagery comes first. 

I think that's quite evident in the show that I played with you from the music that you made. Yeah, it's very, yeah, like very vivid visually. So it's more of a soundscape kind of thing. 

Yeah. So in a recent interview, I like, I think it's Cable's interview, I don't know. He told that it has two things like, driven by aesthetic and meaning kind of thing. 

Even though I'm not sure that how like I'm with the meaning side, but mine is like more of a soundscape. Okay, so without words, the sounds, which can give some colours, it's more of colour. And the first time during college in final, I think I was watching a video. 

It's any Americans live show. And he was playing cinema paradise or theme. And I started crying. 

Okay, I don't know why even though there are no words or anything. But when the strings and everything starts playing, I can feel something. And I haven't watched a movie before that. 

Okay. So even without seeing the visual anything, the music, everything can give you like the, the main purpose of art or anything is like communication, right? Okay, it should make you like, what's the purpose of the idea? Like, if it make you cry, if you want to make it dance? That's the thing. So I don't know what's about, but I can feel there's something journey inside the score. 

And after I watched the movie, I can resonate with the score, like why it's there. So I think there's a first performance, and it will always be like something like memorable performance. I've seen live performance. 

Like I've seen like many thing like, when I first came to Chennai, Mr. Pradeep Kumar's show Bay 146. I think, okay, that's the first time I'm going for a live performance. Okay. 

It's a small venue, right? Like 30-40 people are there. But he performed some of his songs. I'm a big fan of his. 

So he performed one song, I think. So that's the first performance like in Chennai. Okay. 

After that, like I've been to so many performance, like many things performed. I visited in that college. That's the first time I saw your performance. 

So assuming you have a show tomorrow, what is your process? Do you have like some process that you have before the show that you practise? Do you have some kind of rituals, some things that you don't like to eat? Nothing like that. I want to sleep. Okay, so I have to get a good sleep. 

Then the main thing is like, how I speak. I always get panic about how I communicate. When I talk like, yeah, normally, usually, when I talk like most of people find it difficult to understand what I'm like, even I find it difficult to speak properly. 

Like, like my kind of thing is like, I can't able to like properly communicate what I am feeling. Sometimes I may speak very fast. Or sometimes I will like stammer like in between. 

So last show also I did, I wrote something and I want to do communicate properly. But at first I thought like, we don't want to explain or something like that. Because we have our songs, that's more than enough. 

What's the need to like elaborate in the party? Even though I don't explain like in the party, not to explain. But I still feel nervous like when I get on the stage. But for performance side, I don't think I like, I get panic about performance. 

From college days, I still like, I forgot the lyrics. Yesterday's show, I forgot the lyrics. That happens. 

That's still a problem. Except that, I want to show to like, go properly. Without any, and also get panic about the chords, how it goes like, some songs has too many chords and properly everything should fall in place. 

Even if one chord misses out, I may forget the melody what I'm about to sing. So yeah, I've noticed in my own thing that there is a vast gap between what I can practise, do at practise and what I finally execute on stage. And that is, of course, it is improving over time. 

What is it for you? Is it like, are you able to like, play whatever you can practise at home? Can you play that on stage? No, I won't say myself as a very good, not a very good, not a instrument player. That's fine. Whatever you are, but what, how is the difference between what you play at home and practise at home and on stage? I still got into playing actually in live shows. 

For the first show, I played the keyboard. Playing, singing, whatever. It's not just that.
 Not just playing. For singing, I still need to like, during the rehearsal, I think I'm not trying many 

things. That's the first thing. 

Like what we performed in the actual song, right? I'm doing the same thing when I'm doing the rehearsal. Actually, before the performance, I used to think of many techniques or something. I want to do the improvisation. 

I want to do these kind of things. But when it comes to the show, maybe due to the last minute thing, I don't know. I get like, limited to certain things. 

I don't want to try too many things. And if I mess up, I want to go into a very safe zone. I think that's a barrier. 

Like for the past performance, I'm doing that. I want to do something. For instance, for this show, I want to play some keyboard, some chords or something. 

And during the rehearsal, I myself restricted to only singing. I don't want to just collapse the other's performance or something like that. I have to let it safe or something. 

With playing, sometimes when I'm rehearsing alone, I think I'm good at playing the chords or something. But when I'm performing with a band, I think I should get used to the beats or spontaneity. I think the spontaneity is... I'm coming back to that since you said that. 

So do you like to take risks when you're on stage? On stage. Because you just said you tend to play it safe. Yeah. 

I still haven't tried taking risks or anything until now. If it comes to production or something, I will say that I'm ready to do anything. I tried some things. 

I'm even willing to do some things. But when getting on the stage, I think I'm not doing that. But I want to improvise. 

So what is the balance between improvisation and what you have rehearsed? What's the balance? Yeah. Do you leave room for improvisation or is the set as you rehearsed? You try and play the same. After this performance, the May 4th performance, for one week, I was going through what we did and what we should have done and something like that. 

I felt like there was... I didn't give any space for improvisation. I should do that after this show, what I'm going to do in the future. I should leave a space for improvisation. 

If you go for a jazz thing or something, there'll be some separate portions for each of the players. They'll take eight person section bars. We'll have a piece. 

They'll improvise. And then the double bass overcomes. They will do that thing. 

When I realised it's more like what I did, the live show, what I did was more of like a cinema songs kind of thing. There's a template. It'll start. 

It'll go. And I didn't give any room for improvisation. I felt bad actually after the performance. 

Maybe I didn't have the mind space to think all the thing. But what I think for the next performance, I think I should give more time for not only for rehearsal, for pre-production kind of thing. I should think what are the instruments coming and what are the portions we can improvise. 

So the rehearsal is more of all the shows, what I've done before. The rehearsal is more of what's in the book. Like the song is there. 

When the instrument comes, you can play a thing, but almost the same chords, almost the same melody, everything like that. But I hope for the future performance, I should leave some space for improvisations. Does your personal history or your identity inform your performance? Does it like affect in any way? What your personal history and your personality and your... A lot. 

I think, I don't know. It comes out in your performance. Yeah, I think so. 

Like I'm very vulnerable, I think. And when I got on the stage, I don't want to be like, as I said, I regressed everything, what I want to speak or something like that. I wrote something. 

My friend helped me in writing down all the points you should speak on stage. And he told that, don't do these points. Don't talk over these points. 

Don't let yourself down or don't do mockery kind of thing. But when I got on the stage, I thought like, I don't want to hide anything for the performance. I am vulnerable. 

I have these problems with communication, something like that. Let it be. At least I want to be clear about what I'm trying to blabber or something like that. 

And about the music. I think the songs, what I'm doing is more of a vulnerable kind of thing. Every song is something which I'm doing for myself. 

It's more like a cry or something like that. What I'm doing for client is different. What I'm doing for myself is about what you're doing on stage. 

So not like, I don't have much experience, to be frank. I don't write like too many stuff or something. If you see all the songs, it will have a common words. 

Nila or something. My friends, you too mentioned like, pointed like, you have same set of words. I used to tell him like, I'm not a great writer or something like that. 

I started making music. When I started making music, there are no friends who could arrange for me, who could sing for me, who could write for me. So we started, ended doing all the things ourselves. 

So there are certain limitations of what I write, what I sing or something. Because we are not a 

trained or a trained musician or trained singer or some kind of thing. But a lot of my personal listening, I think it comes from a personal listening, what you like, the taste, everything that reflects a lot. 

What is the most challenging part of performing for you? When you produce or when we arrange something, we did it to satisfy the certain soundscape or something which you have in mind. And even while producing, that's a tough thing. What you have, usually that's a, I think that's the most difficult thing. 

What you have in mind, you should bring it into the soundscape or something like that. And even with performance, when you have certain limitations with all the things, you have to recreate everything. For example, like Pungothai, like some people would have heard, listened to Pungothai. 

Like, even now I'm not satisfied with all the Pungothai performance we had. Like, I was not able to do justice to that song with all this four, five performance last three years. So one time it seemed like it seems like it's like more a pop kind of song, a tempo riser. 

And the lyrics was there, the chords were there, everything was there. But the actual core of the song that was missing throughout the performance. So you mean to say that you're not able to translating the core of the song to the performance? Because when people listen or someone who listen, they know that lyrics is right, the chords is right. 

And the band is playing on the proper thing. But you personally know that the song is not up to what you expected. Okay, that's a good point. 

Yeah. So I think that's a challenge, meeting our expectations of soundscape. What's the core of the song, you know, right? Yeah, that's the core of the song. 

Yeah. Because everything can fall in place, you can practise and get the chords. But how you, because if I sing, some songs need to be sang in a way, like, if there's like a bit of tremolo or kind of thing, it has to be vulnerable. 

It's not about perfect pitch or something like that. Sometimes I can sing in a perfect thing or something. And I can be very disappointed by the performance. 

Sometimes I can sing in a very flat or not like a very perfect thing. And I'm very satisfied with my performance. So because the core of the song, if I was able to translate that in the performance, that's a challenge I've been facing. 

How do you deal with unexpected things that happen, mistakes while performing or something wrong in the venue, something not working, equipment is not working in the show, suddenly something happens, how, what, what do you do? During the performance, I just let it go. It's like an exam thing. You prepare everything for the exam. 

When you go into the hall, you just forget everything and you have to complete the three hours. You have to just be spontaneous about what's happening. You know, performance for Poonga Devi had some, yeah, I think that it was fun. 

Okay. Yeah. Obviously, after performance, I just will think bad of that. 

Okay. But before the show, if there is some miscalculation happening, instead, I'll go panic. Like, this time, we had some problem with the venue's chairs or something. 

I'll just get tensed. Okay, what about like, when the mistake happens on stage, do you panic? For a moment, do you panic and then recover? Or is it just? I just don't want to, like, show. You don't show it? Yeah, yeah. 

I just stand there. I'll just keep on performing. But what's the problem now? I get problem with the chords, actually. 

I don't know. I'm very particular about the chords. Because the melody lines, I don't work on the melody lines like for too long. 

I may have created it in like one minute or some minute, like, but I work on the chords. Usually, when I work on a song, I work on the chords for a long time, maybe even for one or two days. Like, what are the combinations, something like that. 

So, it's not necessarily they have to play the same chords. But if they play the entirely like rock or something, when I sing the melody, I'll change the melody. Okay, according to the chords. 

So, I don't know why it happens. I had to stick on to that. But if they play something, the different chord, means I get stuck. 

Okay. What is your relationship with the audience? How do you see them? Are they like, just coming to see the show? Or are they part of your show? We have some group of people, set of people. So whatever you do, that 30-40 people, they will support. 

So whatever happens, we know that sometimes the song may be not up to the mark or it's very bad or something. There's nothing like good music or bad music, but we know that we haven't done anything, something. But they'll keep on supporting right from the beginning. 

And they've been doing even now. Because I remember a girl, like, she bought ticket first for her. And she wanted her relatives, like her cousins and everyone to listen. 

She bought like eight, nine tickets regularly. Like, she'll text me, I bought a ticket for my cousin. So they're coming to the show for the first time. 

They listen to the song for the first time. I think this kind of listeners, it's very rare actually, like, they'll come for the show, but they also want other people to listen to this. Like sharing is the more important thing with any art or something. 

You have consumed an art or something, and you want the people to listen to what you have listened to. Or it's about the movies or whatever it is. So you listen to something or you watch something, and you want other people to do the same thing. 

I think it's more to do with them. I think next question you kind of answered previously, but I'll anyway ask it. So certain people are like, when they go on stage, they're totally different person from what they're outside. 

And certain people are exactly the same as they are on stage. Outside, what they're in real life, they present that on stage. What are you in this? I think I'm the same person. 

You're the same person? I think so. Yeah, like, I won't be able to do certain things, even if I try. Maybe in future, if I get used to the stage and everything, I may do it. 

But as of now, I think, even if I try, as I said, if I try to write down anything, I still throw it away and do my own thing. So I'm not much of a different person. What about dressing up? Do you dress up differently? Yeah, obviously. 

You don't go normally? Usually I prefer wearing shorts, trousers, something like that. I won't wear very tight thing or something. My father used to scold that, wear this, wear that, something. 

But for stage, I'll make sure that it's comfortable for me, obviously. Not like only for the stage appearance, I won't do anything for the sake of appearing on stage. It has to be comfortable for me. 

For the soap performance, I tried wearing vesti. I've been wearing that for Uruppanar band. Last year only, I tried vesti for the first time. 

I just want to wear that for some performance. So it's also comfortable. I'll let it dry. 

How seriously do you take audience feedback, whether it is positive or negative? If it's positive or something, usually for the song or anything, if they tell it's good or something, we'll be happy. Yeah, thank you. That's it. 

But when they tell something about some constructive things about a performance or something, I'll take it seriously, obviously. If it's constructive or something like that, because the Egmo performance when we did, some people said that, as I said, when I was giving some introduction to the song they were not able to understand what I'm trying to speak. So they find it difficult to understand what I'm trying to speak. 

But when they came for this performance, they told you're getting better at what you did before in Egmo. It's comparatively better, like what you did for introduction. And I usually get feedback mostly for the talking part. 

Right from the first performance till now. Okay. So I find it difficult. 

Even when you invited me for this thing, the first thing I get like is panic. Yeah. Okay.
 Even I get panic for that. So no worries. But nowadays I want to do out of the comfort zone. 

Even this live performance thing, like these three, four years, I've been in the shell kind of thing. I arrange, produce stuff, release it. I just sleep. 

And it will get released. That's the thing. But for past one or two years, I think the credit goes to Uru Ponnar band mainly. 

They made me get onto the stage in the past one year, like in so many performances. And they also made me to tell some story for introduction for the song. And I think that gave me some confidence to get onto the stage, to do something out of the comfort zones. 

Okay. I think the most of the problem with organised promoters like handling the money, like how they're paying you. It's not fair, actually. 

That's the main thing. And with the sound systems and like the show, I think the how they're paying the musicians or something like that. I don't know how it works. 

I still need to get onto the promoters or something. But sometimes they will just take the share of everything. And everything you have to do on your part, like the poster design, everything the artists had to push in. 

So you have to get your performance to the people. I think the promoters and organisers, they should take part in getting to the people, promoting it. Okay. 

So, many people talk about starving artist and make it when romantic thing. Okay. It's a very noble thing to be a starving artist. 

But we all know that money is important. Yeah. So how do you, I know it's difficult to make ends meet just by being an independent performer. 

So what is your relationship with money? Money. Actually, last year I realised that money is the most important thing to do what you like. If you want to do something, what you like, you need some other thing. 

If you need money, you can get doing what you want, because eventually you'll end up investing or buy products, whatever for the music. So to buy instruments, everything, you need money. Before that, I was just doing some more free works or something like that. 

I want to do some works to get myself trained. Correct. They'll give you some documents or something. 

You just want to get used to how to score or something. I know a friend who does still like that only. Yeah. 

Like we had this conversation one month back. I think now he stopped. But this also goes to like, one night around two, three o'clock, I think so. 

We were in the sound check and he was talking about the money and the money means about the financial thing in the music industry or something for two hours. He was telling me, you should quote this much for this. You should know to value your time and your craft. 

So you shouldn't underestimate your craft, what you're trying to do. Even now, I'm not very good at like communicating my packages, negotiating everything. But I understood that it's a very important thing, how you value your craft and everything. 

So the other tough thing is to say no. Right now, before coming to this, I said no and yes to works. I have to say no for both the works. 

But for one work, he's a friend for like three, four years, I was not able to say. Because sometimes there will be some very good purpose for working, even if there's no money. If you work on this project, you will have some interesting ideas. 

Sometimes there will be nothing, like there will be not like an interesting thing to move on. There will be no money. But I think money is very important. 

So what is so unique about a live performance that cannot be recreated in a recorded medium? It's for the moment. You know, if you did some mistake, it's for the moment. You won't be doing that for the next time. 

And when I was speaking to Pradeep Kumar for Anatta, like I invited him for the show. But he was in Himachala somewhere, I think. Then he was telling about the album he recorded, Analogue Record, recently. 

He's going to release, I think he released it. And he was telling that he performed one song and he did a mistake. He did the same mistake six times. 

Then finally he let it go. He told that usually he won't do that mistake actually, like when he was rehearsing something. But he was not able to perfect that thing. 

Okay. And he let it go. Okay. 

You wanted this to record, you wanted to do analogue recording something, let it be. So you want this. Okay. 

So that's very interesting, like you want to do perfect, perfect thing kind of thing. There's nothing like perfect or something like that. Whatever sounds good to you. 

And as I said, it's more of the core of the thing. The core of the performance is like expressing yourself in the moment. Yeah. 

So as long as it is there. It's very well said. We live in a very digitised world. 

Everything is like digital. In that, what do you think value has performance on society? Is there more value going to be there in the future? Yeah, it's going to be. You think so? Yeah, obviously. 

Why? For me, I said, personally, I'm getting bored, like of what I am doing right now. Even I know that I'm doing it for money or something like that. Most of the work, I'm getting on the loop. 

Like even if you take the kick or snare or something, what are samples, you've been hearing for the same samples, same sounds. If I listen to some songs right now, everything sounds similar. Like I said, I'm not a meaning guy. 

I look for sounds or something like which makes it interesting. It can be a noise, it can be whatever it is. It's not like a dissonant sound or something. 

If it's interesting, if the soundscape is very interesting, I'll go for that. But when I listen to all the songs or whatever is happening, everything seems monotonous and the entire world is kind of in a loop kind of thing. You can do it. 

So only when you get on the stage, I think the performance, I don't know. I think it's more to do with the people who are there. It's more to do with the venue. 

It's a lot of things. When you performed in Oru Panna show in Bangalore, so the venue was like...