Dressed in black from top to bottom, with his fingers dancing to the rhythm of music he was listening to and humming — that’s the sight that greeted us when we first met singer and music composer Vishal Mishra, when he was in Calcutta recently. The talented singer was in the city for a concert organised by What’s In D Name Live and Autoplay at Biswa Bangla Mela Prangan. What are you listening to? we asked. “I was listening to the tanpura. I just practise before going to the stage. My guru used to tell me that riyazat is riyasat. Do you know what riyasat means? Kingdom. Riyazat means practice. I believe in practice. I practise because I believe if God has given you a voice and your voice makes a difference, even to one human being in this world, you take care of it,” said the Pehle bhi main (Animal) hitmaker. Post a mesmerising gig of over two-and-a-half hours, Vishal sat down with t2 to talk about his life, music and being the “common man”. Excerpts

You stumped everyone when you sang Mone porey Ruby Roy... and your pronunciation was spot on. Was it planned and practised?

No, not really, but I have recently sung a Bengali song... Jeet da’s song. I’ve been very attracted towards Bengali culture and literature from my initiation into the arts. I feel Calcutta and Bengal is very rich in literature and culture so it comes very naturally to me, plus, I love the people here.

Romantic and heartbreak songs suit your voice. Have you always wanted to explore this genre?

I really believe that artistes live in two realities — a practical reality where we are sitting and talking right now and then there is one imaginative reality, where you make songs, where you break hearts, where you get your heart broken... an artiste will always derive the pain, happiness, the dance, the joys and the sadness of life from the imaginative reality. Mix it with the experience of the practical reality. And then make it an expression. That becomes an expression for people who can’t speak but still feel. That’s how art works. Because if it was not coming from the imaginative reality, it wouldn’t connect to everybody. People connect to it because there is something in their hearts that they can’t say. But music goes and sits right there in the void. It happens because there is a lot of derivation from the imaginative reality.

You don’t necessarily need to be broken in your life. I am very happy. I am a happy soul. I have nothing, no sense of sadness. All the happiness and dance when I am singing Nacho nacho comes from a place of happiness in my imaginative reality. When I’m singing Aaj bhi, when I’m singing Pehle bhi mein... it comes from a place of sadness, it comes from a place of meeting somebody for the first time. And you know, it’s something that you derive.

So when you started your career, was it a conscious decision that you wanted to explore this romantic genre?

Not really. That’s totally a point of view that people have. I’ve sung enough dance songs, but, of course, there’s a truer emotion of anger, sadness, love... these are emotions that are true. So, if you talk about them you tend to get famous with them. So, yeah, I think it’s all the honesty.

Your Pehle bhi mein İs a song that is still trending. You know it has touched a chord somewhere. Did you see the success of the song coming and how much has life changed for you from Kaise hua to Pehle bhi mein?

See, every artiste, when they make a song, believes that it’s going to be the biggest song that they are creating. So, when I made Pehle bhi mein, Sandeep (Reddy Vanga), who is the director of the film (Animal), and I (came together).... Why do we call it sangeet? It is because sangam me hone wala geet bolte hai. It’s a collaborative art form. The song is good, the beat is good. I think a lot of credit goes to Sandeep, who is a dear friend and who is a dear, dear collaborator. I feel he is one of the best. So, when we made Kabir Singh, we made Pehla pyaar and Kaise hua. And then four years later we made Animal. Now we are working on something else. It’s just the kind of people that you work with.

So what works between the two of you?

You just have to hear the director. If you’re making music for a film, the director is the captain of the ship. You have to just hear the person and sense the vision that he has. You can never reach 100 per cent there but you try, and I tried.

We are at the fag end of 2024, how would you sum up the year?

I think we have released 26 songs this year and all the songs have gotten so much love... even Vicky Vidya ka woh wala video, which is very recent. It’s been a beautiful year you know. An artiste is always hungry for love and I think I’ve gotten the most amount of love this year, which I cherish and I hope 2025 is better than this.

You have so many songs in your kitty. Which songs would you say are milestone tracks?

I haven’t made them yet.

You worked on Door aa gaye with Indian hip-hop artistes like Dino James. The song is quite unusual. Do you have any plans of working with any other artiste?

This song is a baby that I had. And when an artiste is in his imaginative reality, he is imagining a lot of things and this song is one of those songs. I always thought that when two people start a relationship in no time, say two-three-four years or whatever, and suddenly the relationship becomes so sparse nobody talks about it. So why not write a song about that? I made the beat, I produced the song.

Secondly, as far as collaborations are concerned, of course, I told you, a collaboration doesn’t necessarily need to be with a singer or a music composer. When I’m working with a director, it’s a collaboration. When I’m working with a writer, it’s a collaboration.... And I believe in collaborations thoroughly. So, hopefully, you’ll see a lot of collaborations. I’m working on my album now.

Do you have a name for the album?

I can’t tell you yet but it’s going to be next year and I am working on a lot of songs, films... Shahid Kapoor’s next film... last I did Kabir Singh. I’ve made all the songs for the film and then so many other films that I’m enjoying, so many other songs that I’m doing.

I’m releasing a song in Arabic and Hindi. If I’m not wrong, it’s a song that Jacqueliene (Fernandez), DYSTINCT and I are doing. I keep making all kinds of songs and that is my high to try and touch things, the human feels, zillions of things in their heart and I want to touch the monumental ones. So, hopefully, I’ll be able to do that.

So you said “I do not want to be number one but am a common man” while you are performing on the stage. Tell us who is Vishal Mishra as a person and how common is he?

I am very common, I am even more common than common people. You see people are grounded, I come from below the ground. In Hindi, there is this saying that ‘apne tajurbe ko jo qala ka aakaar deta hain woh kalakar hain’. And that’s the only thing that I am doing. I see life from a very common denominator, from a very low middle-class point of view and I write songs, I make songs, I sing songs about them.

When you kiss success, it’s very easy to get carried away. Who or what keeps you grounded?

I realised that nothing that people believe is success is success. What is success? It’s a mythical point of view that people have. I believe I have a very different definition of success. For me, success is when you do something and some people get affected by it.

Here we are talking about a large number of people... your fans.

That’s the grace of God but imagine you write a story about me, probably somebody listens to this story and gets motivated to do art. That’s success that you have had. You write something and lakhs of people get influenced by it. That is success. If you can take something bad out of somebody’s life and give them something good, that is success. Otherwise, success and failure is a point of view that people have and I don’t bother about it. For me, I want to write songs about people who sleep with their pillows in their arms and can’t say what they feel. But when they hear a song and it becomes their favourite song (it is) because it speaks the language of their heart that they can’t define. Mera ek sher hai, ‘Bistaron ko hi shayad pata hota hai ki kisko kitna dard kahan hota hai’. So, you tend to connect to songs because they speak the language of your heart.

As an artiste, what comes to you naturally while creating something? The lyrics, tunes or anything else?

It’s a horrible process! When I make a song, I don’t even know I will make one. I sit in the studio, I have my set of people, I sit at my piano or with my guitar or taking a shower or driving a car, and the song will come to me. When I did Aaj bhi, I wrote the song. I had to present the song and and I didn’t have any. I was driving in BKC and it came to me while I was driving! Pehle bhi main, Sandeep and I met at 9.15 and at 9.35 we had the song and we sang the song. We never re-sang, rewrote or reprogrammed the song. Twenty-five minutes, the fastest 300 million that this country has ever had. It was number one for 151 days. So, there is no process to music. I am music. I am trying to become music. I am in that phase where every cell, soul and being of my body wants to create for people that need it.

When you are making something, who gets to listen to it first?

My people, my team, they are always with me. They listen to my songs and my shit songs also (laughs). I have some 3,500 tunes on my phone. I make songs, that’s my practice... I make 20-30 songs every day and I’ve never given an old song to anybody. So, if you’re a producer, you come to me. I’ve never given you a song that has been there. I create. That’s my high. My high is to make music, create, because I strongly believe I am a channel. There is a river of creativity that flows and you are vested upon by God. You just have to keep the channel free. So I keep it free and it keeps happening.

You started in 2013 in Mumbai and you had come from Unnao in UP...

Yes, 209801 is the pin code (smiles).

Did you know you wanted to pursue music from a young age?

Nobody in my family has pursued a career in music. What pumped me here is because nobody perceived a career in music (laughs) so I might as well do it. Everybody in my family has some creativity...

Which artiste did you listen to when you were growing up?

Sonu Nigam! He is my God and will always be my God. People like me, all the people of my generation, even I believe Arijit (Singh) and people who have come before me, they’re all hugely inspired by Sonu-ji. Of course, the first cassette that I heard in my life was Mohammed Rafi ke Nagme. Rafi saab was the university that I went to for the first time. So, if somebody asks me, ‘Where have you learned music?’, I tell them that from the university of Mohammed Rafi (smiles) and then Lata-ji and then Asha-ji and I was kind of lucky enough to do some three-four songs with Asha-ji and she sang for me. It’s always brilliant! I learn things from everybody good and bad because bad also tells you what not to do.

What is that one bad thing you learnt?

To be self bragging and I learnt it and then unlearnt it.

And what has the music industry taught you?

That I am non-existent and I don’t matter at all. If I won’t be there, nobody will care, but my songs will be there and there is a song by Gulzar saab, sung by Lata-ji and composed by Pancham-da, that says Meri awaaz hi pehchaan hai.... That is what I believe in.

How much do viewership and trending charts matter or impact you?

It’s absolutely baseless. It’s a myth created for people to enjoy and celebrate people. What it does is if your songs are doing well you can afford things that you couldn’t have thought about. Live a life that you can’t think about. It only happens because people have a point of view of you. If you know your reality, you’re not bothered about it.

What is your biggest fear when you wake up?

Losing my parents and what will happen to me if someday I can’t sing or can’t create. But the parents thing is way bigger.

Which actor according to you suits your voice the most?

I think a playback singer’s job is to sound good on everybody’s face. That’s why you call it playback and not just singing because you’re playing back for somebody. I do it well, I guess. I have to learn a lot of things. I’m trying every day.

Among your contemporaries, who do you think is making the right noise?

I listen to everybody. Of course, Arijit is there, he is amazing, a dear friend, he has sung so many songs for me, we have sung songs together in Bade Miyan Chote Miyan that I composed. Everybody is so good, Jubin (Nautiyal) has a beautiful voice...

Any international artiste that you are listening to?

These days I’m tripping on Maro. She is a Portuguese artist. She’s amazing. Then there is this artiste called Naika. She is French. Outstanding. I believe the kind of sonic that they’ve cracked is amazing. I love Sam Smith and John Mayer. His album Continuum became my life and the guitar that I play is because of his album. I love Travis Scott. And then in Hindi, I listen to Jagjit-ji, Rafi saab, Asha-ji, Lata-ji... ask me any song and I will tell you the film, date and everything.

If it’s the last day on the planet and you get to choose between singing or composing, what would you pick?

Composing! But I know if it’s the last day, people will end up making me sing (laughs)! I am a music composer and singer and I don’t know why people confuse it so much in our country. Composing gives me wings, singing is a restricted job.