Upamanyu Mukherjee

What does music mean to you?

Music is a language everybody understands. I’ve always found it easy to express whatever I am feeling through a tune or a song or a lyric. Whether I was happy without being quite sure what to do about it, or so sad that I was choking or so angry that I felt like destroying everything around me, I could always sing or play what I felt. Instruments feel like extensions of my being. I’m always comfortable when I’m sitting with a guitar or playing the piano.

What are your musical influences?

My parents introduced me to a wide variety of music from an early age. In our house, we didn’t really listen to genre-specific music. We explored everything, and I grew up with the music of bands like Coldplay, Green Day, The Beatles, Oasis, Queen, Abba, Maroon 5; artists like Adele, Billy Joel and Hemanta Mukherjee and genres such as traditional Bengali folk to alternative rock, jazz, blues and hip-hop. I believe all these genres have had an influence on my music today;

How would you categorise your music?

When I sit down to express myself, I do not write for a genre or a style: Whatever are my feelings and thoughts in the moment, is how the song is written.

When did you write your first song?

I wrote my first lyric and composed my first tune when I was 4-and-a-half years old. It was a simple and short song called One Night into the Light.

What instruments do you play?

I began learning the drums around the age of 9 and a year later, I started learning the acoustic guitar on my own. I played what I felt, explored and practiced the instrument. At 11, I started playing the piano and it changed my life. It was amazing to realise that the same main 7 notes I was playing sounded different in so many ways.

What equipment do you use?

I am very new to the industry and have basic equipment since am still learning the ropes. I use a 7-piece Tornado kit; a Fender Stratocaster, an Epiphone Les Paul, Epiphone Electric Bass (Toby DeluxeV), Granada Acoustic, and KORG LP-380 digital piano. For the guitars, I use a Vox VT20X amp. For my scratch arrangement draft, I work on Apple Logic Pro.

Do you compose on the guitar or the piano?

I started writing songs on both instruments as I began to understand the different range of emotions each one can capture.

What subjects do you write on?

Whatever I am feeling. I wrote my first full-length song when I was 11, a song called Daisies, about life, its hardships and about planet earth. The next song I wrote was a love song when I was 12 and after I finished the whole song, I realised that what I was feeling was something that many other people were probably feeling too. That’s when I understood exactly how much power music has, and the kind of responsibilities that came with being a songwriter.

What is your purpose as a musician?

Music is a way to communicate. As a musician, I am telling a story and while everybody at a particular moment in time may not understand the story because they may not be going through similar emotions, but there are many people out there who can and will connect to it. Those are the people who I write my songs for (besides expressing myself). I hope that the songs I sing help other people get through what they’re going through, and if they are feeling the same emotions as me, they’ll know that they’re not alone.