because my guest tonight is epic.
He is a singer, a composer,
insert all other musical words here
who created a lot of my favorite childhood bops.
Zooming all the way from India,
please welcome the legendary A.R. Rahman!
Hello.
- Hi, Lilly. How are you doing?
- I'm so excited to talk to you.
I'm such a fan. I have to ask
where are you even right now? Are you at home?
- I'm at home, actually. This is my home studio.
I've been working here for the past, what, 30 years?
- You win the award for best Zoom background.
That is amazing.
Well, you're in India right now, right?
- Yeah, Chennai.
Well, before we dive into anything, I wanna ask.
Obviously, I know the situation in India
is very tough right now.
How are you? How is your mental health?
How are things going?
we all have to shine bright, because every day,
you hear some bad news. Somebody's lost their parents,
or some brother, or sister, or...
It's really bad in Delhi and north India,
and musicians, artists, have to, just, like, light.
We just have to spread that energy,
so I'm... That's what I'm trying to do.
- Well, listen. We obviously wish you the best.
All of our thoughts are with you.
We're gonna do everything we can to help.
So I appreciate you taking the time to even be here,
'cause I'm sure it's very difficult.
But I wanted to dive in to your incredible career,
which I've been following.
Like I said, I'm such a huge fan.
I wanna ask you some dumb questions, is that okay?
Like, stupid questions.
- Because I know nothing. I love music.
I dabble a little bit, but I'm not a pro like you.
So you're a composer.
I've always wondered when I watch a movie,
how do you prep to compose a film?
Do you watch the whole thing?
Are you watching it while you're composing?
Are you just rewatching scenes over and over?
Like, what's the process to compose?
- See, I started really young.
I started '81-'82 when I was a kid,
because my father passed away
and I had to be in the industry.
My mom said, "This is your thing, what your father did.
That's what you should do."
Unlike every other mother says, "No music.
"Just finish your graduation and do music later.
Whatever you want to do."
- And so for me, I worked ten years with other composers
as a keyboard player.
So I kind of got what they were doing,
and also trying very carefully not to do certain things,
which they would do, and I would--that one's failed.
For my first movie, I would see the movie,
and I would not look at the picture.
I would take that inside and start doing things.
Like, I'll kind of just
get this full feeling into a sound.
That way I won't be inspired
when I see a certain fight or something.
I want to be doing what was there in my mind,
which I'd been doing for, like, ten years
with other films.
Other way of working's always looking at a scene
and, you know, you're timecoded,
and you say this is what happens,
this change happens, this change happens.
- Right, so let me ask you this, A.R.,
what is the weirdest noise
you ever put into one of your songs?
'Cause I'm imagining you're probably grabbing
for different types of sounds all the time.
- The recent weird one was I was doing a movie
called "Mom" for Sridevi.
And I was ideating and then suddenly got an idea.
I said, "Jo--" It was, like, morning, 5:00.
"Can you just scream and just shout screams
and long ones and can you just do that?"
And my other assistant [indistinct] was sleeping
in the next room.
So she started doing that stuff,
and he just woke up in panic.
"What is happening?"
"Nothing, we're just sampling.
Just go back to sleep."
- Now, I think unless you've been
extremely living under a rock,
everyone knows you have so many awards.
You are just full of accolades.
Do you have room for all of them in your house?
- It's, uh--I mean,
yes, I do have,
but it's not that awards means something for me.
I don't actually keep them.
I just put them aside and say I have to move on,
because that becomes a luggage.
Okay, I've got this award,
and it burdens you from not going further.
My life is about searching.
When I go to a Hollywood studio,
it definitely has some weight.
Oh, he's an Oscar winner or Grammy winner,
BAFTA winner or Golden Globe winner comes in.
Definitely a brown guy is respected more
when he gets an award.
- See, this needs to be my life path?
Y'all see why I'm working so hard?
'Cause right now I'm just a brown girl.
He's a brown guy with the Golden Globe
and the Emmy and the Oscar.
My God, I'm gonna follow in your footsteps.
Aside from music, we need to talk about this.
This is what I really want to talk about,
aside from music, aside from your awards,
you are, like, the king of swag.
You have a lot of swag,
and you're known for being the cool guy.
I want to show a video real quick
because it is everything.
Okay. - Uh-oh.
- Hello. My God.
It's truly perfection.
So where do you get this style from?
Do you have a stylist or are you just into it?
- Actually, after a while, you don't care.
You just do--oh, yeah, I'm gonna do this stuff.
And then everybody laughed,
but it's finally-- I think it turned out well.
I feel like I come from the purer side,
the boring side.
- You're not boring at all.
With that blazer? Never.
[laughter]
- My wife actually takes it seriously.
You know, she dresses me up.
The past 10, 15 years, she's been buying stuff,
and, "Yeah, this'll be cool."
I think she loves doing that stuff.
And so it's all her thing.
When she gets stuff and says wear it, I wear it.
So all the swag comes from her.
- I love that. Has she ever told you
to wear something, and you're like,
"No, I'm not wearing that"?
- No, no, I think she's a bit traditional.
In fact, she chooses black a lot,
and I said, "Can I just have another color for a change?"
And she goes, "Yeah."
I won't tell what she says, but--
Very stubborn and very-- yeah, very anal about stuff.
- So after you won awards,
did all of the famous people come to you?
Like, I imagine, are people always hitting you up
and being like, "I want to work with A.R. Rahman"?
"I want to work--" Does that happen a lot?
- It does happen, I think--
but you know what, I'm actually into it.
I like to be in my studio playing my music,
but my life changed after the Oscars.
I was in a super band with Mick Jagger
and Dave Stewart and Joss Stone,
Damian Marley.
And I enjoyed the life of a rock star.
You know, being on a private ship with Paul Allen
and making music in one of his studios on the yacht,
traveling to Greece and Turkey
and going on a private, you know, like chopper,
and blah, blah, blah, all this stuff.
So I think that is definitely
one of the high points of the post-Oscar scene
where I was hanging out with amazing people.
Being in music is a blessing.
And first of all, breaking from
the South India and North India
to the U.K. and U.S. is definitely--
without losing the identity
without losing your ideals or principles in life.
A lot of people recognize me from Mick Jagger,
and the other day I went to Andrew Lloyd Webber's
70th birthday, I think, and Sir Elton John
was sitting in the back and he said,
"I recognize you.
You were with Mick and Dave Stewart,"
and so that's fun to--
you never know what connects where.
- This is so crazy.
We have, like, the same life almost.
Like, that's so crazy.
I was at that party too.
Yeah, I was sitting on the other side of Elton John.
We probably didn't see each other,
but I was there too, yeah.