‘Even though there’s a large female audience that comes to our shows, they also bring their family and friends’ - Hindustan Times
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‘Even though there’s a large female audience that comes to our shows, they also bring their family and friends’

Mumbai | ByNikita Deb, Mumbai
Aug 19, 2019 01:34 PM IST

The four-member set say that they feel “blessed and fortunate” to have a large number of female fans.

The four-member set comprising Sanam Puri, Samar Puri, Keshav Dhanraj and Venky S make the popular band Sanam. They are known for making covers of popular Bollywood songs of the ’90s. They are a huge sensation among the youth with over two million subscribers on YouTube. After their recent international tour, in which they performed in countries such as Mauritius, Netherlands and Suriname, they feel they get more recognition outside India. “This happens with musicians and bands a lot. You are a little better known outside your country like The Beatles,” says Keshav, who plays the drums.

(From left) Venky S, Keshav Dhanraj, Sanam Puri and Samar Puri.(HT Photo)
(From left) Venky S, Keshav Dhanraj, Sanam Puri and Samar Puri.(HT Photo)

How was your tour? What kind of reception did you get there?

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Sanam: All the shows were full house. We never expected that and it was a surprise for us. Additionally, we heard that the tickets were really expensive and that’s why we were worried whether people are going to buy the tickets and come for the show or not.

Venky: In some of the places, such as in Holland, we weren’t expecting any crowd. Even in Amsterdam, our performance was on King’s Day. It was the King’s 50th birthday and almost everybody was out partying and doing other stuff. All the roads were blocked and it was raining. So we thought there is going to be a really low turnout. We were looking forward to finishing the show and going on to the next but it turned out to be a full house.

Watch Sanam’s latest video here:

How is the audience different there compared to Indians?

Sanam: Every place has a different vibe and a different kind of people. For example, Mauritius was crazy but Amsterdam was a little reserved but the craziness was still there. They were reserved in the beginning but then everybody went mad [by the end of the show]. Mumbai show was also amazing; it was one of the best.

Keshav: Musicians and bands are a little better known outside their own countries like The Beatles.

Venky: What The Beatles did was that they took popular soul songs and performed them for the audience. People were already familiar with the songs, so I think this has always happened (getting acknowledged by playing already popular songs). Somehow, you get this recognition from the crowd that is outside your home city, and when you come back, you get more acceptance in your homeland. It creates more buzz when an artiste is touring internationally. For example, in places like Mauritius and Suriname, the moment you get out of the plane, there are fans at the airport, on the road, or wherever you go. But in India, it’s a lot different; like we can roam around and its fine. So it is different, but having said that, the crowd is growing here as well.

You have a crazy female fan following too. How does it feel?

Keshav: Initially, we had this plan of forming a band, and we didn’t want to do much of Bollywood, we wanted to focus on Independent music. So we decided to put out our songs on YouTube but we were really nervous when we started out in the beginning.

Samar: We feel blessed and fortunate that we get this kind of reaction. Obviously, when we started out, we never expected this and were nervous. But the more songs we put out, we see that different people from all age groups, from six to sixty, like different songs. It’s not like everybody likes only one song. We keep getting surprised by seeing the reactions that we get.

Sanam: This is something that motivated us. Even though there is a large female audience that comes to our shows but they also bring their family and friends. When we started putting out our songs, we started getting messages such as, “In today’s day and age, when everybody is on their mobile phones and people are not even having conversations, we are in the same room listening to the same music with our parents and our grandparents. Your songs have brought us together.”

Follow @htshowbiz for more

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