Only sax, no violins

Multi-instrumentalist music composer Raghav Sachar discusses his acting bug with Nikhil Taneja.

The acting bug has bitten you too.. you are playing one of the leads in

HT Image

Tum Milo to Sahi.

(Director) Kabir Sadanand offered the role of a musician to me, in his film

Tum Milo to Sahi

. I agreed on the condition that I’d play myself. I’ve been paired with Anjana Sukhani.

The character’s life is like mine.. he has the same recording schedules, the same commitment to music, the same time restraints. I’d been offered roles before and I’d even taken acting and dancing classes.. but I only felt comfortable going with this one.

Why did you turn down a role in

Haal-e-Dil?

I was offered Adhayan Suman’s role.. I didn’t see much potential in it.

Will acting take precedence to music?

I can never give up music. I’ll take up more acting assignments depending on the audience’s reaction to my debut. (Excitedly) I would really like to do a campus musical like John Travolta’s Grease.

(Instantly) Of course not!

After

Kabul Express, your other music scores haven’t been too well received.

You know, the music depends a lot on the producer and director. If they don’t interfere, I will give them terrific music.

Why did you choose to be a part of

Sunday and

Haal-e-Dil which had multiple composers?

Those were mistakes. Though my song

Manzar

from

Sunday

was appreciated, only the composer of the title track got noticed. Now I’ll either do a complete film or the title track. I’m composing the entire scores for Vikram Bhatt’s

Phir

and Indra Kumar’s

Daddy Cool

.

You still play the saxophone and other instruments for composers. Isn’t there any rivalry?

Not in the new bunch of musicians. I have played for A R Rahman, Salim-Suleiman, Vishal-Shekhar and more. I recently played the sax in Sorry Bhai! for Gaurav Dayal. It’s always a friendly call.

You are also putting together a band.. right?

Yeah. People love my ‘live’ concerts in which I play 20 instruments and jump from one to another. But I want to jam with musicians. That’ll happen with the five-member band I’ve formed.

What’s the current count of the number of instruments you can play?

(Smiles) Thirty. I usually learn one new instrument every year but couldn’t this year because I was travelling like crazy. I’m just going to Dubai for a vacation, I hope to pick up the Middle Eastern instrument, Duduk, there.

Any instrument you haven’t been able to grasp?

I have been partial to the woodwind family of instruments, like saxophone and flute. Apart from the guitar, I don’t like string instruments much. That could be genetic though.. even my dad, a musician, was never fond of violins.