On the eve of Independence Day, the very talented, Shruti Pathak sure must have felt the jitters and a hell lot of excitement, as she geared herself for a launch of a lifetime!
Hard Rock Cafe Mumbai shimmered and rocked with all the musical energies possible as artistes like Vishal Dadlani, Shekhar Ravijani, Abhijeet Sawant, Sangeet Haldipur, Shilpa Rao, Raghu Dixit, Siddharth Mahadevan, Anusha Mani and many others from the music industry, graced the launch to show their love and support as Shruti went live with Guzzler – a contemporary approach to classic ghazals.
Shruti’s very own brainchild, Guzzler is a concept band which fuses some of her favourite and popular ghazals into neo uptempo versions. With an array of talented live musicians, Guzzler is an experience, lyrically, musically and trip-ically.
The Good Life Potpourri decided to chat up with the gifted singer to gain further insight about this unusually appealing concept.
TGLP: What exactly is Guzzler all about?
Shruti Pathak: My latest venture – Guzzler is a ghazal band. With Guzzler I reinvent old, desi ghazals with a new twist and a fresh approach in its sound… something that hasn’t been experimented with in recent times.
TGLP: How did you come about this concept?
Shruti Pathak: I grew up listening to ghazals by legends within the genre, like Mehdi Hassan saab, Ghulam Ali ji, Jagjit Singh ji and Hariharan ji. I absolutely love this form of music and when I wanted to do something independently, I knew it was going to be around ghazals.
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| Rehearsals |
TGLP: Introduce us to the members of Guzzler and a little something about each one of them.
Shruti Pathak: Guzzler is my brain child; but I am fortunate enough to have musician friends who give their special touch to my songs. They are seasoned musicians and will vary according to the need of the show and the audiences.
TGLP: Tell us about the journey… from idea to reality.
Shruti Pathak: Ghazals are dying a slow death. Today’s generation is not aware of the strong lyrical and musical content of ghazals. So I decided to present some of the most popular and not so popular ghazals in a way that was more appealing to the newer and younger audiences.
Westernizing desi ghazals was the concept and executing it was even more difficult, but the most challenging part was to convince my audience with the performance. God’s kind and it all fell in place, just the way I imagined.
Westernizing desi ghazals was the concept and executing it was even more difficult, but the most challenging part was to convince my audience with the performance. God’s kind and it all fell in place, just the way I imagined.
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| The Guzzlers |
TGLP: How do you plan on taking Guzzler to more audiences?
Shruti Pathak: Response towards Guzzler at Hard Rock Cafe was mind-blowing… beyond my imagination actually! Now I owe it to my listeners and will do my best to contribute to this form of art!
TGLP: A special message for the readers of The Good Life Potpourri.
Shruti Pathak: Follow your heart… Follow your dreams… Believe in yourself… Many people were unsure of what I was about to do with ghazals and the answer to that is the response I got… all for the heart and soul I put into Guzzler, for everything that it has turned out to be!
The Good Life Potpourri 