Superstar Indian composer A.R. Rahman is a busy man. In addition to prepping for a July 10 performance at the Hollywood Bowl with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Slumdog Millionairecomposer is preparing for the first release by his new band, SuperHeavy, featuring such (super-)heavy hitters as Joss Stone, Dave Stewart from Eurythmics, Damian Marley and—oh, yeah—Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger. Gibson India caught up with Rahman during his Hollywood Bowl rehearsals.
Can you tell us what’s going on with SuperHeavy?
The biggest thing now is our band SuperHeavy’s single “Miracle Worker†is coming out on [July] 7th, and in India we also want to release one more song, called “Satyameva Jayate,†that the band, all of us, have done together. And I’m very excited about it, too.
Can you tell us a bit about your upcoming performance at the Hollywood Bowl?
This is a very special concert for us because, normally, when I do concerts and tours, we do all the movie songs and extravaganza kind of stuff. But the concept for this is all my theme music and all my instrumental music and to play it with [the] L.A. Philharmonic. So, a lot of people wanted this in a concert for a long time back in India, too, and we now are doing this here at the Hollywood Bowl.
I have read about a lot of incidents with die-hard fans coming up to you. Is there an encounter with any of your fans that you would like to share?
Mostly, I think when they come with the expectation, when they buy the tickets, they know the artist and what kind of artist they are. Most of them, of course, they want to get more of me and want to see me performing or playing or something like that. We did a 24-city concert last year in the U.S., U.K., South Africa, and it was great. It’s very exhausting when you do a big tour, but the gratification is the love, which they give at that point of time, and that makes it worth it.