Interview: Hemanth Jois Gets Candid About His Music, His Journey in the Kannada Film Industry and His New Single “Paralysed”
Photo Courtesy of Eye Charmers Photography & Suhas Anjeneya
The South Indian film industry is known to produce banger tracks with almost every film. With the onset of viral reels on social media, the craze for these film scores has reached far and wide. After blockbuster hit films like KGF and Kantara, the Kannada film industry has slowly risen in the limelight. We had the chance to speak to one of the music composers from the Kannada music industry, Hemanth Jois.
Since his journey starting in 2013, the composer has come a long way. So far, he has produced scores for Kannada movies like Statement 8/11, Aranyakanda, Entha Kathe Maaraya, Thimmana Mottegalu, Chow Chow Bhat and Yuddhakanda.
After having worked with popular names in the Kannada film industry, the composer and rock music enthusiast has turned to producing his own EP, showcasing his talents further. The title of the EP is “Sleeping with Snakes,” and it has an interesting story behind it too. “Paralysed,” the first single from this EP, is now released.
Recently, HALSUG sat down with Hemanth Jois for a candid chat about his debut EP. With the details of the new EP under wraps and a new single on the way, it was quite a riveting conversation. If this has colored you curious, then read along HALSUG’s exclusive interview with Hemanth Jois.
Q: “Sleeping with Snakes” — that's quite an odd title for an EP and especially a debut EP. This idea that it gives is about betrayal, anger, and hurt. So, where did the inspiration come from?
Raghu Dixit is my neighbor and he has become very close. He has always been my inspiration to pick up rock music in Kannada, especially. Rock is more of aggression, anger, betrayal — all these are covered.
So I always wanted to do it. Then I wanted to make a full-fledged album, but I kind of figured that the album needs at least eight to ten songs. And I thought, ‘Okay, first, let me put an EP out.’ And I had titled the album long back as Get Well Soon. So that ‘Get Well Soon’ was more like all the things which happen in the society, for all the wrong things we are doing, basically, could be in any terms.
Then I thought, only the commercial aspect works right now. And I can't preach, so I said, ‘Screw this!,’ and I left it. And, while I was at Raghu sir's house, and we were talking about something, and he just said, ‘You know, at a point of time in life, you just realize you're just sleeping with snakes.’
And I'm thinking, ‘This is such a nice thing’ so I told him, ‘I'm going to take this and keep it as my EP's name.’ So that's when I decided this will be the name of the EP.
I mean, there is not exactly any particular reason why. No personal experience as such to keep it. But definitely I've gone through a lot of things in and around circles where betrayal comes from the people you know, mostly not from somebody else. And most of your supporters are somebody who doesn't know who you are.
Basically, if your first circle supports the way like the outsiders do, then you will be like a superstar. A simple example. If I calculate overall my social media entirely, let’s say it comes around 20,000 people across Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, everything. Not everybody follows you on the same platform, right?
So imagine 20,000 people sharing your work with 10 people, you will instantly reach 200,000 shares. If they each share five times more, you're in a million, but this never happens. You probably have a circle where 15, 20 unknown people who will always support, who will always push.
So, this was also one of the reasons and a lot of small, small stories which have been happening to me since my music journey started in 2013. I found this title really apt to do it.
Q: Is the entire EP in the rock or alt-rock genre?
Hemanth: Everything is rock. Entirely rock.
Q: Who has sung “Paralysed?” Who are these US and UK-based artists that you have worked with for this EP?
Hemanth: So the thing is I have a lot of students whom I teach guitar. One of my friends is learning western vocals at a proper school in the US. So there she has a lot of friends. She introduced me to a singer called Christina Rey, the one who sang “Paralysed.”
I went through a lot of samples before that. I wanted to because the song demands a particular voice and this was the voice I really liked for the song. Initially, this was supposed to be a male song but then I felt a female voice should do the justice. Because Evanescence is one band where they have female vocals and it sounds really good, so I thought, ‘Let’s do it with the female vocalist.’
Then there is a friend from the UK. Again, I have students in the UK. Fortunately, I met this guy and he told me that he writes. So, I tried with “Paralysed,” and he wrote exactly what I wanted. I just explained how I wanted the song to be, and I'll be honest, I really didn't expect the lyrics to come out this good.
I thought, okay, he'll write something. Let me just put it out. But I found that it is very apt, whatever he has written.
Q: What memorable incident can you share with us that happened when making the EP? Something that stood out to you in particular?
Hemanth: I think for me, it's the voice which stood out first because I'm a fan of Linkin Park, and I always loved their style of writing. To speak about why I wanted to do this EP was also that when you work for films, you don't get that freedom of doing what you want to do.
You are more like a puppet just to do what the director wants you to do. So you get scolded by the audience, you get appreciated even. Actually, credit goes to the director only because he's the one who chooses. With a solo EP, I'm the director. So I could just do what I wanted. I personally decided which songs would go on the EP. I rejected four songs even when they were finished before choosing “Paralysed.”
But “Paralysed” was the first song which I spontaneously composed, which I spontaneously liked, and I found this song has the potential. I think I waited around 40-45 days to receive the vocals, which was a very long wait.
The guy who wrote the song also sent me his vocals. And I was so hooked to his vocals, that I couldn't digest the female vocals when I heard it for the first time. Then I sent it to my mix engineer, and asked him, ‘Whom should I finalize?’ He was hearing the vocals for the first time and he chose the female vocals.
So until then, I was not too sure whether to choose the male or the female vocals. That is one thing. Generally, I plan everything, but this one song, I don't know, God's Grace, it just happened. It sounded good.
Q: Apart from having control over the creative aspect or the technical aspect, what else is important for you? What is your process like when you're working on a film score and as a soloist?
Hemanth: When you compose for films, it feels really bad actually because certain parts you yourself will hate. You feel, ‘This is not going to sound good,’ ‘No, this is not me.’ Basically, that one ego of an artist has to be kept aside. Because whatever it is, you will not win no matter how good it sounds.
So musically speaking, musicians will understand what I am saying. You get out of the scale you are in, go to a different key, and then you come back, which is a very beautiful part in music. But when a non-musician listens to it, they reject it instantly, saying there's something disturbing there.
And when you try to explain to them, they still reject it. And sometimes you work a lot, probably weeks together to get something out and then they don't like it. All these things actually disappoint you a lot, but that used to happen initially.
But now I know, of course, not everything but at least to an extent of experience I know. So I ask them what they want. It's just like asking what flavor of ice cream you like. So instead of making something with so much effort and then rejecting it, I would rather ask them first and then prepare.
When it's independent, independent music has a different kind of pressure because it's your decision. If it is bad, you're the one to be blamed. So that actually brings a lot of doubt, like, ‘Am I good enough?’ or ‘Is it good enough?’ So whenever I compose any song, personal songs, I make people listen to it first.
I have a gang of some 15-20 friends who listen to many types of music. There are so many problems these days. It shouldn't sound like any other song. That is one big issue because there are so many songs coming. Fortunately, I don't use samples. So that way I'm safe, but if any tune sounds closer to any other tune, the audience will say it is copied.
As a musician, you purposely will never do that. Because knowing my song is sounding like the song which is already out, why would I want to be called as an artist who is copying, right? I don't think most of the musicians would want that. But sometimes it happens.
There was a song of mine which was getting released soon. And I didn't even know there was another song which sounded so close to my song. It was just two lines of hook line. So I had to change it that same day and then get it remixed, mastered and reuploaded. So that, when it's out, it was clean. But sometimes this happens. So these are the two issues.
Q: What would your dream collaboration look like? If you're given a choice you can choose artists you want to collaborate with in the near future, who would you pick?
Hemanth: So my first collaboration idol would have been Linkin Park, but unfortunately, they don't do music anymore. Mike Shinoda has always been on my list that hopefully someday, I would get to make a song with him.
Now that I listen to every sort of music, I feel that anybody who is above my level, one step up I would want to do a collaboration with them because I would get to learn something new from them.
I can't recall more names because there are so many artists I listen to. But yeah, as I mentioned, anybody whom I look up to would be a good choice. But the main person, one person I would target is Mike Shinoda for sure.
Q: A musician, of course, knows what genres come and go and how to play around with music. But you know, we have that thing that ‘I think maybe will be a tough nut to crack, but I can at least try.’ Which genre do you think would be that for you?
Hemanth: There is so much I can answer on this because every genre is difficult, depending on your liking. First thing, I liked rock music, so I could explore it. Now, after doing a lot of rock music, blues is next to that, jazz is after that, western classical is after that.
So these things are extremely difficult when we compose also. Western classical, of course, it's all done. Jazz improvising, all these are very difficult, but I think the most difficult one commercially is cinema music because you don't do it for yourself but you have to crack what the audience likes.
Because for example, I have a small set of fans who like my sounds, my music. So they'll support me no matter what I do. But when it's a movie, the audience is brutally honest. If they like it, they like it. If they don't like it, they don't like it. So initially it was very difficult to understand how these commercial songs work.
I had to listen to so many songs which were hits, trying to understand what all instruments are used for -- ‘Why is it a hit?’ Until then I never cared about how the tempo of the song is, how fast it should be, or how good the lyrics should be. I did not bother earlier.
So after doing all that, I figured out that this is not easy. It is very difficult to do movie songs. So yeah, that is a difficult task. Then, if I have to speak in terms of technicality, of course, jazz is really hard to crack. You can't fool around with that. You can't make an easy impact in jazz.
Then, the more difficult the music, the harder it is to convince the musicians because their level of playing will be at that level. They'll instantly think, ‘Hey, what is this?’ So you'll have all that pressure. Because after a point I am 100% sure a musician will actually be worried about other musicians.
This is the honest truth. They'll actually think, ‘I have a set reputation. There is a certain set of musicians whom I respect. Now, if my song comes out in a shape, what will they think about me?’ Even if they deny it, I know personally that it will always be there in the corner of the mind somewhere.
Photo Courtesy of Eye Charmers Photography & Suhas Anjeneya
Q: For somebody who's listening to Hemanth Jois for the first time, what words or what adjectives would you describe your music as?
Hemanth: Initially, it was pure rock music and I wanted to change that label. So I started with EDM and a lot of Gen Z could connect to it. And this EP's one more motto was also that I have a lot of students who are Gen Z and who listened to a couple of my songs called “Khushi” and “Khushi 2” because those two songs have English chorus and EDM elements in it.
I could feel that these kids are getting connected. So there are two ways to make this work. One, you become popular with your music and then everybody listens to you and the other is that you do what they like and then bring them to what you want to give so I think I am doing the second way now.
So I started EDM and I started putting out singles in a little commercial way so that I will not be biased as a rock musician. But I think this EP is bringing me back to that rock musician category.
I think definitely I mean for international listeners, it might sound a little similar to other international music because that is what international music is about. But for those who listen from India, it will be a different sounding song set. Not the regular type sounds.
Q: In the Kannada movie industry, which actors would you like to provide a song for?
Hemanth: Golden star Ganesh is somebody whom I always want to compose for because his songs are very melody based and another actor whom I feel I would really want to work with is Yash because of that powerful presence.
Q: Do you write songs often? When composing, does it happen that you write some lyrics down and you think to send it to the lyricist to work their way around it?
Hemanth: I always compose with a theme in my head, whatever it is. Until now, I think I've written lyrics only for four songs. If I write, I'll never give it to another person, because I know how to start and how to end. So I write everything myself and I finish it.
Otherwise, what I do is I compose and I send it. I do the humming version and I send it to the lyricist and then he sends the lyrics back and then if we need changes, I'll tell them to work on those.
Q: When you're making a composition, when you're working on a track, what is your process like? Are there any random sparks of inspiration?
Hemanth: That happens. Generally, I'm a person who likes to be in a hurry all the time to compose. If I sit to work on it, the inspiration will not come when I want it to. So suppose, I'll be taking class and some line comes to mind, then I think if I can connect one line to another.
I always have my phone next to me. I just open the recorder. I hum it, I type the name and I save it. And then whatever I've composed before I try to match it with this and if I feel it is going well then I finalize it.
Q: Apart from your EP, is there anything you're currently working on?
Hemanth: The album, what I mentioned earlier, is what I'm working on; but I think that might take a lot of time, but apart from that, I'm working on my Kannada songs, which are like my music singles.
So a song with Haricharan is a collaboration I've done and that's a big one. That is the next one. That will be Kannada and Tamil. Now I can talk about a funny incident that happened about this song. I knew Haricharan in 2017 when he sang for one of my movies. The song never got out because the movie stopped in between. I mean it might come later, but yeah.
During COVID, I wanted to work on a song with him. I was hesitant but I pinged him saying that I wanted to ask him about doing a collaboration. He is so humble. I still remember the reply.
He said, “Bro I asked for a collaboration long back. It was you who didn't reply.” I said, “I'm so sorry, but I have this tune. Would you like to sing?” I sent it and he sang. It's a very catchy song. It is in Kannada.
I don't know why that song hasn't come out yet, but I feel that song will be the biggest hit in my life. It is going to be really really big is what I’m hoping for because anybody who heard it [has loved it].
There are a couple of incidents which happened. I played it in my gym once and they were asking about when my next song is coming. I played that Haricharan track and four people in the gym started to sing instantly and I had played that eight months ago only once. Then I figured okay. This is really catchy but I wasn't too sure what to do. Now that he sang it, I'm bound to release it.
I have to, there is no way. I can't say no to it. There was a point where I thought I'm going to discard the song. But I was driving and my sister was in the car and I asked to listen to the song and I played the Tamil version for my sister and nephew.
They both liked it so much. They asked me which song it was. They said it felt like actor Vijay’s song. I felt very good. I thought if they are correlating it to Vijay, that means my music is so good. They were surprised to know that this was my composition. They asked, “When is it releasing? This is so good!”
My nephew liked the song so much! My sister asked me how much it is going to cost to produce the song and instantly transferred the money to my account and told me to put the song out. I was shocked but she said that for the first time, she was seeing her son loving a song so much that he wants to listen to it. I said, “I'm just keeping that money safe here because if I want to do it right, I want to do it like a banger.” So yeah, that is one song.
And then there's one more song, which is Carnatic rock. It is again in Kannada. But I am keeping that song a secret until I have the details hammered out! Stay tuned to find out what that is!
What was your favorite part of “Paralysed”? Let us know in the comments below, or message us on Instagram or X (Twitter).
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Artist Facts
Name/Stage Name: Hemanth Jois
Birthday: 24th December
Nationality: Indian
Zodiac Sign: Cancer
MBTI: I don’t know what that is
Fave Foods: Not a foodie :( [Neer dosae for breakfast. Masala Puri in chat]
Fave Drinks: None
Fave Movies: America America, Nanna Preetiya Hudugi, Milana (in Kannada), Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, The Good, The Bad and the Ugly
Day or Night: Both! Day to work hard. Night to recover :p
Song you're most proud of: Each song, in fact. Because each has its own story. Currently very proud of my debut EP because I know how much it has taken to bring it out.
Editor: Alliya Garcia
Editor-In-Chief: Martina Yee
