‘New talent makes music sound different’: Meet Bros

Meet Bros, Manmeet and Harmeet Singh, have much to boast about when it comes to the soundtrack of Dream Girl. Not only is this their first full-length album but they have also launched three new voices with it — Altamash Faridi who sang Iq Mulaqat, Amit Gupta with Radhe Radhe (for whom it’s the first big commercial number) and Jas from Delhi who has sung the Punjabi ditty Ghat Ghat. “We’ve always been associated with new voices. It’s our first complete film album and everyone said we needed to get the biggest names. But, we have always believed in fresh voices because new talent brings new vibes with them and that’s now a song sounds different,” Manmeet avers. 

Harmeet adds, “Everything that’s done in Bollywood music, will remotely sound like something or the other because so much as already been done. It’s the voices that play a big role in making the music work because it doesn’t sound like anything else.”

Giving back to indie

Giving a break to new voices also comes from the fact that the duo first started out as non-film artistes. Manmeet points out that we were here to perform and entertain people. “But in the process, we became music directors for films, because we didn’t think that might be a career for us.” Now, the resurgence of alternative music and good old days of singles makes them feel lucky, Harmeet tells us. “We have our own label where the music is independent. It’s our way of giving back to the indie space what we have earned from it. The whole idea of pushing youngsters and newcomers is because that’s how we have come up. We were not trained and not cut out for what we’re doing. But we learned on the job,” he says.   

Ayushmann unplugged

Ayushmann Khurrana has sung an unplugged version of Iq Mulaqat on the soundtrack. The duo was itching to have him sing because he’s a natural and effortless singer. They wrote fresh lyrics for a stanza for this version. Harmeet says about the actor-singer, “He’s not one of those guys who would say, ‘I’m the hero, I want to sing all my songs.’ He’s like, ‘Let people do their jobs. I’ll do mine.’” The duo reveals that recording that would have taken a few hours was wrapped up in about an hour.

(A still from Radhe Radhe)

Back from sabbatical

Since their recreations like High Heels (Ki & Ka) and Main Tera Boyfriend (Raabta) were chartbusters, filmmakers expected them to do the same thing over and over again. “But we believe in making original music and this wasn’t something we wanted to do, so we decided to stay away from film music for some time and focussed on our label,” Manmeet states. The spontaneous musicians do not have a set plan to create more complete albums nor are they ruling the chances out.

Harmeet tells us.

Singles are better

Even though they’ve been composing for films for a long time, this is their first complete soundtrack. “Honestly, full-length album doesn’t excite us. In most movies, out of five tracks, just a couple of songs become superhit, not necessarily all of them. And if the film doesn’t do well, at least one song gets wasted. It’s happened with a few films for us,” Manmeet reasons. He elaborates that a music director can only make 25-30 songs in a year. “We’d rather have them in multiple movies along with the experience of working with more people. We want to make tracks that will be promoted and everybody will hear all the songs instead of just being in one movie and losing songs,” Harmeet points out.

Upcoming projects

Their upcoming works include a track in Marjaavan, which is a recreation. They have other songs for films as well as their label in the pipeline, including romantic as well as dance tracks.