Nostalgia tunes: Siddhartha Khosla

Did you guys plan to form a diaspora band? 
The idea was to put the best musicians together Irrespective of their race or ethnicity.

How would you define Goldspot's music?
Goldspot's identity is conflicted, much like I'm conflicted by own personal identity. It sits somewhere in between India and the West, but it's not fusion. It's floating somewhere in the Pacific, inching its way into the Indian Ocean.

How big an influence is Bollywood? You've always spoken about Kishore Kumar.
Old Indian music from the 1960s is a huge influence on me. I learned how to sing by listening to Kishore Kumar and Mohammad Rafi records. RD and SD Burman were incredible composers, and that music influences a lot of what I do. Current Bollywood? Not so much.

You've said that your Mumbai performance was the highlight of your career? What are you expecting from the home crowd this time around?
Our performances in India are always special and unique. I bet this time around, one of these shows is bound to become a new highlight for me. The Indian audiences have a special place in my heart. India is my ancestral home. It's the birthplace of my favorite singers and musicians. Going to play in India inspires me on so many different levels. I think back to the great Mohammad Rafi or Kishore or Lata, and how they performed all over India. And for me to have that opportunity, though I'm not even close to the calibre of singer as they were, is so very cool.

Would you like to share a childhood memory in India that relates to your music?
Many of the songs from my new album Aerogramme are based on stories from my short-lived childhood in India. In 1976, my parents moved from India to the US. They came to the US with only $8 in their pockets. Within a year of their arrival, I was born. They were in school while juggling full-time jobs, and made the one of the toughest decisions they've ever made — sending me back to India to live with our extended family in Delhi while they stayed in the US to build a future for our family.
At the time, it was too expensive to make a long distance phone call (almost $20+ a minute!) and so my parents communicated with me by recording their voices on a cassette tape and sending it to me. On the tape, my mom used to sing me old Hindi songs and lullabies and tell me how much she loved and missed me. I wrote a song on the new album called Evergreen Cassette, dedicated to my mom and all the sacrifices she and my father made for me.

amrita.madhukalya@dnaindia.net, @visually_kei