Benny Dayal is turning out to be a master juggler balancing his rather busy musical career with even more work. In this short and snappy interview with After Hrs, the live wire singer talks music and also shares some seasoned advice for aspiring musicians.
If it has got to do with music then Benny Dayal will most likely make time for it. Which is why you will see him performing live at concerts around the country between recording songs for a dozen movies (that go on to become hits) and then somewhere amid all this, he also manages to make time to record for eminently popular music-based shows like MTV’s Coke Studio and Unplugged. Makes you wonder if there’s a body double or two he uses to accomplish all this in a day’s time. We wouldn’t be surprised if that were true, mind you.
“I am going to be performing live for the first episode of Unplugged’s season 3 in a couple of hours from now,” opens Benny sitting down for a slightly hurried chat with After Hrs. Question him about the reason why one sees him taking an part in music-based shows such as these and Benny openly admits, “End of the day, it really is all about the music.”
“That said, it is about the people too,” he notes, “it is about the musicians who are playing along with you; the accompanyists; and the fans who are sitting in the audience watching you perform live.”
Now, unlike a live concert or a song recording, the thing with recording a TV show is the hovering presence of the camera. Does it make him conscious at all while performing? “I am not conscious of the camera at all,” says Benny with characteristic candour before admitting however that he’d be less than amused if someone were to restrict him on stage during the show. “I just hope nobody tells me to stick to just one part of the stage, that’s something I won’t be able to adhere to,” says Benny, a self-admitted ‘pure live performance guy’.
Moving on to other music-related topics, we first quiz him on his take of the whole trend of ‘auto-tune singers’ getting popular and Benny replies rather matter-of-factly that “It is in the hands of the producer on the kind of music he wants or the way he wants to use a voice or the singer he wants to use,” but the true test of a singer’s virtuosity according to Benny comes to the fore when he or she is perfoming live. “You just know it when you are listening to a performer on stage,” he says before he doles out advice to aspiring singers on what they’ve got to do to stand out from the scores of Youtube sensations and one-hit, autotuned wonders one hears of today.
“The first thing you need to do is stay grounded,” advises Benny, sounding like some wise guru. “You’ve got to gain the understanding that there is nothing greater than music. As a performer, you must realise that music has taught you all that you know and you’ve just got to keep going further.” In other words, being a successful musician according to Benny is “about knowing your craft.”
Commenting further on the trend of the social media networks spawning music talent, Benny says, “You can be a great producer and create music with the most basic tools available but your true talent as a musican comes to the front when you can perform your song equally well live, or when you can interpret your music and put it across clearly to another musician. Cites Benny, “Before I met AR Rahman I just knew him as a great music director but it was later, when I watched him live at a show, playing his piano, that my respect for him just went up. That’s when I realised what made him a great musician.”
Counting Karsh Kale (with whom he is currently working on an album) and Salim -Suleiman in his list of talented and knowledgeable music producers, Benny once again reiterates that what marks the difference between a consistent performer and a one-hit wonder is “knowing your art.”
2013 has been a rather good year for Benny with him delivering super hits in Badtameez Dil, Lat Lag Gayi and Shuddh Desi Romance. So, has this made him choosy about the songs he wants to sing? “No,” he categorically states before elaborating, “Why should I be choosy? Yes, there are people who say, ‘You’ve delivered a hit so your career is made but you can’t sit on the laurels of that one song, can you? As a singer, I believe that you are always learning about music. So, the way I see it, if I am called to sing a song, I just
sing it.”
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