Emmy-nominated musical duo Salim and Sulaiman Merchant are among the best musician duos in India. The duo mainly composes music for Hindi movies. Over the years, music composers Salim-Sulaiman have managed to become one of the most respected names in Hindi film music.
EXCLUSIVE: Composers Salim-Sulaiman talk about 30 years in the industry and how they feel about starting over
From Chak De! India, fashion until Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi, Band Baaja Baaraat and much more, the Merchant brothers have come a long way in making great hit music albums for countless Bollywood movies; for over decades now. Not just movies, the duo has also composed for television and reality shows such as crime patrol, Coffee With Karan and also worked for several TV commercials.
In an exclusive music room interview with Bollywood Hungamawhile sharing the interesting behind-the-scenes stories of how they created their chart-buster scores, the musical duo also talked about being in the industry for 30 years and how they always feel like they’re starting over.
“The first album we made was in 1992 Ragga Raaga by beautiful KSChitra ji from Chennai and Voodoo Rapper,” Salim recalled. “It was released in 1992, A-side was Roja and B-side was Ragga Raaga on a label called Magna Sound. So we actually ended 30 years this year.
“So it’s been a long journey for us,” Sulaiman said before Salim added, “But it feels like we’ve just started… It feels like we have a lot more to do.” Sulaiman agreed, “You know how music keeps changing, you evolve with it and then you feel ‘Oh, we’re back to zero, we’re starting over.'”
He continued, “And that part of life is really beautiful because you can jump in, jump out whenever you want, however you want. And the music is always there, the music always stays.” Salim added, “You know, we’ve always had such a big change every time too.”
“As musicians, we worked with so many different composers, then we started doing backing scores and then we did commercials as well, we did that,” he said. “A lot of jingles, we made so many title tracks for different television series; Coffee With Karan at that time and even now, the last season is also us, Khatron Ke Khiladi, crime patrol and all the crazy amount of series we’ve done.
“Then we started making movies like songs and stuff. Then came the reality shows and we were there too. We started doing a lot of concerts, we made music for FIFA [in 2010]… so much has happened. We did some things with television series in America that were nominated for the Emmys, so there were a lot of things that we did that kept us going.
“Then came Bhoomi and Merchant Records, so there’s so much it feels like we just started,” said Salim, to which Sulaiman concluded by adding, “Means life isn’t boring, life is always interesting.”
Read also: Salim Merchant remembers their journey since their 1992 album; and it has a ‘Roja’ movie connection, look
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