There is a gleeful satisfaction in having your detractor compliment you for the very same thing he once complained about. And while a few of us may have had the pleasure of that experience, for musician Shourya Malhotra it became the pivot for his future.
“I started my journey in high school where I was part of a band,” says Shourya speaking on the phone from Delhi. “We performed our first song at the school assembly and someone came up to my guitarist and said, “You should fire the vocalist — he is really bad”. At the time I was in class 8 and that comment cut deep.”
“I used to listen to a lot of metal music back then such as Lamb of God, Metallica and Pantera, and inspired by the metal vocalists, I tried to emulate them.”
Shourya Malhotra
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Special Arrangement
Shourya says when he started performing metal vocals, “The same person who said I ought to be fired was astounded and complimented my singing.”
That was the impetus he needed, says Shourya. “I put together a progressive heavy metal band in college called Trigger and we did fairly well. We performed at various venues across the country, eventually going on to win Blitzkrieg 2013 which is IIT Delhi’s cultural festival.”
His journey in music began as a first year Law student in Symbiosis, Noida. “Today, Trigger is in the process of writing a full-length album set to release next year.” A fitting retort to any number of detractors Shourya may have encountered along the way.
“I’ve always considered myself to be a singer first, and then a musician,” says Shourya, who learnt the guitar on his own while in his first year of college.
Shourya Malhotra’s Still Breathing
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Special Arrangement
“After five years of studying, I started practising in 2015, specialising in energy and mining law. Just before the pandemic hit, I had begun to feel detached from my career as a musician — my passion had taken a backseat ever since I began working. So, I quit practicing in 2020 and started my solo career as a singer songwriter,” says the musician, based out of Noida.
“Indie folk music has always been one of my favourite genres and one of my dreams was to create something more mellow than the usual stuff I was doing as a metal vocalist,” says Shourya.
“I started that project in 2020 and released my first song ‘For Lost Memories’ in 2022. It took me a long time to put out my first song because I needed to convince myself that I could do this. It didn’t help that the world was reeling under a tough time as well.”
He says ’For Lost Memories’ was about a final goodbye drawn from a relationship that he’d had. Shourya has released four more songs since 2022 with ‘Still breathing’, the fifth, coming outthis April. “I released my first Hindi song in June titled ‘Kahi Duur’, a soft acoustic song about love.”
Shourya says his inspiration for indie folk acoustic stemmed from the works of Elliott Smith, Nick Drake and Nora Marling, “an incredible songwriter”.
Shourya Malhotra
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement
”I had started writing songs when I was in my third year of college but did not release them because streaming platforms had not yet come to India. Releasing music was a very different ball game at that time.”
“When I took the plunge in 2020, I told myself that I might not become the richest man in the world or the best musician, but I would get to write the sort of songs I always wanted to. I pictured myself five years down the road and I didn’t like what I saw of myself as a lawyer. I think going all out is paying off a little bit.”
“My inspirations come from a lot of artistes whose work I enjoy, and my idea is to find an outlet for the things I want to say — share my story and my life experiences.”
“I want to make music which might change someone’s life, just as a lot of artistes changed mine. One of the songs that come to mind is ‘Between the Bars’ by Elliott Smith. It’s a song that holds a lot of meaning in my life; it saved me in a way,” recalls Shourya. “If I am able to write something similar, even one song like that in my whole lifetime as a singer-songwriter, I’ll consider it a success.”
After 2020, Shourya started assisting a lot of musicians on contractual disputes, “I used to say I’m a lawyer who’s also a musician, but now I say that I’m a musician who is also a lawyer.”
Shourya says an album which will include around four more new songs is likely to be released in November, and adds that he will continue to launch his Hindi songs as singles.
Still Breathing is out on all streaming platforms