Aaman Trikha, who has been the voice behind some incredible chartbusters like Go Go Govinda, Hookah Bar, and Mohabbat Barsa Dena, to name a few, gets candid with The Pioneer, about his recent track Allah De Bande, transition to the musical world, and more.
Tejal Sinha
There was a time in the Indian music industry, where all that we could see were albums by the experienced musicians, who were in the industry for a long time. However, things have changed and the industry has opened its doors for several budding artists.
The label of a “outsider” in the industry has just been obscured by these performers. Aaman Trikha is one of these artists. Do you remember the Janmashtami and Dahi Handi song Go Go Govinda from Oh My God? Guess what? Aaman provided the voice for this chatter, which also served as his entry point into the Bollywood industry. There was no turning back for him after that.
Some amazing tracks including Hookah Bar and Khiladi Bhaiya (Khiladi 786), Mohabbat Barsa Dena (Creature 3D), Halo Re and Prem Leela (Prem Ratan Dhan Payo), Khuda Bhi (Ek Paheli Leela), Jaaneman Aah (Dishoom), Aaj Phir Tumpe (Hate Story 2), and Butterfly (Jab Harry Met Sejal), out of the many to his credits.
Another track adding to his blockbuster list is Allah De Bande from Aditya Roy Kapoor, and Mrunal Thakur starrer Gumraah. “Allah De Bande is a very soulful melody that I got to sing after a long time,” shares Aaman.
The song resonates with the feel of struggle, pain, agony , helplessness and brotherhood experienced by the main characters of the movie. And it’s all the more special for him as it’s his first release with Mithoon. “I express my wholehearted gratitude to him that he believed in me and my craft that I could do the desired justice to the song to the fullest. The song comes at the culmination of the movie and will hit you really hard in the context of the movie. It’s a delightful feeling to receive love and accolades for the song.”
The Son of Sardaar singer, though had started playing keyboards in his childhood, without any professional training, it was only during his engineering days that he realised his love for music. “During my 1st year of engineering at Thakur College, Mumbai, my realization evolved into me that I could sing. Later during the same semester, I was coaxed by my college mates to take part in our annual college cultural fest’s singing competition. Although hesitant at first as I had never ever sung before , I somehow gave the auditions and surprisingly ended up being the runner-up of that same competition.” With the humongous amount of appreciation, applause and encouragement he received by the audience through those performances, marked his first stepping stone towards the beginning of my singing journey.
Shifting to a whole different industry, starting all from the scratch, with no prior experience is just not a piece of cake. However, with his belief in himself, the decision was not as difficult for him as it came straight from the heart and soul within. However, “this journey from the beginning has been absolutely rough and tough one. At the same time , it makes you one hell of a stronger character , where you value and cherish the success. It made me extremely hungry for excellence and will always continue to do so. I’ve believed in never taking things for granted as for the fact, they have just not come easy.”
A fact reveal- Aaman was called for just the hookline portion of Go Go Govinda. So how did he end up singing the whole track? “While I was called to record just the hookline portions of the song at Himesh ji’s studio, the next day after that session, Himesh ji texted me to go to the studio and record the whole song from start to end. The song shaped up really well and everyone right from Himesh ji to Akshay Kumar bhaji to Prabhudeva sir & Sonakshi loved my vocals on the song.” The track has not only been special for him because it marked his breakthrough but, “has become one of the biggest celebration anthems and especially on Janmashtami every year the way it is celebrated, is the proof of enormous amount of love and adulation it gets even after 11 years and shall continue to do so.”
“To be able to showcase the range of my versatility in terms of singing and musicality was a very big challenge,” says Aaman when asked about how difficult was it to enter the industry without and godfather. “Without any such figure’s support , it virtually becomes impossible to catch the attention of the concerned people , who can give you work to start with. Every single day was a long hard fought battle. My daily ritual was to leave my house with 10-15 CDs of my recorded demos , with that glimmer of hope to somehow be able to crack something and get atleast 5 minutes of anyone from the movie trade who could listen to me sing live or my recorded stuff on the CD. And if at all I got some opportunity once in several blue moons back then , that used to get scrapped in no time , because of the absence of those influential contacts.”
Aaman shares a very close association with Bollywood’s Khiladi Akshay Kumar, and he says, “ It’s such a pleasure to lend my voice on his songs and I’m humbled by his love.” Not just Akshay Kumar, like we’d earlier mentioned his tracks, Aaman has lent his voice to two of the biggest Khans of the industry, Shah Rukh Khan in Jab Harry Met Sejal, and Salman Khan in Prem Ratan Dhan Payo. Now, the soloist aspires to sing a track for Aamir Khan too. “I’m very much keen to sing for Aamir sir and would love to be his voice, especially the soulful melodies in which he brings out so much with his onscreen expressions. Having said that, in fact for SRK sir, Salman Bhai, Aamir sir and everyone — I can’t wait to sing romantic soulful numbers. Fingers crossed !”
Social media, and the trending song on reels has been the talk of the town for a while now. In fact, his songs like Hookah Bar, have still been on the trending list. He does agree to it. However, “the unfortunate downside part though which social media brings along is that every one gauges and judges the artist through their followers or likes count, which according to me is absolute rubbish. You just cannot have a random talent check by how many people follow that artist; as most of these ‘figures’ are manipulated and have no relation with the amount of craft and pure talent one possesses. I sincerely wish this perception changes.”
Talking about remix culture, we have many variations like Lo-Fi, Slowed, and Reverb, to name a few. While some really stand out of the crowd, there are many which doesn’t really go well. The vocalist couldn’t agree much as he says, “If you remix everything, the essence and flavour of that would be gone. Remixes sound meaningful if done aesthetically, being in sync with the original composition and lyrics, with their own additional arrangements, without tampering with the feel of the original song.”
