 I predict so we all know that you have grown up in Jaipur. How that has impacted you? You know a lot of my closest friends still till today are from Jaipur from school. I guess like I guess one thing that Jaipur contributed was that when I started doing music when I came back to India after college and started doing this in Delhi the indie scene was mostly I feel like composed of people from Delhi and Bombay and Bangalore like mostly from like metropolitan like bigger cities. I was like one of the few people I remember among my peers who was you know I literally didn't know anybody from Jaipur but even like very few people were from smaller cities. So I feel like that gave me a little bit of a bit of a different perspective. What has been the biggest turning point? I think a lot of people think of failure as like this really massive thing that happens that really like you fail and something really catastrophic happens in your life but I feel like it's more like things not kind of happening fully as you imagine they would you know so it's like if you envisioned a certain like goal or a place you'd be with your profession or your music at a certain time that didn't happen and things just slow I think the hard part is just kind of being patient and waiting and waiting for the right things and not doing things like in a hurry because you're impatient because I feel like that's something that and I'm still learning that but I feel like when I was younger even it was more of a struggle because you know if you really wanted something to happen and it didn't happen whether it was a show or you know a project of some sort that you really wanted to work on or whatever and it didn't happen that always be like this kind of desperation or like you know let's do anything to make it happen and I think that's the kind of patience it's like you have to be smart about knowing when to let go when to not let go when to pursue things. Just tell us a secret. I don't really have a secret I think it's just like I do a lot of like the cleaning up before I you know release a song I don't release a song till it's I don't release most of my songs so there's a lot more I write than what I release and I'm pretty picky about what I release and then even the stuff that I release that you know me I spend a lot of time like polishing it and like in terms of like you know editing the lyrics and like working on it in the studio in terms of production and compositions like I spend a lot of time like really like like polishing those songs so I think like eventually what comes out is pretty good basically. So you have so many global first year credit you know how does that affect you? I mean there's been like a lot of things I think like I was also like one of the first two people who went out there and started doing these things like 2016 like we went to South by Southwest and did a bunch of other music conferences all over the world. Also I think around my time is when like the internet started becoming more and more like you know like just bigger and powerful and there was just like more of these competitions than anybody could apply for them all you had to do was really just go online and search for opportunities and that's something like both me and my manager used to do a lot like just really like go out there and search for opportunities as much as we could being in India and that's how a lot of doors opened. So yeah I mean it feels great I mean you know I started this journey again it's still going you know still it's still going there's still a lot to be done. You know at every stage each one of them was really really excited like like when I won the international songwriting competition I remember like I had applied to that same thing like two years before that also and not one and you know I'd always like wanted to and then the next year I applied again didn't win and then that year I actually I forgot and I think my manager did because he was just doing it every year and that year it happened so it was really really exciting like with South by Southwest I didn't think like I'd ever get a showcase or get programmed there but we did that was exciting the Obama list was amazing signing with Electra was amazing because you know I'd always wanted like support from a major label since the beginning of my career that was one of the major goals so that being that happening was really really great so each one of them had a lot of value you know since you're constantly into this creative process so have you ever faced this creative block? I'm not quite sure if like I've never faced like a creative block in a sense where I've been absolutely unable to write but I have slow periods I have like times when like I'm not writing a lot and I have times when I'm writing a lot you know but I just take it as like downtime you know sometimes if I don't like have I'm not writing a lot naturally then I don't force myself beyond the point I'll try you know I'll try a little bit every day but if it doesn't come through like I'll stop pushing myself and do something else I think like being like a songwriter especially is like so many things songwriting the songwriting part of it itself is something you lead up to you know you're like you're acquiring a lot of skills along the way of like you know in terms of just being a better musician a producer everything you read counts for it everything you watch counts for it how you notice things how you are it's it really is like a way of living and I'm like in that sense like living like I try to live like a musician in a songwriter all the time I try to do things all the time where you know because honestly that's that's the way I've been since I since forever I think actually so so you know I take creative blocks in that stripe I guess tell us something about your most memorable concerts or life shows so many I mean I've had so many great shows you know all through my career I've played so many shows so every year there's something amazing you know 2019 we played a bunch of shows in India really big shows in Delhi and Bombay just beautiful shows amazing like energy I just played a tour in December of 2021 just this past year all amazing shows I'm looking forward to touring more this year in general what do you think makes or breaks a song like any good song it's really hard to explain but just feels a good song will just feel good you know it'll just feel real it'll not feel forced I think the songs that really like are terrible and that you don't want to listen to I just tend to like subconsciously or even consciously sometimes annoy you a little bit and that's because I feel like most people can sense like I don't know like some some sort of like a inauthenticity in them you know and that's a really that's a really complicated word which I won't get into but you know you know yeah I think there has to be some realness in a song for a totally like cut through a lot of people you know COVID has impacted all of us in different ways so what kind of impact it had on you or it still hasn't I mean yeah it's had a you know it's taken a toll on everyone it's just it's just I mean it's a it's an unprecedented time what do I even say I think we all know like the impact it's had on our mental health and like we're just like you know like humans are not like when it's not natural for us to not see each other's faces when we're talking behind masks or like you know we cooped up in one place for too long it's just not natural and we've had to do it obviously because that was the only way but I think that kind of like breakdown of this social connection that is so critical to you know just life as a human the breakdown of that structure has been I've just taken a toll on everyone including me and then like yeah work wise I've just missed touring mostly more than anything else other than that it's actually kind of been good in a way I got a lot of perspective and I got a lot of time to work on other things in my life as well which I had just been like ignoring for a while like my health and like a lot of bad habits that I'd accumulated over the years with touring and hectic traveling so I feel like I I think like the not touring part of the worst probably for me like professionally as a musician so you have a huge email fan for like so how do you stay connected I mean you know I do everything that I can like you know I try and like stay connected on social media we try and like meet as many people as we can when we're on tour I sometimes meet fans you know like when I'm just on the road traveling or come out in the restaurant or something so what are your plans for 2020 any new collaboration what should we look forward to a new album you know new songs and a new album we're still working on like finalizing everything and like release dates and plans and stuff like that but most likely you're going to get some a bunch of new music so so what is the advice there for people who are trying to make it big and still struggling it doesn't matter either ways to be honest like I think you do need to want it really really bad like I had a fallback option and sometimes like you know in my bad days when I had a lot of self-doubt it was good to like in a way think about that because I was like okay worst case you know I can go do this but at the same time I also really wanted it just you know like I hope everybody's well and hopefully we're pretty close to the other side of you know all of this and we can get back to like doing everything we love and I can get back to playing shows and see you all out there