Salim Merchant talks about the premiere of his musical Disco Dancer on 14th April.
Salim Merchant in an exclusive chat talks about the much-awaited Disco Dancer musical, the legacy of Mithun Chakraborty’s cult film and much more.
Mithun Chakraborty’s 1982 film Disco Dancer was a bold and intriguing film to be released around a time when a certain style of cinema had already taken root in the psyche of moviegoers. The film achieved cult status for not one but several reasons. Most prominent is its music which went platinum in India. Composed by the great Bappi Lahiri, all the songs from the critically acclaimed film still rule people’s playlists.
To celebrate the legacy of Disco Dancer, which proved to be a huge success in countries like Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, Turkey, Middle East and Africa, talented music duo Salim-Sulaiman will bring their Disco Dancer music to Mumbai this April. 14 with a reimagined score. While the West End, London has already witnessed sell-out shows, it is time for the Indian audience to get caught up in the retro disco fever. In an exclusive interview with News18 Showsha, Salim Merchant talks at length about Bappi Lahiri and Disco Dancer music.
Here are excerpts from the interview:
So talk about the beginning of the concept of Disco Dancer the Musical. Between your other concerts, Suleiman and who forced you to do this? And why Disco Dancer in particular?
Why Disco Dancer? Because Disco Dancer is a very unique film that really takes the disco format and the disco genre forward in a big way. For example Mithu da and Bappi Lahiri. If you see all the songs in this movie are yaad aa raha hai, i am a disco dancer, jimmy jimmy, auya auya, bombay se aaya mera dost, goro ki na kalo ki, so many songs. All these songs are tremendous hits. It is very rare that a film has all the superhit songs. For a musical to capture the true essence of an iconic film, it included several hit songs. Disco Dancer was perfect for that.
Disco Dancer movie is synonymous with two great names, one is Bappi Lahiri and the other is Mithun Chakraborty. So when you were preparing to pay tribute to these two legends, was there any trepidation between you and Sulaiman?
There was no panic. We have done a few musicals in the past as well. we did a musical called beyond Bollywood And after that, we did Umrao Jaan. And when we finished Umrao Jaan and it was successful in London and a few other shows across the world, we realized that music is a great way to tell the story of India to the rest of the world. But what about telling the story of our India and what better way to do it than to just do the music of a very popular film which has great music and great dance moves too. So we started researching and since we have done Kathak and Mujra and light classical style, we thought why not give it a try?
What are your earliest memories of Disco Dancer and its songs? How did that film and musical score influence your childhood and growing up years as well as Sulaiman and you musically?
I was eight when the film released. These are some of the first songs I heard. And I started relating to it, relating to the music. To some of the popular songs, we would nod our heads and dance a bit. And trying to play the basslines of these songs were some of the things that I remember from that time.
Can you remember any memory of the great musician Bappi Lahiri?
Bappi da was very close to me. I have worked with him on many occasions. I have worked with him as a music composer and I have worked with him as a composer where he was the singer. So Bappi ji was very, very happy when he came to know that we were working on it and we were bringing Disco Dancer alive on stage. He was really happy and very happy. It’s very unfortunate that he’s not around because I would have loved to have him on the premiere. But his legacy and music certainly live on.
What should those who come to see the musical on the 14th expect?
They should expect nothing less than a spectacular show. They should be ready to dance. They should be ready to laugh. They should also be prepared to cry. They should get ready to travel back to the world of the 80s.
After Disco Dancer musical, which other artist or film would you like to pay tribute to?
I guess it’s too hard to say right now. I don’t know whether we will make another musical film or not. I think we can write and destroy because it is a bit intimidating to keep working on film music and bring it to theater and stage.
What are your thoughts on the current Bollywood music scene? And what’s your take on the independent music scene that has become a parallel industry unto itself?
Both are wonderful in their own right. The music of the film has its own glory, its ups and downs. And independent music is on the rise, which is a great thing. Sometimes indie music ends up sounding like film music and vice versa. There is no harm in anything. Music is music. It’s hard to put it into different brackets that it’s film music and it’s independent. Because when a listener listens to a piece of music on a streaming platform, they listen to music and they don’t bucket whether it is film music or independent music.
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