Carnatic is my creative fountainhead

We catch up with AR Rahman's blue-eyed singer Sid Sriram as he prepares to launch Entropy, his debut EP

You shifted to the US as a toddler. How did that experience shape you as a musician?
I think the western forms of music I was exposed to early on played a constructive role in shaping my vision as an artiste. Also, the Carnatic music school my mother started in California in 1992 played a huge role in my growth. Being surrounded by music all the time was incredible, and Carnatic became my creative fountainhead. I think the challenges I faced really had to do with me embracing the different dimensions of my identity. When I was in school, I was very deliberate about isolating my 'Indian' and 'American' identities, which I think was pretty detrimental to my growth as a human being and artiste. The moment I started destroying the silos, realising that shades of the California suburbs and those of Chennai's hustle and bustle blended together to create me, I started feeling comfortable in my own skin.

Adiye [an AR Rahman hit Sriram sang] released when you were relatively young. In what ways has the experience of singing blockbuster hits shaped you?
It took a little adjusting to, but I also just kept my head in the music. At the time Adiye released, I was working on evolving my grasp of Carnatic music and on refining my original musical vision. So when the film music took off, I was still grounded in the process of artistic discovery. Getting to work with AR Rahman sir on Adiye and subsequent songs has been a dream come true; it bolstered my confidence to continue on my journey. Singing film hits has opened me up to an incredible and exponentially growing fan base. The perspective that you gain from performing in a packed venue of 10,000 people singing along with you is something else.

What cognitive and creative adjustments do you have to make when singing for mainstream films, and when making your music?
The cognitive and creative adjustments that occur, happen on a subconscious level. At this point in my career, I've learned to not differentiate any one creative experience — it all comes from the same ocean. I just make sure that I'm constantly sharpening the tools and working on my craft in such a way that I can access the tools whenever I need to. When I'm recording a film song, I get to jump into someone else's creative and conceptual perspective. But when I write and produce my own music, the lyrical voice and artistic perspective is completely mine. But, the perspectives I've gained from my work in films definitely come into play at a subconscious level.

You have said that Haruki Murakami's writing has influenced your music. Can you explain how different forms of art can inform the work of a musician?
I think art is all about input and output. I'm constantly taking in new information, by way of books, visual art, films, and even social media; it all influences my artistic output to some degree. My girlfriend introduced me to Murakami's work just over a year ago and it opened up my mind a lot. The effortlessness with which he describes simple things, and how these descriptions come to life, is astounding to me. While I was finishing a specific chapter of The Wind Up Bird Chronicle, I felt a distinctly powerful set of emotions that stuck with me. When I was working on some parts of the album, a similar combination of emotions resonated with me. I don't think any of this resurfacing of influences in my work ever happens in a direct way. When I take in art and information, I try and internalise it such that it coalesces with my broader creative source, that ocean I was talking about.

More about Sid

• Sriram's mother, Lata, started teaching him Carnatic music when he was three years old.
• His earliest influences include Stevie Wonder, Donny Hathaway, Jeff Buckley and The Beatles.
• The young artiste earned much acclaim earlier this year for lending vocals to the super hit song, Inka Inka Em Kavale for the film Geetha Govindam that starred Telugu hero Vijay Devarakonda.

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