Everything with my band involves drama:Raghu Dixit on Cannes performance

Musician Raghu Dixit is back from a short vacation, after marking a huge career milestone by performing at the 75th Cannes Film Festival. And talking about attending the prestigious event, he says, “It’s one of the biggest events around the world, a place where people aspire to be seen.” So, obviously, it was a big deal for him.

Reaching the prestigious event was quite an adventure, too, as he shares, “Anything and everything that happens to my band involves a lot of drama. So naturally, we got our visas just a day before we were supposed to fly out. While we caught that flight, it got delayed and we missed our connecting flight. We had to catch another flight which was later in the day and we reached right at the time we had to go on stage.”

How was the performance? “It was the first time we had to perform without showering! We cleaned up as quickly as we could. We had a great technical team from Italy who handled the situation well for us. Some really great names were in the crowd, from filmmaker Shekhar Kapur to Prasoon Joshi (chairperson of Central Board of Film Certification and lyricist) and international filmmakers like Marc Baschet,” he adds.

While Dixit didn’t have much time to socialise due to time restrictions, the connections he made there were wonderful. “I received tons of messages after the performance from people in the industry asking to collaborate. I even had an animation group ask me whether they could make a music video for me! I really wish some of these projects work out,” he shares, adding, “I wish we had stayed longer and watched films. But, when a spotlight is given for a country and its cinema, I would assume that we have showcased the best of what we have.”

Back to work, Dixit has about three albums ready to release. “I realised that I hadn’t put my own album out since 2013. It’s been a long time. The first one will come out in September, and the rest will follow eventually. The first album will have 28 songs, seven songs in four languages each — Kannada, Hindi, Tamil and Telugu. It also features a lot of international performers,” he reveals.

Ask him about his inspiration for the new music and he replies, “This album is about staying alive even when you don’t want to. It’s about hope. It’s the most happy and danceable album I’ve ever put out. This inspiration comes from everything that I’ve gone through in the last four to five years. There were days where I didn’t want to live at all.”

On the personal front, Dixit says that his health has taken a nosedive in the last few years. “I’m admitting myself into a naturopathy centre for about a month, not to just detox but also to get back to fitness. My obesity has definitely affected my voice as well because of sleep apnea. I’ve really let go of myself, so my priority right now is myself. I’m going to first work on that before I go back into the studio and release the album this year,” he concludes.