A lone musician from Calcutta, India, is working extremely hard to share his creations with people while operating on a tight budget. His debut single is โCome Again To Youโ. He hopes everyone enjoys it and shares it. Check out the exclusive interview below:

1. Can you tell us a bit about where you come from and how it all got started?
SHAHEV SEN: I hail from Calcutta, India. Mostly been a music lover throughout my childhood, although my journey as a musician began quite late, i.e. post school. I used to have a small Casio tonebank which I fiddled around with in my past time. Slowly I began composing tunes although being illiterate in music grammar. One day my close friend, an old schoolpal bought a new Yamaha Keyboard & invited me over to his place to have fun. This was sometime around 2000-2001. He heard my compositions & was impressed. It was he who advised me to take on acoustic guitar lessons so that I can learn basic chords & grammar & at least become able to write down the stuff I create! Thus began my journey as an artist. I founded a band with three other guys around 2008. We were generally into covering classic rock although we did belt out modern alternative & contemporary stuff depending on the audience. I started out as a rhythm guitarist but changed over to bass duties with time. We disbanded in 2015 just before I got married.
2. Do you feel that your music is giving you back just as much fulfillment as the amount of work you are putting into it or are you expecting something more, or different in the future?
SHAHEV SEN: Fulfillment is in the mind. An artist may not find fulfillment in what he craves. He may find it elsewhere. Life is not give & take. Life is a calling & one acts exactly as one must according to oneโs nature, abilities, responsibilities & desires that drive him. I do not believe in a returns based approach especially in a world of creativity. It compromises & distorts oneโs style & may render him a sell-out. Of course creativity might not earn you minimum wage or put enough food on the table for your family. I am a very ordinary artist with a desire every artist has, i.e. having their creations gain recognition & exposure. Beyond that, it doesnโt really matter what the future brings.
3. Who were your first and strongest musical influences and why the name โSHAHEV SENโ?
SHAHEV SEN: Growing up in the 80s & 90s I was fully influenced by the MTV era pop music. My dad was a fan of western music & we had LPs at home of Carpenters, Boney M, Abba, Neil Diamond, etc. During the end of my school days I had become ardent fans of Bryan Adams, Bon Jovi, Aerosmith, Eagles, U2, etc. However, it was only post school that I was exposed to 50s & 60s Rock n Roll greats. Till that time I was only a general music lover, fiddling with my small Casio tonebank in my bedroom for fun & had no calling to become a musician. One fine day I heard Beatles for the first time & it had a tremendous effect on me that I cannot explain. The gates of hell swung open, as it were, and a flood of changes came over me. This occurred around the same time I was taking acoustic guitar lessons. Within a few months I was composing very 60s sounding beat music. The influence remained for a long time & bled well into my band days when everyone would grow irritated of my retro sounding originals. However, with time I did learn the importance catching up with modern times. โShahevโ is a general Bengali name. I always had this nickname at home. When the time came, I felt it would be apt for a stage name. โSenโ is my shortened surname.
4. What do you feel are the key elements in your music that should resonate with listeners, and how would you personally describe your sound?
SHAHEV SEN: Since my influences range from the best of both Rock & Pop worlds, my compositions generally tend to have a synthesis of the two. Sometimes one song might sound more rock-ish, another more pop-ish. Lyrics is also very important. It is like a piece of himself that an artist gives to the audience. I would say the feel of the whole song matters rather than how the guitar is going or how the lyrics is going, and that is what I feel will resonate more with the audience. I would personally describe my current sound as Pop Rock although I am not totally settled upon it. I believe every artist evolves with time. One of the many reasons I left my band was freedom to create any sound I want & I plan to carry that sentiment well into my solo career.

5. Did you have any formal training or are you self-taught?
SHAHEV SEN: As stated above, during my post school years I was advised by my old school pal to learn basic chords & grammar on an acoustic guitar coz he believed that will be faster than learning on a keyboard. Hence I got me a guitar tutor & trained for around 6 months. That was all the training I ever got.
6. Whatโs your view on the role and function of music as political, cultural, spiritual, and/or social vehicles โ and do you try and affront any of these themes in your work, or are you purely interested in music as an expression of technical artistry, personal narrative, and entertainment?
SHAHEV SEN: Music is the Universal language, period. It has the power to affect every living being down to every single cell in their bodies. Of course it can be molded & packaged as political, cultural, spiritual, social or any other human institutional vehicle. Ideas transmitted through spoken words have far less appeal than through a little poetry sung with a melodious tune. Sometimes it becomes mandatory to do so during times of great social upheaval as history has shown us. There have been artists who believed they can change the world through music, & they have done so, as history has also witnessed many a time. It all depends upon oneโs situation, talent & calling. My calling till now has been quite personal, i.e. gaining recognition & exposure for my compositions, although I do believe in both the public & personal approaches in music.
7. Could you describe your creative processes? How do usually start, and go about shaping ideas into a completed song? Do you usually start with a tune, a beat, or a narrative in your head? And do you collaborate with others in this process?
SHAHEV SEN: It can both start with a tune in my head or with a certain drums or guitar riff. The lyrics usually come later. There have been numerous occasions I found interesting tunes in my dreams which later got turned into songs. Sometimes I have to work a lot on a song, sometimes it all happens quite easily. During my band days I used to collaborate extensively with my band members. The problem in collaborating with many people is that one usually faces a clash of diverse opinions, influences, likes & dislikes, which can work both good or bad for the music piece. In my situation it generally went bad. Now that I have gone solo the problem is reduced to zero. Currently I only collaborate with my friend whoโs a very talented guitarist & whoโs also my ex-band mate. He handles the guitar solo & filler parts.
8. What has been the most difficult thing youโve had to endure in your life or music career so far?
SHAHEV SEN: There have been a number of difficult things I have had to go through in life. An untimely demise of my mother when I was very young, a continuously distressed home environment, trouble in academics, etc. to name a few. But the single most problem I have faced throughout my life is negativity, both internal & external. Internal because life is seldom fair to the average person on earth & I had to really struggle to accept it & not let it destroy my creativity. External, when most of the people I cared about did not give requisite appreciation of my journey. Rather I was often put down, sometimes owing to my age or sometimes with my lack of ambition in โacceptableโ careers in stereotypical middle class India. When one repeatedly hears from others what they think one can never do, even if he has the ability to do it, it becomes extraordinarily hard not to lose faith in oneself.
9. Creative work in a studio or home environment, or interaction with a live audience? Which of these two options excites you most, and why?
SHAHEV SEN: Looking back at my years there have been umpteen times I have been up all night with band mates recording songs in someoneโs home. There have also been umpteen times I have been on stage rocking out songs to dancing club crowds. The live scenario does have its charms & perks. However, today I am more excited (& engaged) in creating good original compositions. I believe I have something of my own to give to this world & I am on the job doing it.
10. Do you think is it important for fans of your music to understand the real story and message driving each of your songs, or do you think everyone should be free to interpret your songs in their own personal way?
SHAHEV SEN: Everyone should be free to interpret songs whichever way they want. Itโs not even a question really. A song is a poem with added music. A poem is usually open ended. It begins with the artistโs take on a certain topic. But once someone else is consuming that music, that poetry, he is making it part of their own psyche. Of course the words, the music has to resonate with his state of mind, of life, of situation, otherwise how can he accept it! An artist however, has no other way of presenting his ideas or creations to his audience except through his own lenses, his own worldview. But that doesnโt mean the audience should limit it to that. In fact, it would actually be a great disservice to the essence of music if that happened.
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