‘The stage is where I most feel at home’: Sid Sriram

His career in playback singing got a dream launch in 2012, when he was barely 22, with A.R. Rahman’s gospel-and-blues song Adiye for the movie Kadal. Since then, the singer, who divides his time between India and the US, has cemented himself as one of Indian film music’s leading voices. While Tamil is his mother tongue, Sriram over the years has lent his vocals to songs in Telugu, Hindi, Kannada and Malayalam.

Now, he’s embarking on a multi-city tour that kicks off on 22 November in Bengaluru before moving to Chennai, Hyderabad and Mumbai. Though he has performed at Chennai’s Margazhi season, and music festivals like NH7 Weekender (in Pune) and Echoes of Earth (in Bengaluru), this will be his first arena-scale concert series featuring his film hits. “It felt like the right time to celebrate the whole breadth of my discography and take it across the country," he says.

Sriram’s repertoire includes romantic numbers like Thalli Pogathey and Minnalvala along with inspiring anthems like Nee Singam Dhan. Is there’s a process he follows to get the mood of the song? Does he ‘method-sing’, in a way? “I don’t go in (to the recording room) with any expectations or biases. I just empty myself and become an instrument to the music director, the lyricist and the director of the film... I go in with the faith and trust that they know what they want to do with my voice."

Keeping an open mind to feedback helps. “For Srivalli (from Pushpa 1), for example, DSP (music director Devi Sri prasad) wanted to really tap into a different texture of my voice that hadn’t been used as much before. He wanted real joy." More importantly, Sriram says that constant practice has helped him evolve. “I practise singing a lot, and this preparation is not just for film music, but music in general. I also listen to a lot of music and experiment with sounds so that I can shapeshift at will."

With roots in Carnatic music, being a shapeshifter or a “hybridist" (a term he uses) comes easily to Sriram. It’s a useful ability that has him segueing easily between regional chartbusters and RnB-tinged singles and juggling multiple roles as composer, music arranger and producer. Born into a family of music—his mother Latha Sriram runs a Carnatic music institute in Fremont, California—performing on stage came naturally to Sriram. In fact, one of the earliest memories he has is of “insisting to perform on stage" as a three-year-old. “I obviously don't have a vivid memory but I've seen videos of it and I can see what it felt like to get on stage… of being in this hyper present state."

All these years later, it is being in this state of mind – “where I'm not thinking about anything" – that keeps the excitement of performing alive in Sriram. “When I get on stage, I feel like the most primal, most raw energy just jumps out of me. After a thousand concerts, the butterflies, the nervousness is still the same because I feel like I’m most myself on stage," he says.

Last April, Sriram performed at the Coachella festival in California. The standout moment was when he performed Sivanar, a devotional song based on a verse from the Thiruppugazh (a 14th century Tamil anthology). “My set was before Chappell Roan’s, so nearly 90% of the audience was non-Indian, but when I started singing the piece, a quiet just settled over the whole audience. I learned the song when I was seven or eight, and it feels like home to me. So, performing it there felt like a very artistic, honest kind of expression at that point in time."