By Shivani Tandon –
After starting his career by singing for Maestro A.R Rahman back in 2010 at the IPL Awards, Indian Bollywood singer Thomson Andrews has made a mark for himself in the Music Industry as a well acclaimed Artist and performer across the globe and has worked with all music composers of India, namely Shankar Ehsaan Loy, Pritam, Salim Sulaiman, Sajid Wajid, Amit Trivedi, Vishal Shekhar, Vishal Bhardwaj and more.
Off recent, Thomson has sung on big Bollywood films like ’83’ and upcoming film ‘Bramhastra’, Disney’s animated film ‘Encanto’, Netflix’s children’s animated series ‘Centaur World’, Apple TV’s popular series ‘Raphanis’ also known as Fraggle Rock and has been associated with Dubai Artists to create music in Arabic with local dubai based artists to facilitate his vision of global collaborations across cultures. IBN spoke to him about his experience of working on the Amitabh Bachan-Ranbir Kapoor-Alia Bhatt starrer Bramhastra.
How did you bag this project and what was the brief given to you for Brahmastra?
“Pritam sir or Pritamda as we call him, has always been a great support and encouragement to me as an artist and he trusts my contribution to his projects as I’ve worked on several of his super hit films and TV projects including doing all the vocal arrangements for his MTV Unplugged TV show, performing with him live on GIMA AWARDS as well. I co-incidentally met and briefly chatted with Ayan Mukherjee pre-pandemic at the Durga Pujo celebrations in Mumbai which I had performed with Sunidhi Chauhan this event was organized by Rani Mukherjee and her family, and Ranbir Kapoor also was present at that time. Little did I know that 1 year later I would be called by Music Composer Pritam Chakraborty to sing for Ayan Mukherjee’s film Bramhastra!!. Recently we have worked together on LUDO for Netflix, 83, now the upcoming Bramhashtra of all the other films we have worked together in the past – Jagga Jasoos, Race, Ae Dil Hain Muskhil, Raess, Dilwale, Jab Harry Met Sejal, Agent Vinod Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani and more. My constant work association with Pritamda over the years and his belief in my talent is the reason I get called to dubb for PritamDa’s projects. I truly feel blessed for each and every opportunity and film we work on.”
Thomson shares how he prepared to sing for such an iconic much awaited movie which is going to be unlike anything that has been made in India.
“As a singer being involved in such a massive film project that is directed by Ayan Mukherjee starring my fav. actor, the legend Amitabh Bachan sir, among Ranbir and Alia, has been extremely overwhelming and humbling at the same time. Once again all this has been possible only due to the support and belief of Music Composer Pritamda, who got me to sing on this film’s BGM score among other seasoned singers as well. The sessions were long, the lyrics were tricky and singing had to be intense and dynamically varied, with several parts of the Sanskrit Shloka’s layered and dubbed in various textures as required. Even though the dubbing sessions were long, it’s been absolute fun to sing with the other seasoned and acclaimed singers, making the BGM sound so rich and enhancing the film’s experience when viewers will finally get to watch the film. Im super excited and can’t wait for the film to release!”.