Composers Vivek-Mervin interview: On independent music and making Instagram-friendly tunes

Vivek-Mervin, popular Tamil cinema composers, are betting big on ‘VM Originals’, an independent music project through which they are working with singers like Sivaangi, Nithyashree, Harshavarshan, Adhithya RK and MS Krsna

Growing up in Chennai, Vivek Siva learnt Carnatic music. In another part of the city, Mervin Solomon trained in gospel music.

Little did they know then that many years later, this training would come in handy for their work, and, in fact, become their USP. Vivek-Mervin, as the duo is known today, are among Tamil cinema’s sought-after composers, because they bring with them two different forms of music that help them dish out interesting, catchy tunes.

“We keep learning from each other, and that helps us get some nice tunes,” says Mervin, whose collaboration with Vivek has yielded many hit numbers, in films like Gulaebhagavali, Pattas and Sulthan.

Vivek-Mervin’s work method is slightly different from traditional music composers who team up with a film director to listen to a situation and then come up with a tune. The duo meet up daily at their Virugambakkam studio and work on a musical idea, based on what they went through that particular day. “We might walk humming a melody, or might have heard something on the radio. We pretty much do not have an agenda,” says Vivek, “We sit on the piano and put something on – it could be a potential song for a film or a bad tune that we would never play to audiences. But the process remains the same. We do not have the age to say that we derive inspiration from life experiences. So, the emotion of that day drives the tune we get that day.”

And that tune might find its way into a film someday. Or become an independent song. “When we compose something without restrictions, it has taken wings and gone to greater heights,” adds Mervin.

Their ‘Orsadhaa’, a popular independent number released in 2018, is the result of one such idea, as is the ‘Gulebhagavali’ title track.

Sometimes, old song ideas are unearthed when film situations turn up. In Dhanush-starrer Pattas (2020), the duo used a rough music idea they had worked on back in 2017. “But we don’t completely re-use it. We use it as a starting point and then detail it according to the needs of the film and the characters in it.”