'I am possessive about all my tracks,' says Job Kurian ahead of Bengaluru concert

New Indian Express

11 hours ago

Some journeys don't begin with grand plans – they start with a small, quiet passion. For singer-composer Job Kurian music was one such journey inward, an interest that slowly grew to be a means to understand life, connect with others, and stay honest with oneself. 'I always wanted to compose my own songs and perform them. I wanted to do it independently,' he notes as he completes almost two decades of his musical pursuit.
Speaking with CE ahead of his show yesterday, when asked about what the audience can expect as he performs in the city after almost a year, Kurian kept it classic. 'It will be mostly my original songs. I'll play my self-composed tracks – I'll play Padayatra, Bhaavam, Roots, Kannodu. But there are some that I have sung in the movies like Manikyachirakulla and Aaranne. It depends on the mood and request,' he explains, adding 'Bengaluru has received our original compositions in a good way all these years. Being an indie artiste, my priority is always my original compositions. I have tried to bring that to the audience all my life; cinema has been an added aspect to my career. I totally respect that.' For Kurian, who finished his engineering degree in Karnataka, performing in Bengaluru is like coming home. 'I did my engineering graduation from Hassan. I speak a bit of Kannada. Actually, I sing in Kannada too,' he confides.
While singing was a dream inculcated by his parents from childhood, Kurian recalls, 'Back then, we didn't think of it as a career. With that interest, I started listening to music which is my main feature. I still like to listen to music. Then I slowly became open to a lot of genres.' The breakthrough came with the reality show Superstar on Amrita TV, which he calls a 'catalyst' for him. 'People recognised me. That was the biggest recognition. In parallel, I could confidently release my tracks since I had an audience that knew me. Mostly, if you notice, all my tracks are biographical in nature. So, my dream was to make my own experiences into music and present it to the audience. That's how I keep doing things now,' Kurian emphasises. His recently-released track, Nizhal, is one such story that travels through layers of human relationships. Besides this, his approach to music is fluid and organic. 'Nothing is planned in music. It's a flow. When you don't know anything else other than music, you just have to do that. I've never been half-hearted in my approach.' This, he believes to be his inspiration.