Voice & Virtue

Suzanne D’Mello gets talking to Screen about her musical career and attributes her success to divine intervention

Singing was just a hobby for Suzanne D’Mello. But it has now become her passion. The singer, who has lent her voice for several English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, Gujarati and Bengali films, and other background vocals is on a high. Right now, she is basking in the glory for singing the Spanish version of Kites in the Sky, in the soon-to-be-released Hrithik Roshan film Kites.

She also coached Hrithik, who has made his debut as a singer, with this song. Elaborating on the experience, she says, “I got a call from Hrithik’s office to be his vocal coach. When I met him, I realised he had a great sense of music
, melody and pitch, so it was easier to coach him. I trained him for three to four weeks during which we rehearsed several English songs and then got into the studio to record his vocals.” Suzanne is all praises for Hrithik’s performance. She smiles and exclaims, “As a teacher, I think my student has performed really well!”

On her part, the singer had to also prepare a lot especially since she doesn’t know Spanish. While actress Barbara Mori was supposed to sing initially, eventually Suzanne was offered the part. “I insisted that a language supervisor and translator was around so that I could understand the words and emote them correctly,” she says.

Suzanne’s tryst with music started in childhood. After being exposed to Western music, she played leads in musical plays in school and followed it up with being a lead vocalist fronting several local bands. Later she learnt the nuances of jazz while singing with jazz trios. Soon, she got many offers to sing ad jingles and worked with composers like Louis Banks, Leslie Lewis and Pritam. At the same time, she started out as a backing vocalist in Bollywood working with Jatin-Lalit, Nadeem-Shravan, Pritam, A R Rahman, Himesh Reshammiya, Salim Suleiman, Anu Malik and Bappi Lahiri. “These composers urged me to sing some solo lines as they really liked my voice, texture and singing style.”

Suzanne also came to be known as vocal designer after working extensively with composers like A R Rahman, Pritam, Sajid Wajid, Ranjit Barot, Louis Banks, Ranjit Barot, to name a few. “Vocal designing includes designing backing vocals, writing hook-lines, rearranging the melody and basically influencing how the song would shape up,” she explains.

Suzanne then became a playback singer with films like Chocolate and Ek Khiladi Ek Haseena. After that, there was no looking back. She went on to sing blockbusters like Maahiya (Awarapan), Jee karda (Singh is Kinng) and Aye bacchu (Ghajini).
But what put her on the global map was her rendition of Latika’s theme and Dreams on fire in Slumdog Millionaire. She followed it up with singing the additional vocals for Chiggy wiggy with Kylie Minogue in Blue. She also sang the song in Telugu for the dubbed version of the film. She has been touring with music maestro A R Rahman since April 2009.

Her English vocals for Surili ankhiyonwali with Rahat Fateh Ali Khan in Veer won acclaim too. “Composer Wajid (of Sajid-Wajid fame called me) and explained the scene to me. I wrote the lyrics, composed part of the melody and arranged the background vocals,” she says.

The singer, not formally trained, attributes her success to divine intervention. She says, “I’m a very spiritual person. I always pray before stepping into the studio. I know that Jesus is my driving force.”