Tony Joseph Pallivathukal speaks casually, like to a friend at home. Perhaps he is still innocent of media glares and the many interviews coming to new celebrities. Mohanlal, the first film he has composed music for, is only going to release. But the songs have been going around, in Karthik’s voice, in actor Nithya Menon’s voice and in little Prarthana Indrajith’s voice. Sitting at his studio in Kochi, Tony says simply, it happened because the director Sajid Yahiya is a friend, had known him for a long time. But then it is more than knowing him for a long time, it is also playing music together, jamming at the end of tiring long days of work.
“He would come to the studio, really tired from work on a business he ran. Together, we would jam and some of these, I would simply record. Sreenath of Kappa TV heard the recordings somehow and asked us for a session on Music Mojo. We put together a few songs, a band, called it Vethaalam. Common man songs, old Mehboob songs Sajid would sing,” Tony says.
For Tony, music is a lot of instruments. It began with Carnatic music someone took him to learn as a seven year old. A year later, he didn’t want to go. He wanted instead to learn to play the guitar.
After a while, that too stopped. And then he learnt to play the keyboard from high school. After his tenth grade came drums too. “Yes, seriously, Jack of all trades, master, sadly, of none,” he says. After school, he went on to become a civil engineer, worked with eco-friendly builders on sustainable architecture. But Tony knew his life was kept apart for music, so he left the job and started a music company. Honest Tony says, “That didn’t run well.” So he became an associate music director with Manikanth Kadri, moving to Bengaluru from Chennai. Finally he has moved to Kochi to start his studio where nearly every composer in Malayalam, except Shaan Rahman and Ouseppachan sir, has come, Tony says.
Tony’s audio company has brought out the songs of Indrajith’s Chekavar so he knew the actor before. Indrajith sang what Tony calls a situational song. “There is that special novel feeling when the character sings in his voice,” Tony says. Indrajith plays the male lead in the Manju Warrier film. His daughter Prarthana sings the title song Laletta... Tony called Nithya too, because he knew she sang well – “She has sung a lovely lullaby in 24. She is a good singer but not much explored.” Suchith Suresan sings the lullaby with her. Then of course there is a song by Karthik, Thoovennila... – which had to have an 80s touch and was therefore recorded with live music. Tony composed four songs; the rest were composed by Sajid, Nihal Sadiq and Prakash Alex.
