Prateek Rajagopal on scoring for Adarsh Gourav’s Telugu debut, ‘Birthday’: It’s going to be ‘two-and-a-half hours of just performance and score’ (EXCLUSIVE)

No stranger to Mumbai metalheads via death metal outfit Gutslit, Prateek Rajagopal has a repertoire that far exceeds his years. He has produced music for Star Wars’ “The Mandalorian,” Michael B Jordan’s “Creed III” and was technical score advisor on “Eddington” among others. Most recently, he scored the background music for Bejoy Nambiar’s “Tu Yaa Main” starring Adarsh Gourav and Shanaya Kapoor. And now, he’s all set to debut in the Telugu film industry as a composer with Adarsh Gourav’s “Birthday,” which also marks the actor’s debut in Tollywood and is expected to release this summer.

Of the friendship he forged with Gourav during their time at Mumbai’s Narsee Monjee College, Prateek says, “So, we go way back. We met in the first year of college, and really took a fondness… just a genuine friendship to each other and we played in a band very briefly together and then, kind of went our own ways. We both didn't think we'd end up working in entertainment full time.”

Work took them their own ways. Prateek formed his own bands, started to tour with Gutslit and a bunch of other independent metal bands based out of Mumbai, while Adarsh worked in ads. “Eventually, he got into acting full-time, I got into music, and then we just stayed in touch as we both grew in our respective journeys,” shares the musician.

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Prateek shares how he got his Bollywood debut, “Adarsh also works between Hollywood and Bollywood and just across industries. And it's a similar case for me. So he put me up for this gig. He was on the TYM set one day and told Bejoy, "Hey, I think you should hire this composer. Or just have a conversation with him. We go back a long way and I can recommend him.’ So yeah, that's kind of how it started.”

Up next, there’s a Telugu film called “Birthday,” that has become a ‘debut central’ of sorts. It has a first-time director (Baba Shashank), a debutant producer (Janhavi Dasari) and both Adarsh Gourav and Prateek Rajagopal make their debuts with this film.

Prateek shares more about the film. “It's a sci-fi, psychological crime thriller, directed by Baba Shashank. He's a first-time director. The film stars Adarsh, and is produced by Jahnavi [Dasari] and Krishnakant [Paruchuri]. Jahnavi is D.V.V. Danayya's (he produced “R.R.R.”) daughter. This movie is her debut as a producer. And it’s my Telugu debut as well."

An important thing to note is that “Birthday” will see Adarsh play a mute throughout the movie. Prateek exclusively tells Variety India more about the film and how the music is shaping up, “It’s [going to be] two-and-a-half hours of just performance and score. And it's truly very experimental. It's nothing like what most people would have seen come out of Telugu cinema, what they would expect. And I'm really excited for what people take away from that movie, because it's brilliant. The concept is brilliant. The script is brilliant. The performance is amazing. And it really gave me an opportunity, musically, to just go ham – there’s metal, there’s electronic, there’s orchestral music, it’s truly an experimental score, but it all kind of weaves in and out in this way where… yeah, I'm really excited,” says Prateek. The “Birthday” director gave him the freedom to do whatever he wanted and told Prateek, “I just want you to hit the beats and ‘do the talking’ for the mute protagonist.” And that’s something the scorer says, lets his own personality and storytelling shine.

When asked if “Birthday” will have any songs with lyrics in it, Prateek Rajagopal answers, “We’ve got one rap song I've written and produced with one of Baba's friends and we are just about rapping up another. So there'll be two songs with a total of maybe five minutes in total maybe and the score is almost two and a half hours.”

Waiting to see how this Telugu debut shapes up!