In times of despair, Amogh comes up with hope song ‘Fight It Together’

By Sanya Pandey

New Delhi  In the times of this global pandemic, when the whole world is fighting unitedly against Novel Coronavirus, Indian-American music composer Amogh Agarwal has come up with ‘Fight It Together,’ a hope song, which talks about supporting the daily wagers, paying tribute to the frontline workers and imparting a sense of relief among the people around the globe.

Conceptualised by the duo Amogh Agarwal-Amaan Shah, the song, which was composed 100 per cent online, as Amogh was in New York and Amaan in Dehradun, intends to bring a message of hope and peace to the world, especially to the people in India.

In a telephonic interview, Amogh told UNI how he felt an inherent connection with the song.

”I was in New York when COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic. At that time, Amaan was in Dehradun and we were actually working on a different song. In a couple of weeks, the Corona situation worsened around the whole world and Amaan came up with a short demo for Fight It Together.

”I felt an inherent connection to the song because I was in the country, which was soon to become the epicenter of the virus. The issue was sensitive and we didn’t want to just make any song. Hence we had a thoughtful discussion and decided to develop this. Our intention was to make a financial, as well as emotional impact through our music,” Amogh said.

”Supporting the daily wage workers, paying tribute to the frontline workers and imparting a sense of relief among the people of the country were our main goals. Everybody in the country was trying to provide relief in the best way they could.

”As artists, we felt the best thing we could do was to create art in order to bring awareness and support the people in need. Fight It Together is nothing, but our heart’s reaction to the pandemic,” he added.

The song has been used as the title track for a short film called ‘Love Can’t be Locked Down’. The film is directed by Los Angeles-based Director Naman Gupta and produced by New York-based, award-winning filmmaker Vijay Kumar Mirchandani.

Asked about the flick, Amogh said the movie is about a young Asian woman, locked down in New York City during the pandemic, who figures a way to share her smile and find true love in a faceless society, hidden behind masks.

”The film captures a niche emotion of the times we are facing and we are so glad to be a part of it. Love Can’t Be Locked Down was premiered at the ‘Escapist Cinema of South Asia Film Festival’ on June 6,” the Multi-Instrumentalist said.

When asked about how long he has been in this field, Amogh said, ”It’s more than 10 years now. What started as a simple guitar class in 2009, has turned into an ever growing career for me. I have worked on movies, made independent music and played with eminent artists/groups like Raghu Dixit, Indian Ocean and The Berklee Indian Ensemble.

”Music has given me the opportunity to see the world, meet wonderful humans and most importantly, find my voice,” he added.

Talking about other projects, Amogh said, ”In 2019, I completed my first feature film ‘The N.C.R’ with composer friend Amaan Shah. The movie will be released on a prominent digital platform this year.

”We composed an E.P for the movie with four songs, the background score and trailer music. One track I am really looking forward to is called ‘Bhasad Hai,’ which means ‘There is chaos’. It is a blend of west coast Hip-Hop and Haryanvi dialect.

”Around the same time in 2019, I briefly worked with eminent Bollywood composer Salim Merchant, making music for his company called ‘Chordz’. In 2018, I did a documentary called ‘Fuel your Health.’ It has been featured on Gaia.com, a Health and Wellness website, which gets more than five million hits per day.

”In 2020, I got the chance to work as production sound engineer for ‘No Land’s Man,’ a movie by Mostafa Sarwar Farooki with Nawazuddin Siddiqui in the lead role,” he said.

”Apart from my visual media work, I have also been making Independent music. One of the projects is called Amogh-Amaan. We have released a couple of singles on Jio Saavn, Spotify and ITunes with good audience reception.

”Fight It Together is part of this collaboration. One of the other interesting projects that I am a part of is called ‘The Kashti Project,’ where we shoot live music videos on a boat, in a single take. We also perform live with the project,” Amogh said.

He said starting in 2011, he was writing original music with his then band ‘The Blue Horizon’.

”We played many shows in India around then. In 2015, I joined The Berklee College Of Music, where I played guitars for the world-renowned Berklee Indian Ensemble.”

On his future plans, Amogh said, ”While working as a music producer and audio engineer in the US, I am also working on my first solo E.P. The songs differ from my previous works in documentaries and feature films.

”The songs have a deep connection to my experiences and these subtle emotions are what I am trying to bring out. Primarily working in the Acoustic singer-songwriter space, I am trying to bring out my unique artist identity through this E.P. Some inspirations for the (album) include Damien Rice, Maggie Rogers, Taba Chake, and Prateek Kuhad,” he added.

”Yash and Amogh E.P is another collaborative project that I am working on with my childhood friend, with whom I started playing guitar for the first time. Yash is primarily responsible for writing the E.P.’s songs and I am producing them. This project aims to capture the essence of India’s independent music scene. We plan to tour, once the E.P is released,” he said.

Fight It Together features 26 people from different parts of the world, including Spain, Singapore, Qatar and the US, apart from Indian cities like Lucknow, Haldwani, Kathmandu, Mumbai and Kotdwar.

Some of the organisations being supported, include Give India and Akshay Patra.

 

(Agencies)