Today we’d like to introduce you to Lahar.
Hi Lahar, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I was born in Atlanta to an Indian family from the state of Odisha. When I was four, my parents decided we would move to Bangalore so my dad could start a tech company, so my sister and I actually grew up in India! I moved back to the U.S. for college in 2014 and have lived here ever since.
I was surrounded by Bollywood music growing up. We’d pretty much have the Indian version of MTV on in the house throughout the day, singing along to whatever the latest hit movie soundtrack was at the time. But a friend of mine in the fifth grade introduced me to Green Day, and my angsty pre-teen self fell in love with rock music. I remember my friends and I would gather in the back of the class and sing and air guitar to American Idiot, but it was Tre Cool’s drumming that really got my blood pumping and I decided I wanted to be a drummer. My mom, who has always been super supportive of my musical endeavors, signed me up for lessons at a local music school and even agreed to buy me a drum set! I spent most of my days after school beating the ever-living crap out of it, but I got pretty good in the process.
I started my first band in the seventh grade with my best friend Shashank, a metalhead (and I was not.) We played mostly Metallica and Avenged Sevenfold covers and shockingly, the occasional Taylor Swift. Our band had the goriest names two 13-year-olds could come up with, including “Time, Death, and Agony,” “Blood Stained Walls,” and “Dehumanized” (which we found out later, to our disappointment, was already taken.) We played, at most, 2 shows a year — a farewell program for the graduating seniors and a battle of the bands at another school in Bangalore. (Pro-tip: If you ever find yourself at the Bishop Cottons Battle of the Bands, cover Sweet Child O’ Mine and you WILL walk out with a trophy in your hands.)
I started another band in the 11th grade after moving to a new school where I was lucky enough to meet a couple of guys and a gal who I vibed with musically. We were called “The Yellow Car Theory” and that was the first time I actually got into writing original music. Even though I was the drummer, I would come up with melodies and lyrics to a lot of our songs. In fact, the first song I ever co-wrote with these guys ended up being pretty popular at our school! The shows I played with this band are where I developed a love for performing and pretty much cemented my dream of doing music professionally.
Eventually, it was time for me to move back to the U.S. for college, and I ended up selling my beloved drum set and bought myself an acoustic guitar using that money. It was the summer before freshman year, and I barely knew anyone in Atlanta, let alone other musicians. So I spent most of my time writing songs with just the four chords I knew and recorded demos on Garageband with some gear my sister bought me for my birthday. I started posting some of these rough recordings to Facebook and a lot of my friends seemed to like it!
I met producer Kenny Muto via Reddit in 2016 and he offered to produce an EP for me with the songs I had written. We recorded four songs over a two-week span, during which I learned a lot about recording and production. The whole thing got me super hyped about the possibilities of being able to produce music yourself and I realized I could be doing a lot more than just recording demos on Garageband. So I bought Logic Pro on New Year’s Day 2017 and started making beats in a bunch of different styles. Even though the EP was done, I continued working with Kenny, getting a bunch of songwriting experience under my belt. He taught me a lot about recording and mixing, and we even released music together briefly as part of a project called Ones + Hiro, which you can still find online!
During this time, I also met singer-songwriter and now my good friend, Tim McCoy, who helped me write and produce my song called “Stay,” which I released as my first post-EP single in 2019. Even though I had previously released music, “Stay” holds a special place in my heart because it was the culmination of more than two years of hard work developing myself as a producer and songwriter. It was the first time a song sounded authentic and honest to my ears. The fact that I mixed it myself also gave me a sense of pride, though listening back to it now I realize how much I’ve improved!
The next time I released a single was the self-produced “Terrified” in 2020, just a few months deep into the coronavirus pandemic. I linked with Canadian producer FITZGERVLD online later that year, and we collaborated on a couple of tracks, including “Undo,” which was released in the summer of 2021. My latest single, “Needed You,” my most vulnerable and honest track yet, was written, produced, and mixed by myself. I have a lot more releases lined up for 2022 that I am super excited to share with the world.
I am currently in the exciting process of creating a live show that I think will give my songs a new life on stage and attract more listeners.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
The challenges that I’ve had to deal with have mostly been internal struggles, the biggest being having to deal with my own criticism. I tend to be hard on myself when it comes to the quality of my songwriting and production, and that creates a roadblock in the creative process if I let it get the best of me.
Another personal pitfall is that I compare myself to an “ideal” that I’ve created in my head. It can really bog me down if I dwell on the things that I haven’t achieved yet, rather than looking back and seeing how far I’ve come.
Luckily, I have an incredibly supportive partner and family who regularly remind me that I’ve achieved a great deal of success in my own way and that always gets me excited again about what could be coming in the future.
As for things that I can’t control, marketing my music and actually getting people to listen and share my work has been a pretty big hurdle. With access to so much media and music these days, it’s hard to stand out even if you have high-quality stuff. It feels like you also have to be a social media influencer if you want any luck being successful in the music industry. Hats off to the people who manage to do all that, but it’s been difficult with my schedule. I’m hoping that playing shows will help get my music on to more ears!
And props to VoyageATL for being such a great platform where independent artists like me can get media exposure!
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I’m a singer, songwriter, and music producer. I tell stories of love and heartbreak using honest, emotional lyrics and uplifting instrumentation. I usually tell people that I make pop music, but I think my songs appeal to anyone that enjoys good songwriting and production.
Aside from being an artist, I also run Curry Kid Studios in Dunwoody, Georgia, where I offer engineering and mixing services to all sorts of clients, from artists to filmmakers.
We all have a different way of looking at and defining success. How do you define success?
Success to me is being able to do what you love for a living. I truly believe in the quote, “Do what you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life.” I can’t imagine anything being more rewarding than being able to pay your bills with an income generated by your creations and performances.
But I’m not going to pretend my ego doesn’t have its own measure of success, so I’d say having a hit song and being on the line-up for a major music festival would make me feel pretty damn successful.
Pricing:
- Mixing – $150 per song
- Engineering – $40 per hour
Contact Info:
- Email: laharofficial@gmail.com
- Website: www.laharofficial.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/laharofficial
- Twitter: www.twitter.com/laharofficial
Image Credits
Michelle Tabrizi Tanner Rowan Jenna Allie
