Last Updated:March 12, 2025, 20:30 IST

Clinton Cerejo, Bianca Gomes, and Siddhant Kaushal talk about their journey, musical philosophy, and creative synergy, from Dhoom Dhaam to the rise of Indian indie music.

Shor Police is one of the few musical collaborations in India that completely embodies fusion and originality. Consisting of singer-songwriter Bianca Gomes and composer-singer Clinton Cerejo, the pair has continuously pushed the limits of sound. Siddhant Kaushal, a lyricist whose expressive prose has influenced the plots of several Bollywood films, joins them. The three discuss the changing Indian indie music landscape, their own creative experiences, and their most recent album, Dhoom Dhaam, in this open discussion, exclusively with News18.

Excerpts from the interview:

How’s it post Dhoom Dhaam? How are the reviews? How happy and excited are you guys?

Bianca: Very excited. From day one, people have said that it is such a great comedy. The script is amazing. The acting is amazing. Lovely to see Yami in a completely different role as well. So, lots and lots of good feedback.

Clinton: Yeah, absolutely! The best part is that we’ve got so many friends messaging us about the songs—you know everybody likes different songs; it’s really hard to pick a favourite because i think we’ve managed to create such a wonderful smorgasbord of songs in a way with the help of this wonderful lyricist behind us, Mr. Kaushal, absolutely so, uh, let’s begin with Dhoom Dhaam itself.

Can you share your experience composing the scores for this film? How do you approach scoring to enhance the entire film’s narrative?

Bianca: Right, so of course we had to keep each character in mind as well and there were some strong characters—Yami, Prateek, and Yami’s friends—also in the film. So, it was important to also, mainly, I think, keep that balance between it being it’s like a thriller and at the same time it’s a comedy so it’s a crime sort of thing so we have to strike that balance between not making it too comedic and like slapstick because that’s not the way the film was designed and at the same time keeping the tension where it needed to be.

Clinton: Yeah, absolutely. I also think that in scoring a film of this nature it’s not very intuitive to, you know, what your first reaction would be because you tend to score for the chase; you tend to score for the thrilling moments in the film, but then you realise that you need to make it lighter, you know; otherwise, you run the risk of the film getting a bit too dark or a bit too, you know or you run the risk of peppering, I mean, like tempering the comedy, which you shouldn’t do, and I think it’s very important to strike that balance.

(For Clinton) Your music especially has blended western elements with a lot of traditional or fusion sounds so seamlessly. How do you maintain that balance without losing the essence of either genre, whether it’s traditional or whether it’s a western element? How do you like to strike a balance between them in all of your compositions?

Thank you, I appreciate that and I’m glad you may you mentioned that because i think that’s always been right from Coke Studio days you know it’s something that I’ve always, I mean it’s been my endeavor to always ensure that when I’m blending two genres in one particular song both the genres have an equal reason to coexist in the song; it should almost be like if you heard say for example a song which Bianca sang for Mauje Naina, if you heard that song without either the English part or without the Hindi part it wouldn’t it wouldn’t be the same, it would cease to exist so both genres have an equal reason to coexist in one piece of art and I think that’s always been something that I’ve found that to be the meaning of true fusion. Otherwise, most of the time it’s just confusion.

I would love to talk a bit about your Tamil compositions. A lot of yours have been fan favourites, including Endrendrum Punnagai or O Shanti Shanti. What do you want to call your personal favourite or that which has a special memory?

Clinton: I wouldn’t call them compositions as much as the fact that I did a lot of arrangements in the South Indian industry and as well sang some of those songs and did vocal arrangements whatever was required of me back then when I was fortunate enough to work with so many incredibly iconic composers, whether it be A.R. or Yuvan or Karthik, Vidyasagar, or Harris Jayraj as well. There’s so many South Indian composers that I’ve had the good fortune to work with. And each of them has their own style. So for me, it was always about jumping from one ship to the other. I also did too many different things back then. So I would wear many hats, but when I was wearing one hat, I would try to keep the other hat in the cupboard. When I was just going to sing a song, I would try not to bring my arrangement, production or composition head to that session and not think of what this song requires in terms of an English or production but I would just sing it and just do the as a singer or just try to compartmentalise my skill set to some extent so that you don’t end up repeating yourself.

In terms of my favourite one, Endrendrum would probably be one of them. And the funny thing is that that song that you hear, when I sang that song, I just sang a click track and it was literally like one sur, one pad. There was no track and I sang the song completely with just a quick track and finally we heard the song in its current avatar; it was on the release day of the film.

(To Bianca) Can you walk us a bit through the formation of Shor Police? How has the collaboration with Clinton pushed both of you or do you know how it creatively inspired both of you throughout the journey?

Clinton and I have been working together for many years, even before Coke Studio, which was actually the first project we collaborated on. Prior to that, we worked on numerous ads—not on a compositional level, but with me as a vocalist. Over the years, we’ve known each other personally as well.

I believe the turning point was the song I sang for Coke Studio, which really brought everything together. That was followed by the formation of our band Anantaal with Vijay Prakash. It was during this time that I started composing a little, and we realised we had a synergy worth exploring.

One day, while going through content online, we thought, Why not do something together? Clinton had been doing fusion for so long, and I had spent most of my life as a singer. We wanted to come together and create something fun—because that’s exactly what Shor Police is all about. It’s about stepping out of our comfort zones, and in that sense, it perfectly aligns with our relationship.

From there, we were fortunate to work on several films—around seven or eight—including Bob, which was our first. The response to the score and songs of that film made us realise that our combination was really working. And of course, with Dhoom Ram, the music has turned out exceptionally well.

(For Siddhant) I’m sure you have collaborated with legendary voices throughout your musical journey.). Is there a particular artist whose rendition of your lyrics has really surprised you?

I think everyone, every collaboration has been truly something that I’ve kind of dreamt of starting with them, you know, because my journey as a lyricist started here in this studio so Anantaal was the first album that I was offered by them to, you know, come on and be a part of it where there were other legendary writers on it and I got a chance and then I think I never looked back.

I would love to touch a bit on the indie music scene in India. The music industry is just keeping you updated and evolving rapidly. How do you see the future of Indian music in India in the coming years? What is it like for you?

(Clinton) I can answer that, but what I would say is that, while it’s amazing how indie music has influenced Bollywood over the last five years, we’ve also seen independent artists turning down Bollywood songs. Many of them prefer not to compromise the story they are telling independently. In fact, if you were to offer a Bollywood song to an independent artist today, there’s no guarantee they would accept it. That’s because they are doing perfectly well without Bollywood—they have their own journey, their own story, and a unique musical expression that a Bollywood song might interfere with.

While this shift is happening, I believe there is now a greater responsibility on artist managers, especially those running the indie circuit. Often, they invest a lot of money in the wrong artists—some of whom, when you finally meet them in person, don’t necessarily have the talent to back up their success. When it comes down to a musician-to-musician interaction, where all the Spotify numbers and external factors fade away, the real test is in their music. That’s the moment to put your money where your mouth is, and unfortunately, many of these artists fall short.

So, I strongly feel that those who are in positions of power, empowering artists, need to take on more responsibility in ensuring they are supporting true talent.