Indie music artists Clinton Cerejo and Bianca Gomes of Shor Police are creating the right noise with their experimental soundtracks
YS Life caught up with musician duo Clinton Cerejo and Bianca Gomes to delve deeper into the story behind Shor Police, their debut album ‘Well Hello’, and how their collaboration with Reel Muzic Werks is likely to give wings to other indie music artists.
What happens when two award-winning musicians find artistic synergies? They create diverse tunes that push beyond the boundaries of convention. A shining example of such creative collaboration is Shor Police–a pop band founded by singer-composer Clinton Cerejo and singer-songwriter Bianca Gomes in 2018. Shor Police blends electro-pop with other musical genres like folk, Indian classical, jazz and funk, among others.
The duo has had interesting individual career trajectories in independent, film, and commercial music, making their union a much talked about affair. Together, they have created unforgettable work in the advertising space–particularly the Vodafone BlackBerry Boys and the Google Reunion jingles.
Later, they came together to compose soundtrack for Bollywood movies like English Vinglish (Manhattan), Te3n (Rootha), and Kahaani 2 (Lamhon Ke Rasgulle), and most recently, actor Taapsee Pannu’s Dobaara.
Clinton Cerejo and Bianca Gomes of Shor Police
After these successful collaborations, Cerejo and Gomes found similar footing on MTV India’s popular music series, Coke Studio. During this time, they experimented with a multitude of musical genres and briefly created tunes under their musical band called Ananthaal.
Today, they are recognised for their potential to create diverse covers and renditions, and original songs that transcend the convention of the pop landscape. Recently, they collaborated with Reel Muzik Werks, the music licensing company behind projects like Guardians of the Galaxy and Spider-man: Homecoming to release an album titled ‘Well Hello’.
As part of this, Shor Police has released nine original soundtracks over three months.
YS Life caught up with Cerejo and Gomes to understand more about their interest in creating background scores for Bollywood films, their journey as Shor Police, and how their inclination towards experimentation is helping provide an impetus to India’s rising independent music scene.
Edited excerpts from the interview:
YourStory Life (YSL): You both have created striking background scores for several prominent Bollywood films. What draws you to it? How has your experience been?
Clinton Cerejo (CC): The experience to create background scores for films has been priceless. It is interesting how you develop the ability to read a film well and shape the audience’s reaction through sound. Working with Bianca has been great in the context of scores, since she doesn’t come with much baggage when it’s about the technicalities involved. This helps her look at the scene from a unique perspective than the rest of the team.
Bianca Gomes (BG): When people talk about our scores for films, they are sometimes unable to identify the difference between Clinton’s sound and mine. There is no bigger compliment than this because our goal is to sound like a unit. At the same time, we always want to create a new sound that helps us distinguish as Shor Police.
(From left to right) Clinton Cerejo and Bianca Gomes
YSL: Since you compose music for thrillers, is there more pressure to keep the audience at the edge of their seats?
BG: Sometimes, the best scores are the ones that create quiet tension without the audience even knowing it. I’m a big fan of electro textures and sounds that create an undercurrent that could explode when you least expect it.
CC: While I love textures, I’m an equal fan of the Hitchcock-ian orchestral approach to scoring a thriller. I am perfectly comfortable with using the orchestra itself to create textures and create mood with harmonic colours, as opposed to using synths to create sonic textures. That’s why, when we work together, the end result is often a hybrid of both approaches.
YSL: Let’s go back to understand the story behind establishing Shor Police. How did you join forces?
CC: When you’ve been a producer in the music industry for over twenty years, there’s very little that surprises you. When Bianca and I collaborated on Ananthaal, I got a sense of her songwriting abilities and they were a complete contrast to mine. That’s what led to the lightbulb moment and I decided to explore the possibility of composing with her. Here we are, five years later, with our first album as a songwriting duo and several significant films to our name already.
YSL: What is Shor Police'’s USP? What sets you apart from the rest?
CC: I believe we can lean heavily on two aspects. One being my years of experience as a solo composer, and the second is Bianca’s fresh take and perspective on things. It’s the best of both worlds since we can collectively draw from a much larger pool of influences, ideas, and creativity.
BG: Clinton and I have similar musical influences, but our songwriting styles can differ sometimes. When we write together, the result is often unpredictable. We always strive to be true to ourselves as artists, but stay relatable because eventually the end goal is to connect with our audiences and speak their language, musically. I’m proud to say that we now have a sound that people identify as Shor Police.
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YSL: Shor Police’s collaboration with Reel Muzik Werks is a landmark moment. How did it happen?
CC: We connected with Reel Muzik Werks (RMW) through a common friend and they really loved our style and sound. RMW is a full-service independent publishing firm that specialises in sync licensing and international rights management.
A year of negotiations later, we signed a collaborative deal, which I think is not only a milestone for us, but also the indie music industry within the subcontinent.
BG: There’s never been a better time to be an indie musician. It’s high time that musicians create music that we can be proud of on a world stage. Our endeavour is to lead that charge in a certain capacity. Our album is definitely a step in that direction and we’re really happy to be associated with a company like RMW that truly understands our vision.
YSL: Do you think collaborating with Indian artists will offer them more opportunities to bridge boundaries?
BG: That is definitely the long-term goal. What we intend to do is build a bridge through initiating some potential collaborations both in terms of songwriting as well as performance.
CC: Yes. I think a collaboration like this offers Indian artists more visibility as it opens up their music to different markets. I think both RMW and Shor Police Publishing have the same ethos and we intend on working with some super talented artists on both sides.
YSL: What does the lineup look like in the coming months?
BG: We’ve been busy creating film music, which will release in the second-half of the year. A few weeks ago, three of our songs were part of a Jio Cinema film called I Love You. It was great to have the likes of Adnan Sami, Shalmali Kholgade, and Bhoomi Trivedi singing our compositions.
CC: Apart from film soundtracks coming out this year, we are also planning to release singles on our newly-created YouTube channel with Reel Muzik Werks. Our album was just the tip of the iceberg. We also have a gig season coming up for Shor Police live.
Edited by Megha Reddy