Don’t get taken in by the tattooed arms, chunky neckpiece and black spiral earring. Suraj Jagan is not your average angsty rocker from Zehreeley in Rock On!!. He’s more of the happy Give Me Some Sunshine guy from Three Idiots. On a one-day trip to Calcutta for a college performance, the singer spoke to t2 about his crazy Delhi Belly song, switching from heavy metal to Hindi shows and working for a Bengali film.

You missed singing Bhag DK Bose but the eccentric Jaa chudail from Delhi Belly is causing quite a furore too…

I don’t know if it’s good or bad, but at least people have noticed the song. I missed doing Bhag DK Bose because I was out of town for a show. Jaa chudail is about a guy who’s been dumped by his girl and he’s going mad. He’s releasing all his frustration through this song and he’s calling her chudail. I recorded it a year back and it was such a fun thing to do, but I was seriously doubtful if they’d use a song like this in a Hindi movie. I did all my mad stuff in the songs. Ram (Sampath, the music director) and I were laughing all the way through the recording. And now it’s out there.

From rocking out on stage, a straight dive into Bollywood. And we thought rockers found Hindi film music un-cool...

I know! There are a lot of people who just love Bollywood bashing, but I’ve never had a problem — maybe because I’ve never paid that much attention to it. For me it’s all about singing. I don’t care if it’s a film, a jingle or a live performance. As long as I’m singing I’m happy. The language doesn’t matter and neither the genre. It’s not like I wouldn’t listen to Hindi stuff but what happened is, two of my uncles living in London would bring down original cassettes with lyrics that weren’t available in India. That’s how I got into English singing. Then I formed a band; people started calling me for jingles. The ones that got noticed were the Hutch and Vodafone ones and that’s how I got into the recording industry. People look at me as a rocker but I never think about it or worry about what people might say when they see me singing for Bollywood. In fact, I’ll be singing for a Bengali movie soon but I can’t talk about it yet.

Your Bollywood singing career has been at an all-time high since Give Me Some Sunshine…

Yes, I’ve been singing in quite a few. It all started with a jingle for some shampoo ad, where I met Shantanu Moitra. He told me he’d make me sing for a film one day. Two years passed and he called me for Give Me Some Sunshine. I could have never thought that he’d actually write a song with me in mind. No one’s done it. I’ll always be grateful to him. After that, I started getting calls for shows.

But you were always doing your live rock shows.

I don’t do English at all now. I’m being called because of Give Me Some Sunshine. That’s the song that’s getting me the shows, so I don’t want to mix it up just because I like doing Metallica. The audience comes to hear Hindi film songs. I do covers as well, because I don’t have that repertoire of 25 major hits. The sound that they’re getting from me is anyway new because if I’m doing an All Izz Well, it’s not done like the original song but in a rock format. Bollywood has enough rock songs now and it’s great fun doing them.

What about the band?

I have a band, although it’s not got a band name anymore. It goes by my name. Crisis was the first band I had formed and then there was Chakraview. Dream Out Loud, the last one, lasted four years.

Thing is, I’ve always been the last guy on the sinking ship trying to keep it afloat. I’ve faced a lot of flak from my family but I did it because it felt right. On the other hand, a lot of musicians used to leave because of family and financial pressure. I’d keep bringing new musicians on board but you can’t find replacements when there’s a certain chemistry within the band.

When I started Crisis, we’d get paid well. There were no music channels. I was surviving doing music for a band. Now there are a lot more venues for live music, a lot of original music is happening, but the money scene is bad.

What’s up next?

I’ve just started working on an out-and-out Hindi rock album. Hope to roll it out by the end of this year. I’ve got a very nice feel-good kind of song in Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara called Dil dhadakne do. I sung Farida for Shaitan, a song called Akkad bakkad in Bhindi Bazaar. I keep doing jingles too.