Shelton Pinheiro pursued literature through graduation and post graduation. It helped him at his first job at National Institute of Sales (NIS), he recalls. He didn’t realise then that words would play a key role in his life in the years ahead.
His tryst with music ran on a parallel. He got actively involved in a music band during college besides recording some vocals. While at NIS, he joined ethnic fusion gospel outfit ‘Rexband’. This was in early 2000, when fusion – a mix of Indian music, hip hop and rock – was very young in India.
Soon after, Pinheiro would move to advertising as a freelancer. What he lacked by way of copywriting experience was compensated by his language skills. He moved to agencies thereafter, working with the likes of FCB Ulka, Maa Bozell, Mudra and Stark, where he is now in his second stint.
Balancing the demands of agency life and the band was a challenge, admits Pinheiro. He had to speak with agencies beforehand about a break once a year for travelling with the band. Rexband has done shows in 18 countries including the US and Canada, besides hitting music festivals across Europe.
There were others like him in the band, balancing music with a full time day job. The bassist, for instance, is George Ettiyil, Senior Director – South Asia at Lufthansa Group. Each member of the band took a break from work for around 20 days every year.
Pinheiro remarks, “This used to give a relaxing, refreshing break from advertising which otherwise used to be a hectic schedule. Our last tour was in 2017 to Australia, after that we haven’t travelled due to the pandemic. Now we are reinitiating the things. The band is like a family since we have been moving together for years now. We have done albums with Rexband which is on Spotify.”
The Bigger Picture
The second part of his music life kicked off in the mid-2000s. If music be the food of one’s soul, can movies be far behind? Even more so for the advertising creative, whose job involved making ad films. He got involved with professional musicians and even started writing lyrics for jingles.
“Then I got involved with movies. My first movie was ‘Manjupoloru Penkutti’ in Malayalam. I wrote the lyrics and a girl named Sayanora sang; it was her first song and later she became an AR Rahman singer. That song became a hit at that point,” reminisces Pinheiro.
Soon, music directors reached out when they needed an English song, often in situations that demanded a hip-hop track in the background. He’s written over 10 songs for Malayalam movies, some of which Pinheiro has sung himself. Most recently, he wrote the lyrics and sang a track for a movie called ‘Virus’. None of this was expected, notes the multi-faceted creative professional.
When Words Meet Notes
Besides its global tours, the Rexbanders used to conduct ‘Soul Café’ sessions featuring coffee and western music in Kochi every month. That too is set to restart after the pandemic.
Pinheiro is grateful for the two tracks of advertising and music in his life, which criss-cross each other symbiotically. He believes that one space he could get more involved in is in creating music for commercials. At Stark, he recalls working with bands and musicians like Rex Vijayan, Gopi Sundar, Bijibal and Chai Met Toast for different commercials.
“This kind of moving into music sometimes when you get stuck in terms of ideas, helps. Sometimes I pick the guitar, write down a few songs and then come back to advertising; it gives a boost, a kind of insight into something which you could never get otherwise. In that sense music running side by side has been a blessing. Especially when you move to social media (where) it’s all about reels and videos, music is at the heart of what I do. Blessed to be in this space that integrates all these things,” he explains.
The band members include Stephen Devassy, one of India’s top pianists and Alphons Joseph, who has sung for AR Rahman. A second album of Rexband is in the works, besides some movie work.
Music seems to run in the family. Wife Anu is a music faculty at Crossroads School of Music, Kochi. His daughter sings and is learning the bass as well.
Pinheiro has a lot to do but there is still the hunger to do more. Plans are to take ethnic fusion music, a mix of Indian and western, to more countries with an inspiring, positive message.
It’s hard to fathom which is his first love – advertising or music. As Pinheiro would perhaps correct us, they can’t be seen differently. It’s one love.
