Growing Up Era
Growing up in the Y2k era, I heard exactly what anyone would have heard in the music market at the time.
It all started at home, thanks to my father, Eric Pillai who is a mixing engineer in the Indian Film Music Industry and my mother, who is an avid listener herself. Although I wasn't a huge music lover, I did have some moments because I was exposed to it and saw what a recording studio looked like. I listened to anything that was in style at the time, including the Backstreet Boys, Def Leppard, Bryan Adams, Whitesnake, Max Martin's pop hits, and vintage Bollywood tunes. But to be honest, music hadn’t drawn me in yet… People around me thought I’d pursue art professionally because I had a natural talent for it, and I did love it. But even back then, I knew I wanted to do something else.
Academy of Art University Featured in the Spring Show Exhibition. Core Courses: Music Production, Harmony, Audio Production & Editing, Music Editing for Visual Media, Music Mix, Experimental Sound Design, Session Recording & Protocols, SoundTrack Industry Overview.
My first structured encounter with music came when my parents encouraged me to learn the piano. I picked it up quickly, but I wasn’t invested emotionally—it felt like something I had to do, not something I wanted to do. I briefly switched to saxophone, but didn’t stick with it for long. Practicing felt like a chore, and I wasn’t ready to give music my time. At least, not yet.
The Journey ⸻
Things took a turn when a friend introduced himself as a producer and DJ. The fact that music could be created using computers really intrigued me. I mean who would’ve thought that you can make music on a laptop of all things!? My father handed me a small boot-camped laptop with FL Studio installed in it. I sat down with no idea where to begin, clicking around aimlessly until I figured out the basic functions of the DAW. YouTube tutorials became my teachers. That little red laptop became my playground. I began trying to recreate songs I liked, often with friends who shared the same excitement.
Around the same time, I started DJing on a Pioneer XDJ RX controller. I poured myself into learning the craft, and that same initial push led me back to the piano—this time with more purpose. To this day, I have a bit of a toxic relationship with the instrument. I’ve started and stopped learning it more times than I can count but it has helped shape my ears.
moment of clarity
I put out a remix for Camila Cabello's ‘Havana’ which, at the time, was a hit all across the market. I remember finding the acapella on Youtube and programming a beat on top of it just for fun while sitting on the floor of the spare room in my house, slouching against a cupboard with my laptop on my stomach, my headphones on and a bluetooth mouse on the floor to my right. It wasn’t glamorous, but it was real. I spent days mixing and re-mixing that track, running back and forth to the family car to check levels and references. When my father heard it and gave me positive feedback, it was a moment of clarity—maybe I could pursue this as a career…
I soon moved to San Francisco to pursue Music Production at the Academy of Art University. It was a significant change—new city, new culture, and a step into the unknown—but it marked the beginning of a new chapter for me. As time went on and I kept studying and programming music, I was graced with my first professional opportunity—working as an additional programmer on Gann Deva by Sachin-Jigar.
In hopes of expanding my scope of musicianship, I stumbled across the bass guitar while sorting through instruments in my father’s studio. Until then, “bass” was just part of the frequency spectrum—but holding a Yamaha BB 735A 5-string changed everything. I began listening with new ears. Artists like Queen, Steely Dan, and Iron Maiden reshaped and deepened my musicality.
That shift in perspective carried into the next wave of opportunities: Soch Liya, Udd Ja Parindey, Mann Ye Bawra, and Dariyaa—the first project where I got to work as a full-fledged producer, and many more projects. These experiences shaped my understanding of professional workflows and taught me what it meant to deliver under pressure, collaborate, and serve the song.