Ajay-Atul

                                        Music Composers

When Indian cinema music lost its original sound they came and retained the sound. They have always tried to sound very rooted to the Indian music with huge orchestra. Ajay-Atul the duo composers. Every time you listen to their songs or score you realise how rich our Indian music is and how huge it sounds !

Early Life 

Ajay and Atul Gogavale were born to Ahok Gogavale a revenue department officer in Pune  were brought up in different villages of Western Maharashtra as their Father had transferable job

Atul being the elder brother and Ajay being the younger one  always dreamt of becoming music composers, very average in studies yet always curious about different instruments, slowly started to experiment with music instruments and rhythms . In an NCC competition they presented the existing composition differently and won the prize. The achievement inspired them to explore their music potential. As they didn't had any musical background their parents always encouraged them and supported them , as they couldn't afford any musical instrument they started befriending people who had instruments and would request them to teach or give them to play on it ! They slowly started playing for local bands , schools. They started creating compositions when they used to ride cycles 

They would go to the producers and explain them about the arrangements and how the song would be like as they didn't had any instruments. They always wanted a keyboard so that they could execute the compositions which they had in mind and Ajay the younger one passed 10 the std with and average percentage decided to ask for keyboard, they asked Mom that can we afford the fees of college for further studies if yes then ill study religiously his mother said no we cannot then they asked for keyboard and would never ask for anything for life. Father got convinced and they bought the keyboard worth rupees 1,00,000 by taking loan from his friends. He said that "you never got any toys in childhood think as if its toy and play with it " And the journey started they did several pilot episodes, and songs. They came to Mumbai for work and arranged for established composers from Marathi industry. They did scores for Marathi serials, title songs and eventually started composing albums. 

First Break 

Ajay recieving the 66th National Award for Best Music Directiuon for the movie Jogwa

After religiously working hard for several composers as arranger a man from times group asked them after getting impressed that if they want to do something of their own and they immediately agreed they created a concept of presenting Ganesha aartis in a symphonic way. They wanted to create an imaginary idol through music. The album named Vishwavinayak was hit especially the song Shree Ganeshay Dheemahi! 

the sound engineer for the album Pramod Chandodkar played huge part in Ajay Atul's career. After listening to Vishwavinayak album Ram Gopal Verma called Ajay Atul and started narrating story and they got their first break with the movie Gayab . Ram Gopal Verma being atheist said that after listening to your album i feel God is there. After"Gayab" they did several movies in Marathi .Though the Marathi cinema was going through its lowest phase their songs were hit especially their dance numbers and devotional songs like Gondhal, Bhajans ,their first hit album was for movie "Aga bai areecha "where they composed 4 tracks and all of them were hit and very distinctively different from each other, and they got famous in the industry. Soon they gave some really back to back hits, and they started to score some plays and they received there very first award for one of the play called Sahi re sahi! They had a strong collaboration with Mahesh Manjrekar they did "Virrudh" and some really good movies with him. Another strong collaboration with renowned filmmaker Ravi Jadhav on his very first venture Natrang brought back the richness of Lavanis the songs Apsara aali and Wajle ki baara was also appreciated by non Maharashtrians. Their tracks Morya Morya, Varyavarti gandh and many more were appreciated by the people and also A.R Rahman appreciated the song ans well as the composers !. They won the 66th national award  under best Music Direction category for the movie Jogwa strangely it ws the first national award for Marathi music.

soon they had already created their sound which had huge orchestration and heavy rhythms and a very beautiful melody and their strong conviction towards Indian music made them very different from other composers. Soon they stepped into Bollywood with Rohit Shetty's Singham and the album was huge hit but this wasn't really the path breaking album for them to become as a Bollywood composer. Karan Johar after listening to some of their album offered them Agneepath which again was a huge hit especially the dance number Chikni Chameli which was recreated  from one of their Marathi song brought back the 80's sound. Soon they got Brothers, Shuddhi and many more ..
They took one year break from the movies as they went through low phase because of the father's demise
They composed 4 songs for the most awaited  movie in Marathi Lai Bhaari which was directed by Nishikant Kamath  The songs became a huge hit especially Mauli song.They even composed music for Make in India as PM Modi was very much impressed with them. 

Musicality 

Ajay Atul performing in the concert 

Ajay Atul always loved songs which had rhythm and always learnt from Laxmikant-Pyarelal, R.D Burman , Bappi Lahiri but the love towards symphony was initiated by listening to a score from 'Appu Raja' composed by Illayaraja. The piece made them cry and from that day itself they took the music too seriously and also became a huge fan of orchestral music as well as Illayaraja. They say that whatever they have learn't about symphonies is all because of the music of Illayaraja.
Their rhythm part is very much inspired by the sound of Laxmikanth-Pyarelal. They brought Dhol tashas in their rhythm part! Ajay is also a vocalist and has been singing for the other composers too . His versatile voice with rustic texture and great range makes him very unique in the singers community!
The best part of their music is they do all the arrangements of the song by their own which is very rare, and they try their best to record with live musicians from rhythm to orchestra and the capturing the soundscape is done by their dear friend and their sound engineer Vijay Dayal. They always say that" sometimes we feel bad that we couldn't learn music formally but now it seems that it is better that we didn't, it helped us to think more wider without any boundaries"

Sairat 

Ajay-Atul with Mark Graham and other crew members in LA, Sony MGM studios

After giving some really great stuff in bollywood and in marathi industry they were offered Sairat 

which was directed by Nagraj Manjule who won  national award for his short film and won accolades for his film Fandry. They started working on this project with strong conviction and insisted the producers to record the symphonies outside looking at the marvellous symphonies and hits of the duo the immediately agreed and they recorded the score as well as songs in the Sony MGM studio with 66 piece orchestra which was been used for some really iconic scores in the Hollywood.

The players were shocked after playing it they couldn't believe that Ajay Atul were self taught musician ! The conducting was done by renowned conductor Mark Graham. He appreciated the music and the composers.

The songs created history and was the first film from India to go and record in that studio. 

The song "Zingaat" became one of the most loved dance number , every song from that album was a hit!
Ajay Atul wrote the lyrics for all the songs in the album.

Other Ventures 

Ajay Atul also became a producer of a Marathi film called Jaudyana Balasaheb directed by Girish Kulkarni. They had started a platform for Dhol-Tasha players in Pune called as Dhol Generation 

They were judges in Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Marathi.