​We're just writing good and honest music: Composer duo Ruuh And Joh

They started out on completely different tracks; Reuel (RUUH) composing for ad films and Joash (JOH) producing electronic beats. But a chance collaboration in the studio led to the birth of a sonic partnership that’s now shaping the sound of India’s most streamed OTT series, from Mismatched to Call Me Bae and The Royals.

With a signature style that blends honest songwriting, genre-defying production, and sharp visual storytelling, the duo is redefining what original music means in the world of digital storytelling. Excerpts from an exclusive interview with the duo…How did you both Reuel (RUUH) and Joash (JOH) first cross paths, and what sparked the idea of creating music as a duo?The idea of creating music as a duo, that's a more interesting story because I had started doing music for advertising.

I used to compose music for ads and JOH was producing electronic music. We both were doing very different things. At one point I had an assistant in the studio, he wanted to do something else and I needed help. I remember asking JOH if he could help me out with doing the music. The first thing he said was no. Over the time we fluidly started working together.

We both started doing advertising a lot. And then the sound started bleeding into the stuff that we were doing.

I would say that was the origin of creating our sound together.You both have distinct creative strengths. How do you divide your roles when working on a track; does one lead melody while the other handles production or is it more fluid?What we do is we sit in a room which is the studio where RUUH and I just work on everything together. We don't have any roles as such. We help each other out and make sure we're making the best track.

Only bangers and that's our catchphrase. It's something we came up with. We say only bangers and then we make the bangers. Nobody has a certain responsibility. We're just responsible 100% individually for everything.Your music for shows like “Call Me Bae – Yaara Tere Bin” and “Mismatched – Gumshudah” has struck a chord with young audiences. What’s your secret sauce when it comes to composing for OTT content?When we write music, a really good example is Yaara Tere Bin, Gumshudah and Baatein these songs were actually not written for a film.

They were written for us. They were songs that we had written to release. That's one of the reasons why the sound is so different. It is not your typical sound that you would expect. It's because these are songs that we just loved and we wrote them. We happened to play them for the right people and they put them in the series.

We're not really trying to write music to achieve a goal. In terms of, we want to be this person or we want to sound like this person or we want this song to be in this film.

We're just writing good and honest music. When you can do that, you will always be able to connect with an audience. Because audiences nowadays are extremely smart. They know what they like. They can tell when something comes from an honest place. Do you approach storytelling differently when composing for film versus web series?Definitely. It depends on the script if it's shot to a film or a song. We're writing music to something visually.

Then it depends completely on what we're looking at or what we're reading. There's no difference for us process-wise. It depends on the visual assets that we have. To add to that, what really depends is just the mood. If they say we want a dark song, we pull out something from our bank that's a bit dark or if they say we want an upbeat song, we pull out something that is upbeat.

But the sound remains the same. If you listen to our music for a film and if you listen to our non-film music, you're not going to find a lot of difference.

Because the sound remains signature to what we do. Then we adjust it for the vibe that the film is going for. You’re both musicians, composers and producers. How has wearing multiple hats shaped your creative evolution?That gives us complete control over every aspect of music. We've sung, composed, produced and written lyrics for most of our songs. We like to control these aspects because it gives us a true reflection of who we are.

You can see that reflected in our music. So for us, this is actually a very important thing. We also really enjoy it. I like the combination between those two things helps us achieve something that is very fresh and very unique.What advice would you give to young indie musicians who want to break into composing for film and digital platforms?This market is very difficult. It has taken us years to get here with a lot of hard work, sleepless nights.

My first piece of advice is don't leave your day job. Continue with that and do your music on the side. Once you find an avenue where you feel your music is picking up, then go for it. That's exactly what I did (JOH). It is going to come with a lot of challenges. It is actually more difficult than a day job. We work 24-7. We will work on Sundays.

There are no weekends. From the glamour that you see, there's a lot of unglamorous parts as well.

You have to be ready to handle the mental and physical stress that you are going to get when you work in this industry. However, if you do get there, it is one of the most gratifying things that I (RUUH) would say we've ever done. So we're very grateful to have these opportunities. To add to that, there is no work limit or work time. There's no 9-5 with this. It's a 7-day job and it could take 12-16 hours every day. But if you love what you're doing and you're committed and this is going to work out for you, then you stay on that path.

Eventually you will get there. But it is a lot of work. And it's beautiful and dangerous at the same time. You’ve composed and performed three tracks for The Royals. The show has received a mixed response. Do you feel that the music’s success is dependent on the show’s success?Everyone is entitled to their opinion. At the end of the day, we just look at The Royals going to number three globally, being number one in our country.

As long as people are watching it, that just makes us happy. Because they're enjoying the music, they're enjoying the fashion, they're enjoying Ishan Khatter shirtless. There's something for everybody in this series. Music and film have always gone hand in hand. Having said that, I think a good song is a good song.

So if you have written a good song, it is going to attract an audience and it is going to find its place in the universe.

The most important thing, people are going to find different aspects of a film or series to like and to dislike. And in the same way, it works for the music of a film as well. The music has done really well for the show as well. We have two tracks on the charts, have a number one album. It's absolutely amazing for us to see these results, it's amazing that the show did well and even our music. To add to that, we were number one on the Bollywood charts on a music platform.

And right below us are some of the most legendary albums like Rockstar, Aashiqui and Animal. These are really top soundtracks. To see our names around these albums is an absolutely crazy thing. So grateful for that.

Which of the tracks from The Royals challenged you the most creatively, and why?They all individually challenged us. It's never a creative challenge. We're trying to write the best song. The only challenge was we wrote all this music while we were scoring the season of Call Me Bae, as we had to finish Tv show of Call Me Bae and also had The Royals too.

So we would do half and half script. The other challenge is that you can manifest names like Jubin Nautiyal, Jonita Gandhi, Sukriti Kakkar and Neeti Mohan.

But for two new artists on the block to actually manage to reach out to them also could be a very difficult thing. However, we had the dream and we had the vision. Somehow we managed to make it happen. That was challenging but also very rewarding.Reuel and Joash, your Instagram pages reflect not just your music, but a unique aesthetic. How important is visual storytelling to your brand as artists?What it is, is your art comes out in every form.

It comes out in your music and in your fashion. And for us, it's not something that we're looking to create. It's just the people that we are. This is something that we are. We do create art and artists in all kinds of forms. So we believe that whatever you see, the vibe that we create, that's all a part of who we actually are. We're trying to tell a story with our music. It's not like we're trying to tell a story through our songwriting.

When you're trying to tell someone a story, you've got to bring in the full 360. Apart from just creating songs, we're trying to create a vibe and a universe for our audiences to dive into. Tell us about a creative disagreement you've had and how you resolved it. Is there a song that almost didn’t happen?I'm not going to name the song, but there was one of our songs. In fact, it's a song that has been mentioned in one of the questions above where I think for the very first time, JOH and I (RUUH) disagreed with the melody.

When we do this, we normally track, both of us track our own separate melodies. Then we decide. Up until this, the song is out, people have heard and loved it, but JOH still doesn't like that one particular melody in the chorus.

But it's out there. It's out there somewhere. Music is and can be very subjective sometimes. The things that you like, someone can absolutely dislike. As long as the music does well, we don't really have a problem. We are very unapologetic with our music, when we write music, when we're convinced that it is a good melody, then we just put it out into the world. That's the only way where you can get something new is when you have the faith and also you don't have any fear once you put it out into the world. Then people can either hate it or love it. But at least it's not in the middle, it's not lukewarm.