Review Fix Exclusive: Anoop Desai Interview

We first met him in 2009 when he auditioned to be on the eighth season of “American Idol.” His rendition of Boyz II Men’s “Thank you” blew the judges and America away.

He was originally eliminated from the show, but was given a second chance when he won the wild card slot. Since then, he has been hard at work establishing his voice and view of music for the world to hear. With a style-mixture of Alternative, Pop and R&B, Anoop Desai is hard at work at making sure that he is not forgotten in the deep sea of former television idols.

“I’m a singer and songwriter. I do a little bit of production as well. Most of my day is either in my home studio, writing top line for tracks that I get from studios that are either going out to other major artists or that I am keeping for myself for my album or it’s a collaborative process with other writers and producers,” said Desai.

Desai was born and raised in North Carolina. He currently resides in Atlanta, Georgia.

“I was an only child. My mom is a biochemist, my dad is a software engineer and, of course, I was always interested in liberal arts and performance and acting and music,” he said. He continued with, “…to my parents credit, they have always supported those interests, even though they were much different from their own, I think that is why they immigrated to this country to give me a chance to have that. They are my two biggest fans and have always been and I’ve been extremely lucky.”

While Desai performed on “American Idol,” he was coined early on as the favorite to win the competition with his soulful way of singing and his song selection that emphasized the style in his voice. He ultimately finished the race in sixth place.

“I always tell people that it’s really what you make of the experience after that. There’s no doubt that that was a really cool and very public part of my life and it was a great stepping stone. What I’ve been doing for the past four years was really trying to turn that into something that I can actually turn into a career,” Desai commented. “After the show, I started to really focus on writing. Really educating myself on what it means to be a writer and a performer in this industry and in this day and age.”

Since his season ended, Desai has been busy in the studio. He took on a huge risk by venturing into creating his own record label. He is the owner of his label and is keeping up, directly, with everything that is associated with him and his image.

Desai said that, “…at first, it was out of necessity. When I got off of Idol, I think I got a misguided notion as to what I could expect from the industry. I still wanted to get music out there for my fans so it was important that I do that and the avenue that was open to me at the time was entering into a joint venture which is my label now and I’ve been putting out music independently for the past couple of years”. He continued by saying, “we are now at a point where we are looking for a major deal and we are at a point where the music and the writing and everything sort of backs it up. It’s been an extraordinary experience the past couple of years and it’s really giving me my bearings about how to run a business and how to survive in this industry.”

He has released two full albums, “All is fair” and “Zero.0.” He is currently working on his third studio album. The possibility of merging with a major label is also on the bargaining table and he hopes that the third album can be ready by next year.

“We are actually about three quarters of the way done writing for a full length album but I don’t want to put that out until I feel comfortable with how it will be promoted and how it’s going to reach the ears of the public,” Desai said. “I think it’s only really fair to [the fans] that whatever I put out from here on is promoted in a way that they can be sure it’s going to reach as many ears as possible and that the quality of it is going to be the best.”

A series of remixes to his latest single, Love War, is available online now.

In a few parting words about the single, he said to everyone, “definitely check that out because the remixes are fire and the single is fire.”