INDIAN MUSIC IS VERY INSPIRING’ ... says Bryan Adams as he speaks to BT ahead of his India tour

Have you heard Indian singers or artistes? What do you love about them? Of course. AR Rahman is doing amazing work, he’s kind of a genius. I love the music of India. It’s hard to not be inspired by Indian music. However it’s quite difficult to sing like Indian singers. Perhaps it’s something you are born into, or maybe trained to do, but the melodies are very different from western music. Very inspiring, I have to say. As far as singers go, I have to admit one of my favourite singers ever was of Indian heritage, Freddie Mercury of Queen.
What do you love about India? I’m always reminded of our first concert tour and the show at the cricket stadium in the early ’90s. We were the first western band to do such a big tour of India. We opened a lot of doors for western bands to play there. Mick Jagger called me before the Rolling Stones played in India and wanted to know what it was like. I told him it was one of my most exciting tours ever.
You also have a new album out now. What experiments have you made with sound?I’ve just released a new album called Bare Bones. It’s completely acoustic, with versions of some of the hits and some new ones too. What is interesting about the album is that you will know some of the songs on the album, but you may not have imagined them as raw as this. Just my voice and a guitar, sometimes a piano too.
After receiving so much acclaim, what motivates you to go on? The same thing that motivated me in the beginning: seeing the world. On this India tour, we are spreading out to cities we’ve never played in before. I was hoping to get to Kolkata, but it wasn’t possible to arrange the logistics. I hope to be able to play there one day. It’s simply a matter of finding the right place to put on the show