Mohan Kannan

K. Mohan is the lead vocalist of the rock band Agnee and also plays the mridangam. He grew up in a family of musicians and was trained in Carnatic music from an early age. However, a career in music became a reality only after he completed his MBA from XIMB and landed a cushy job in Deutsche Bank. In 2005, a jamming session with Coco (composer and lead guitarist, Agnee) convinced him that he wanted to be a musician and he quit his banking job.

After a few changes in lineups and bands (Sankara followed by Change of Plan), Agnee came to be formed in 2007 and released its eponymous debut album. Since then Agnee has been Mohan’s full time job, although he has dabbled with playback singing for Bollywood and ad jingles (most notably the Samsung Guru ad composed by Amit Trivedi and written by Gulzar).

Playback singing came his way with Shankar - Ehsaan - Loy’s “Khanabadosh” (“London Dreams” (2009). Some songs sung by him in Bollywood since then include Amit Trivedi’s “Naav Chadhti Lehrein” (“Udaan”, 2010), Abhishek Ray’s “Kero Mama” (“Paan Singh Tomar”, 2012), Pritam’s “Life Yeh Musambi Si” (“Ferrari Ki Sawaari”, 2012) and “Yaariyaan” (“Cocktail”, 2012).

In 2012, Agnee composed it’s first Bollywood album (they had composed a couple of tracks for Dil Dosti Etc in 2007), Aalaap, for which Mohan wrote the song “Pa Paraa Paa”.