Acclaimed Lyricist Javed Akhtar expressed his disillusionment with Indian Rock music and says he wanted to create a new idiom with his lyrics for the songs of Rock On.

“In India, rock music is a very shallow and superficial genre. They dress and style themselves like American rockers but the words and lyrics are archaic and obsolete. The words in an average Indi-Rock number revert to trite filmy clichés like balma, baliye and mahiya,” Akhtar said.

When he was approached to write lyrics for his son Farhan in ‘Rock On‘, he wasn’t really sure he could pull it off. He had never done a rock album before and was not familiar with the genre.

“The language in ‘Dil Chahta Hai’ was that of traditional lyrics… zamana, dewaana. In ‘Rock On‘, where Farhan makes his debut as an actor, I’ve moved completely away from the traditional lyrics,” he added.

The prolific song writer quipped,” In ‘Rock On‘, I wanted to create a new idiom that I don’t think I had been able to do in ‘Dil Chahta Hai’ in spite of its modern context and characters. There I was still falling back on traditional thoughts and rhymes.”

In ‘Rock On‘, Javed Akhtar says he experimented with words and thoughts. “Writing about a laundry bill, denim jacket, chandi ka ring… you can’t use angoothee for ring… This is the lingo of rock,” the lyricist said.

Javed says he is happy with son Farhan’s acting but regarding his singing skills, it was best left to the audience to judge.