In the early days of his career, he received a lot of backlash for crooning songs penned in Hinglish, a blend of Hindi and English, but it was his audience that helped him stand up against all the criticism.
I didn’t want to risk my career and gave it up,” says the musician. The label heard me out and wanted me to make a video for the song Kya Soorat Hai. “The music video had cool and sexy girls in the swimming pool. However, he wasn’t too happy with the final product. His musical career in India started with the music video of Mona Re. I wasn’t into Indian music much and we would play Hindi films songs and ghazals only when we used to have a gathering of Indian and Pakistani friends.” He recalls, “My mother used to sing Hawa Mein Udta Jaaye. Nevertheless, he was fascinated with yesteryear classics. Shridhar, who grew up in Stockholm, was exposed to pop rock and jazz rock from an early age. It was wonderful that the song went so far.” Once in Florida, a huge crowd of Americans sang Woh Chali along with me. I’ve travelled to Trinidad & Tobago, Port Of Spain and South Africa singing our songs. When I came here, I was alone but I kept the name Bombay Vikings. Our group was disbanded long before I came to India. The girl who has sang Chhod Do Aanchal is Swedish. Quiz him about his band days and he fondly shares, “My band members learnt Hindi and supported me on many Hindi songs. Along with Neeraj Shridhar, the band comprised of other members like Oscar Söderberg and Mats Nordenborg, and over time, it became popular for belting out remixes of old Bollywood hits such as Kya Soorat Hai, Woh Chali and Chod Do Anchal. Pop group, Bombay Vikings, was formed in Sweden in 1994.