Actor, lyricist, singer, Piyush Mishra began his musical tour with Chandigarh recently and credited this city for his band’s genesis. “In 2015-16 Nishant Agarwal, a fan from Chandigarh insisted I should form a band and he moved to Mumbai for this reason,” says the actor also known for his satirical poetry in films like Gulaal (Aarambh Hai Prachand), Gangs Of Wasseypur (Ik Bagal), Black Friday etc.

Commenting on his late advent as a music performer, he says, “That is because I never considered myself a singer. I am not a riyaz type of singer, I am a theatrical voice.”

Blunt to a fault, he confesses that incessant working for years brought a madness and love for distortion. Self-admittedly a “heavy alcoholic for many years till I found Vipassana as a cure,” Piyush says, “Just four years ago I realized I spent too many years only working for applause, not even money and that I have a life beyond work. I hardly spent time with my wife, my sons who had grown up and a dog. I tasted creativity in disordered form with tedha cinema and could have failed playing out my eccentricities, but I got lucky. Back then I was a communist, waiting for a revolution. It’s only now I feel normal and want to be likeable as a person, not just as an artiste.”

Success, he says came to him at 46, with Gulaal and he loved leveraging music for socio-political commentary. “I am settled now, I have lived out all my madness. I am now questioning myself through a semi autobiography that lays bare my life including my alcoholism.”

As for when he is giving lyrics for a film next, he shrugs, “Hindi films don’t want my lyrics, I am outdated for them.”