By Sandeep Bhattacharjee, IANS

From singing on railway platforms to appearing on the cover page of international music magazine Rave, singer Kailash Kher has definitely come a long way and right now he is elated about his upcoming world concert with Pearl Jam singer Eddie Vedder.

"I am very excited about a collaboration with Pearl Jam singer Eddie Vedder. The live concert will be a tribute to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan saheb who had teamed up with Vedder for the soundtrack of 'Dead Man Walking'," said Kailash who recently released his album "Kailasa".

The singer is quite upbeat about the album. "We are very happy with the response received by 'Kailasa' and are planning a sequel," Kailash told IANS in an interview.

Kailash is a fan of Himesh Reshammiya's abilities as a music director, but finds his singing "monotonous".

"Reshammiya's abilities as a music director are excellent but his capabilities as a singer are not equally promising. His singing is monotonous. Most of his songs sound the same.

"I'm still what I used to be. I only want to sing freely, nothing else matters," said the singer who has sung for films like "Fanaa", "Corporate" and "Waisa Bhi Hota Hai-II".

He talks candidly about his recent professional success but does not want to share his childhood memories with anybody.

"There is nothing interesting to share about my early days. I can only tell you that I was born in Meerut and shifted to Delhi at the age of five."

Talking about his first break, he said: "Although my first break was a jingle for Nakshatra diamonds, it did not give me much recognition. My first big break was a jingle for a Hero Cycles commercial, shot specially for the cricket World Cup.

"The jingle 'Ab udana hai aasan' was telecast almost every over during commercial breaks of the matches. It gave me a lot of recognition," he said.

"I have sung for several upcoming Hindi movies, including Ravi Chopra's 'Baabul', Nikhil Advani's 'Salaam-e-Ishq', Sachin Bajaj's 'Naksha' and Dibakar Banerjee's 'Khosla ka Ghosla'," said Kher.

Queried on his first meeting with music maestro A.R. Rahman, he said: "I got an unexpected call from Rahman's studios, asking me to take the next flight to Chennai. He wanted to meet me for some project and the rest is history."

With Rahman, Kher has worked in M.F. Hussain's "Meenaxi", Ketan Mehta's "Mangal Pandey - A Rising" and Ashutosh Gowarikar's "Swades".