If you grew up in India and are familiar with all things music, chances are you can sing along with Viva!, the five-member girl pop group put together by Channel V. We were kept informed throughout the process; From auditions to rehearsals and their big debut.
Fast forward to 2024: First5, India’s latest next-gen boy pop group, has recently released their single ‘Tu Aadain’. The group, Yoshi, Elton, Tan and Daksh and their mentor and investor Aksh Baghla, said during a video interview from Chandigarh that they were surprised by the response. A look at their Instagram handle gives us a glimpse of their life – they live together, do covers of popular songs in different languages, work hard at choreography and film practice videos.
A content creator, singer and songwriter from Himachal Pradesh, First5 is the son of Aksha. “I started creating content on YouTube a few years ago, thanks to my love for pop music. I realized that if I wanted to bring a group together, I needed an audience and I started focusing on building my content and YouTube channel,” he says. With over three million subscribers on YouTube, Aksh is a well-known face online – thanks to his many music mashups and ‘1 man 30 voices’ style videos.
Aksh explains how he spoke to various industry stakeholders about the process and the work that goes into it. Ultimately in 2023, they called for auditions on their social media, and after a long series of interviews, cast four members. Between them, the members have superb singing, composition skills and a penchant for dancing.
Aksha Baghla Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
“The entire journey leading up to the release of our first single has been full of emotions,” says Aksh. While he was a member of First5, due to financial constraints he had to take over the position of their manager and investor. This meant that he had to take a step back from becoming an artist.
The music video for the upbeat ‘Tu Aadatain’ features Yoshi, Elton, Tan and Daksh having a lot of fun as they try to plan a possible concert, and sometimes even dance. “We didn’t want a video that was too scripted and we wanted it to be as real as it gets. Our idea is to showcase our journey through our songs and videos,” says Aksh. ‘Tu Aadaten’ music video has been viewed more than 120 thousand times on YouTube.
“The song was done in 14 hours,” says Elton, laughing. “We were so busy writing and composing that I’m pretty sure we all forgot to eat that day.” ” While Daksh describes the experience as nothing short of a roller coaster of emotions, Tan chimes in in Hindi, which translates to, “The fruits of hard work sure are sweet!”
Hailing from Himachal Pradesh, Assam, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra, the boys have now made Chandigarh their base, and live together where they attend music and dance classes, practice choreography throughout the day, and develop their Writes and produces music. “The best part is that now we all feel like a family and this song has brought us closer,” says Yoshi.
During an Instagram Live session that lasted for a few hours the day after the song’s release, the group fielded several requests from their fans – “Can you sing a few lines?”, “When are you performing in Assam?” , and “Are we?” Will there be more dance videos coming?
“There are already a lot of fan pages talking about how to stream our music,” says Elton, and Ax explains how amazing it is to see such a community building so quickly. .
It’s hard to ignore the K-pop influence here, from their fan base to their musical styles. The group has done several covers of popular K-pop songs and soundtracks of K-dramas, with their cover of BTS’s IU and V’s ‘Love Wins All’ being one of their first videos on Instagram that went viral. When asked about their favorite artists, we got a variety of responses – from BIGBANG’s GDragon, Zayn Malik, Arijit Singh and Sonu Nigam to Thai singer Jeff Satur.
While they’re enjoying the response to their first song, First5 have big plans for what’s to come next. “The second song is ready and it will be a heart-touching song. While people have seen a lot of us singing, the boys are also excited to showcase their choreography skills,” says Aksh. Pop music is really taking off around the world, and India’s next generation of talent is slowly but surely joining the race.
published – December 17, 2024 05:58 PM IST