Meet India’s new next-gen boy pop group, First5

With their first song ‘Tu Aadatein‘ now out, First5 members Yoshi, Tan, Elton, Rish and their mentor Aksh Baghla speak about what it takes to bring together a pop band and make great music

If you are a millennial who grew up in India and were clued into all things music, chances are that you can sing along with Viva!, the five member girl pop group put together by Channel V. We were taken through the whole process; from the auditions, to rehearsals and their big debut. 

Fast forward to 2024: First5, India’s newest next-gen boy pop group has just released its single ‘Tu Aadatein’. The group, Yoshi, Elton, Tan and Daksh, and their mentor and investor Aksh Baghla say they are amazed at the response, during a video interview from Chandigarh. A quick look at its Instagram handle gives us a sneak peek into their lives — they live together, do covers of popular songs across languages, work hard at choreography, and film practice videos. 

A content creator, singer and songwriter from Himachal Pradesh, First5 is Aksh’s baby. “I began creating content on YouTube a few years ago, all thanks to my love for pop music. I realised that if I wanted to bring together a group, I needed an audience and began focussing on building my content and YouTube channel,” he says. With over three million subscribers on YouTube, Aksh is a familiar face online — for his many music mashups, and his ‘1 guy 30 voices’ genre of videos. 

Aksh explains how he spoke to several stakeholders from the industry, about the process and the work it would entail. Finally in 2023, he called for auditions on his social media, and following a long line of interviews, brought onboard four members. Between them, the members share great vocals, composing skills, and a penchant for dance.

“The whole journey leading up to the release of our first single has been a roller coaster of emotions,” says Aksh. . While he was a member of First5, financial roadblocks led him to take up the mantle of their manager and investor. This meant he had to take a step back from being a performer. 

The music video for the upbeat ‘Tu Aadatein’ has Yoshi, Elton, Tan and Daksh having a blast, as they try to chart out plans for a possible music concert, and break into dance occasionally. “We didn’t want a video that was overly scripted and wanted this to be as real as it gets. The idea is to showcase our journey through our songs and videos,” Aksh says. The music video for ‘Tu Aadatein’ has crossed 120K views on YouTube. 

“The song came together in 14 hours,” Elton says. “We were so into writing the lyrics and composing that I’m pretty sure we all forgot to eat that day,” he laughs. 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 labour sure are sweet!”