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Meet the Members of India's New All-Girl Band 'WISH'

Writer's picture: Amit MathurAmit Mathur

Life without music almost equates to food without flavour. Be it making a reel, putting up a story on Instagram, taking a road trip or simply doing chores around the house, the right kind of music can improve one’s mood, bring back fond memories or just add oomph to a random selfie.


Fortunately, India has no dearth of musical talent, be it the 15th century or the 21st or pop, Indian musicians have always managed to put themselves on the world map owing to their immense talent. However, even after receiving global recognition and accolades, it often seems like the world has barely been able to scratch the surface of the vast treasure that is Indian Music, which is why even today Bollywood music is used interchangeably.

Finally, an all-girl Indian band W.I.S.H consisting of four members Ri (Riya Duggal), Sim (Simran Duggal). Zo (Zoe Siddharth) and Suchi (Suchita Shirk) has decided to change this narrative and introduce the world to I-pop! News18 Showsha recently caught up with the artists to uncover answers to some of the most buzzing questions. Here are the highlights from the conversation:

How did you come up with the name W.I.S.H, and what inspired it? 

"Breaking Barriers: Meet the Members of India's Newest All-Girl Band, WISH"
"Breaking Barriers: Meet the Members of India's Newest All-Girl Band, WISH"

Sim: We experimented with a bunch of names trying to find something that perfectly represented us by blending our Indian background with a Western influence. W.i.S.H. can be interpreted as a wish come true, on the flip side the Hindi word ‘vish’ means poison so we can also be badass!

India is home to immense musical talent, yet we have not seen a popular girl band in over two decades. Why do you think is this the case?

Ri: That is so true, we have amazing musical talent and culture in India but I feel, so far, the industry has been dominated by Bollywood. With social media booming and it becoming ever-easy to release music independently, we are seeing a shift in the trend of more non-film pop artists in the limelight and audiences are accepting this new different-sounding music. It takes a lot of effort, infrastructure and investment to launch a girl group which we’ve been lucky to have. Also, the sisterhood we have holds us together. You really have to like each other and enjoy seeing each other’s faces every day for this to be able to work.


Which girl band from history do you admire or draw inspiration from the most? 

Suchi: We’ve grown up listening to a lot of music from boy bands and girl groups around the world, like Backstreet Boys, One Direction, NSYNC and in girl groups we absolutely love LITTLE MIX, Destiny’s Child, Pussycat Dolls. All of them have had a certain impact on our journeys as artists individually. The way they carry themselves on stage, their personalities, their singing abilities, and their overall girl group energy inspire us more and more to work together and achieve a common goal of reaching an international level with independent music and making our country proud.

Bollywood music has long been the face of Indian entertainment globally. How do you plan to carve out space for I-pop and establish it as a distinct musical genre? 

Zo: Yes, it is a challenging task for sure to try and carve out a space in the industry that really hasn’t been there for so long. But that’s what we signed up for, we’re excited to pave the way and be the artists to bring commercial pop dance music here. Since the last girl group in India was about 22 years ago there are no rules and regulations to follow in order to bring it back to India, however, we’re driven to succeed and will find a way. We are just doing as much as we can, wherever we can, putting out music and content that what we love, to show that artists who dance, sing and perform all at once exist and that India needs more of it. We already know pop groups have always been and really have taken over globally, there are tons of fans for this genre of music and performance and it’s time India has their very own pop group and hopefully more groups.


With Boom Boom already winning hearts and receiving glowing reviews, what’s next on the horizon for W.I.S.H?

Ri:

We’re so grateful for the love that we’re receiving for Boom Boom. We hope to keep it alive by posting a lot more social media content around this release. There’s so much music that we’ve worked on that we want to put out. It’s definitely our fifth single that’s on its way, also we’ll be travelling and performing a lot more in the new year. Big things only!

Zo: Why limit us, we dream of the biggest stages, a world tour to make India proud and so much more. You all should definitely watch out for our live shows, what we’ve prepared is a super fun, powerful show!

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