Pilot by day, singer by night: Shahroz Khan

Can you imagine being thousands of feet above the ground, in the air, singing an original song that you just released as you fly by the clouds? Yep, that’s what an ordinary day in Shahroz Khan’s life feels like. The young star is a pilot by profession with a passion for music and when it comes to his talent, sky is the limit. Bold sat down with the rising star to talk about his aspirations, his dreams and his journey so far.

Coming from a family where his father was a commercial pilot and his mother belonged to the entertainment industry, Shahroz, since a very young age developed an affinity for flying as well as the entertainment industry, he’d often take part in the singing competitions around him and that’s how he excelled at music. It was during his flight training in the UK that he decided to pen down his love for the Pakistan Air Force and started working on a song as a tribute to them. And as luck would have it, the Pakistan Air Force itself was busy working on a song for 7^th September and the two got into a collaboration. The song received rave reviews and love from fans which encouraged him to pursue his passion, and he did just that!

The singer also performed at the President House singing an ode to Kashmir which was a dramatic act where girls from various colleges from Islamabad performed and Khan recalls it being one of the most beautiful performances of his life and the appreciation that he received from the President was commendable, and not many young artists achieve what Khan has already achieved within a short span of time.

Apart from the patriotic songs, Khan has also ventured into commercial music with his single Akh Da Nasha that features Areeka Haq in the music video who fits the character perfectly because of her beautiful eyes. The song turned out to be a hit among fans sitting at 4M views on YouTube alone and it seems that the singer’s efforts to venture into the commercial music industry has certainly paid off.

Equally enjoying aviation and singing, the pandemic put his profession as a pilot in the back seat and gave him more time to focus on music, he set up a studio at home and got straight to work. Never missing a day at the gym, the singer and song-writer loves playing cricket with his family and friends. Khan shares an avid patriotism for the country, despite studying in the UK he chose to move back to Pakistan and we asked him how the shift felt, ‘In Pakistan we have a mindset amongst the youth that everyone wants to go abroad for further education or to get a job but what I believe is we are second class citizens over there and in our country which is an independent state we are first class citizens and when I was there I used to miss Pakistan and I wanted to come back and live in my own country and do something for my own country,’ said Khan.

Khan was approached by Tik Tok to churn out fresh content every day and he’s been nailing it, not many artists are that consistent, and we asked him about the force that keeps him going: ‘it’s the love and passion that cannot be explained in words, it’s already very challenging to create music and then mixing, mastering and engineering it along with a prim and proper music video, then posting it with the right hashtags and marketing tools, it’s made me a marketing expert too but my driving force is the love that I’ve received from people and of course, the Almighty helps too!’

Talking about being an independent artist in the current music industry with no music channels for support as compared to the artists in the West who have a ton of platforms and opportunities, Khan shared that artists like him have had to become smarter and learnt to represent themselves with platforms like Tik Tok, Spotify, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram that help push their work forward among the masses. And while we agree the social media has done a lot to help artists in the country, it comes with its sets of cons too – cyber bullying and hate comments. When asked how Khan deals with the hate comments, he had a simple mantra: ‘I take the hate very positively, I believe that when you’re creating good content, you get haters. So what I do is whenever I get a mean comment, I reply with a sad face and the trolls often change their statements that we were kidding, you do sing well. People don’t realise the impact their comments can have on an artist and their work, they just want to do it for fun and to whip up controversy – not sure what the thought process is behind it but the youth needs to learn to be empathetic and kind.’

Having worked with the Tik Tok sensation Areeka Haq, when asked about his dream collaboration Khan revealed that he’d love to work with Neha Kakkar as he feels that she’s got an incredible vocal texture.

Expanding on what’s keeping him busy these days, the singer shared that he’s working on a music video that’s been shot on VFX and CGI that he learnt from the Pinewood Studios in the UK and is now implementing in Pakistan. The track called Sensation that will be out very soon is being produced by Ali Mustafa who has previously produced for Neha Kakkar and Honey Singh, with a very urban feel to it Khan hopes that people will like it.

Looking how far the singer has come in a short span of time, we asked him for a piece of advice for the new-comers who look up to him: ‘There are no short cuts, you can achieve greater things in the music industry only with your sincere hard work, patience and persistence. People usually tend to come in for quick popularity and when they don’t get it, they leave, the only person who survives in the end is the one who has been patient and working hard consistently, there’s no other way around it.’ We’ve got our eyes on Shahroz Khan and think he’s the next big thing in the music industry.