MUMBAI: Wajahat Hasan, a singer belongs to the Etawa Gharana and is being trained in classical music. All this is happening, while he has a rocking band called Qareeb.

“Qareeb is band formed by me and few other musicians, who had similar musical goals like me. With luck, I happened to meet all of them and realised we all think similar about music. It’s been three and a half years and inshallah, the band is doing pretty well,” Wajahat shares.

Qareeb as a band, mainly makes music that is both Popular and Sufi. “We also perform to entertain, so we have to remember that and present songs accordingly. Besides that, we are also working on an album with 5-6 original songs,” he added.

Being born into a musical family, Wajahat also learns Indian Classical Music, he said, “Indian Classical Music is the basic foundation for any form of music. So, yes that is going on always. I have many idols from classical music like Ustad Rashid Khan, Ustad Shahid Parvez, Niladri Kumar. From the popular music, there is Sonu Nigam and Arijit Singh who are amazing.”

But for someone who hails from India and has Indian Classical Music as the foundation, their dream is something commendable. “Chris Martin is our favourite. Actually, the whole Coldplay band is just amazing. Qareeb wants to be like Coldplay,” Wajahat explains.

In past three and half years, Qareeb has performed across the length and breadth of India and also couple of shows abroad, in countries like Thailand and the band is looking forward to perform more and more.

The band Qareeb features Wajahat Hasan as the lead singer, Prateek Mukherjee - Lead Guitar, Samar Yadav- Bass, Tushar Kamra - Drum / Percussion. Qareeb, which means close in urdu, will bring the listener close to music, is what the band believes.

He concludes, “Bollywood is an opportunity and not a plan as such. If something comes up, I will surely sing but that’s not my plan.”