With Homecoming, OutStation reflects on a whirlwind year of music, brotherhood, and creating a space where fans can feel heard

For years, Indian pop fans borrowed their boy bands from somewhere else. The posters on bedroom walls came from London, Seoul or Los Angeles. The songs soundtracked school bus rides, college festivals and late-night group chats, but the stories behind them rarely felt local. Then came OutStation.

Made up of Bhuvan Shetty, Hemang Singh, Mashaal Shaikh, Kurien Sebastian and Shayan Pattem, five young musicians from different corners of the country brought together through a nationwide talent search, OutStation is attempting something Indian pop hasn’t really seen in the modern era: a homegrown boy band built for a generation raised on global fandom culture but eager for something that feels closer to home.

From strangers to ‘Passengers’: how OutStation is redefining the boy band dream for a generation seeking a safe, local pop universe

A year ago, they were strangers. Today, they have performed for thousands, built a devoted fan community known as the Passengers, travelled across India on the Homecoming Bus and Homecoming, an EP that captures both where they come from and where they hope to go next.

For the band, however, home is no longer just a place. “Home to us will always be our roots and the families we come from,” OutStation says. “But it’s also become the dream that we’re chasing together as a band. And it’s our Passengers too. When we’re on stage, they feel like an extension of us.”

If the songs feel personal, that’s because they capture a period when almost everything in their lives was changing at once. “There have been a lot of moments where we’ve looked around and thought, ‘okay, this is actually happening,’” the band says. “Our first-ever prom in Mumbai was definitely one of the biggest. It ended up becoming the location for our first music video too. Around 300 people bought tickets to come and see us before we even had a song out.”

That early faith from audiences became one of the defining themes of OutStation’s first year. Fans showed up before there was a catalogue to stream or a hit song to sing along to. The scale of that support only grew. “Then suddenly we found ourselves performing for 10,000 people in Guwahati,” the band recalls. “That felt unreal. And after that, spending two weeks travelling across 10 cities on a bus together really cemented the feeling that this wasn’t just a project anymore. It felt like a real band.”

What makes OutStation particularly interesting is that they aren’t presenting a finished version of themselves. They’re still discovering who they are in public. The band’s music reflects that openness. “We all have our own ideas and influences that we bring into different sessions,” they explain. “Sometimes only two are in a room because those two have a strong sense of what they want to make. Other times all five of us are there building something together. We also work with producers and composers who help shape our ideas even further.” Rather than chasing a fixed sound, they’re embracing the process of finding one. “It’s iterative more than anything. The OutStation sound is still evolving. We’re figuring it out as we go.”

That sense of discovery extends far beyond the music. If there was one experience that accelerated everything, it was the Homecoming Bus Tour. The journey took the band across the country, connecting them with fans, collaborators and communities while also making them to spend nearly every hour together. And that’s when the little things started coming to light. “We’ve lived together for a year and somehow we never knew this,” the band laughs. “But every single morning, Bhuvan needs lemon juice. Doesn’t matter where we are. Doesn’t matter what time it is. Six in the morning, first thing he’s doing is calling room service asking for lemon juice.”

What started as a random observation quickly became an insight. “At first we were genuinely confused. We’d be like, ‘Why are you asking for lemons right now?’ But then we realised it’s just part of his routine. Those are the things you only learn about someone when you’re travelling together every day.”

The road also revealed another unexpected development: dance. “A year ago, we couldn’t dance at all,” they admit. “But we’ve been training for a while now and we’ve all started improving. Before every performance we’d call each other into somebody’s hotel room and spend time practising choreography together.”

Food became another recurring theme. “We basically survived on junk food,” they admit. “There were roadside dhabas, random snacks, whatever we could find. Then we’d get hampers from schools or venues and the second someone opened theirs, everyone else started opening theirs too.” Those hampers rarely lasted long. “They’d disappear in a couple of hours.”

Yet some food memories carried a little more meaning than others. “There was a girl from Guwahati who had moved to Ahmedabad for college,” they recall. “We’d made a reel talking about Kaji nemu and when we performed in Ahmedabad, she actually brought some for us. It sounds like a small thing but moments like that stay with you because you realise people are paying attention to all the little details.”

For all its excitement, however, tour life wasn’t always glamorous. “And honestly, parts of it were incredible. You wake up and you’re suddenly in a completely different city. That’s amazing. But by the end of it we were all exhausted too.” The schedule could be relentless. “Sometimes we had to leave at five in the morning. Sometimes we’d only be going to sleep at five in the morning. Most of us got sick at some point because sleeping on a moving bus isn’t exactly easy.”

Even so, those are the memories they treasure most. “We’d stay up with the production team in hotel rooms, talking, writing, jamming and just hanging out. It was exhausting, but it was also really special.” Then comes the realisation that seems to matter most. “We’re never going to be this age again, travelling around the country with our best friends on a tour bus. That’s something we’ll remember for the rest of our lives.”

The phrase ‘boy band’ comes with plenty of assumptions.Choreography, polished images, coordinated aesthetics and carefully managed personas are all part of the package. “There isn’t really a blueprint for what we’re doing,” they say. “We’re fans of bands like One Direction, CORTIS and so many others. But who we are is OutStation. That’s different.”

The band sees its identity as a reflection of the country itself. “There isn’t a singular identity that can represent us because there isn’t a singular identity that can represent India. We’re a mix of different cultures, influences and experiences. That’s what makes it exciting.”

Without a roadmap, every step becomes an experiment. “We’re paving the road and walking on it at the same time. Sometimes we stumble off it and sometimes we race ahead. But every day is a different challenge.” Most importantly, they’re determined to stay authentic. “The second we try to become too choreographed or too polished for something that isn’t us, it stops feeling like OutStation. We’re chaotic and we won’t change that.”

That authenticity has become one of the band’s biggest strengths, especially among younger listeners. While music remains the centrepiece, OutStation has always seen itself as something larger than a collection of songs. “We always wanted to create a safe space for teenagers in India,” the band says. “When we were growing up, most of the artistes we listened to were from the West. We loved them, but there wasn’t really an Indian fandom that felt like ours. We didn’t have something close to home that we could be part of.”

Today, that idea shapes much of what they do. “We want people to feel like they’re part of this journey with us.” That sense of inclusion extends to social media, where much of the band’s personality shines through. “A lot of what people see online is just raw and unfiltered stuff that our crew is constantly capturing,” they say. “There are so many hard drives filled with random moments from tour, rehearsals and everyday life.” The content isn’t carefully manufactured. “When we make skits or reels, it’s usually because we want to connect with certain people or certain places and give our own take on it.”

Even musically, the exploration is far from over. “We’re still far away from expressing everything we want to express,” the band says. “There’s a classical influence on Homecoming. Khoya is this fun road-trip singalong. One of our next songs has a full dance routine and another one might be electronic. We’re still discovering our sound.”

Looking back, the band says the biggest lesson has been learning balance. “There’s a time to run and there’s a time to sit back too. We’ll spend two weeks together every second of every day and then suddenly nobody hears from any of us for a few days.”

Only a year into the journey, their ambitions remain enormous. “The goal is stratospheric,” they say. “The things and places we want to find ourselves in are absurd, so we take everything as it comes.”

Rapid Fire:

1. Who takes the aux, and who absolutely shouldn’t?

Shayan takes the cord and Shayan shouldn’t.

2. One snack that became a tour essential?

These baked chips we got from a school.

3. Who is the biggest menace during travel?

Shayan forgets his things and is mostly late.

4. A song everyone in the band knows by heart?

Any One Direction song and Beauty and the Beat.

Mail ID: anshula.u@newindianexpress.com

Twitter: @indulgexpress

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