In real life, the presence of anxiety, excitement, pressure, disappointments, success and heartbreaks are commonplace. The music industry, or any creative industry for that matter, also shares the same vein of collective experiences. Several shows that crawled throughout the pop-culture zeitgeist like Empire, Glee, Mozart in the Jungle, etc have presented the audience several possible scenarios of the life within the music industry, albeit exaggerated and heightened for drama. There are different versions of different stories, and different points of views to examine. But one thing is for sure; their stories are all under one big umbrella of music.

In this special collector’s issue, we highlight and interviewed the American pop boy band In Real Life (a.k.a. IRL) that was formed by the 10-episode ABC TV series, Boy Band which launched last June 2017 and talked about their experiences on the show, touring, being in a band, their album She Do, creating music, and their individual creative journeys. Sergio Calderon, Chance Perez, Drew Ramos, Conor Smith and Brady Tutton spent the day with us for a quick shoot and gave us a glimpse of a day in the life of the budding artists.

Amidst the scream of the fans, the social media likes, the followers, the fame, and the seemingly restless and crazy life of boy bands, in reality, these guys are just as human and relatable as most of us. These are young artists who just want to be heard, who want to be taken seriously, who want freedom of expression, freedom to experiment, freedom to break free as they create while evolving as individuals and as a group. IRL is a group who wants their audience to understand their differences, their strength in their unity, and the collective creative outputs that they share to the world.

These guys are growing, evolving, artists who also gets anxious, excited, pressured, happy, angry, disappointed, tired and joyful. They know their shit, fuhreals. They may be placed on the pedestal of fame and the spotlight of social media but they are grounded and currently traversing their course that you, the reader, the audience, the fans, the producers, the judges, the managers, the people around them, placed on their path to stardom. They are already stars on their own, but they have to claim their own spot to superstardom.