The Inside Track to Shirley Setia

May 11, 2017

Belting out soul-stirring tunes to popular songs Shirley Setia was barely 17 when she aired her first cover. Now 21, Shirley is at the helm of a speedily blossoming music career.
Swiftly switching between English and immaculate Hindi, the Indo-Kiwi singer talks to us about her music journey.

Tell us about growing up in New Zealand and your tryst with Hindi.

New Zealand is actually a very friendly place and everyone’s quite nice to each other. There we always converse in Hindi at home so I’m very comfortable with it.

Growing up, I’ve always been someone who has a small circle of close friends who are like family rather than having a lot of friends. That’s something that hasn’t changed. However, I do share a lot of things with my fans now, who are my extended family.

How long does it take you to shoot a music video?

Well it depends on the quality of music video. If you’re starting out- all you need is your phone or a laptop webcam, which is how I started out.

But moving on to professional videos, you will have a lot of people working on it with you. Now, my videos take well over two weeks, as I’m producing original content. So naturally you want to put in all the effort to make it the best audio, video version of that song.

Are you a one-take wonder?

Oh, I’ve actually had to reshoot a lot of my videos. Particularly when shooting outdoors in Auckland. There’s always a cat that ambles across the street behind you, a car rushing by or even passersby.

I remember my song Baarish was actually shot in a reserve. So there were lots of people jogging or walking their dogs. We were taking a wide-angle shot for the song, so we had to wait a long while for people to literally walk out of the frame. (Laughs)

A classic fan-girl moment you experienced?

Meeting Arijit Singh recently was a huge fan-girl moment for me. I got to perform right before him on stage and meeting him after had me star struck. I could barely utter a word, but he was very encouraging and asked me to continue the good work that I’m doing. I really enjoyed his concert.

I’m also a big fan of Ed Sheeran and I really look forward to attending one of his concerts.

What’s something about you that most people don’t know?

Oh, I love travelling and it has been my dream to travel the world!
Now I’m slowly starting out with exploring India. Banaras was especially lovely as I’ve always loved the way it’s been picturised in movies. Going down to the ghats at 4 am, taking a beautiful boat ride and lighting diyas was a very special experience.