List of Pakistani music bands

Pakistan's music band scene was discovered in the 60s. The Panthers, a Karachi-based band founded in the late 60s, consisted of Norman Braganza, Fasahat Husain Syed, Eric Fernandes and Syed Ahsan Sajjad. The Panthers recorded two albums: 'Folk Tunes of Pakistan on Electric Sitar and Western Instruments' and 'East Goes West,' both released by EMI Pakistan. The Panthers disbanded in the early 70s when one of the band members left the country to settle overseas after Pakistan's authoritarian regime gained momentum.
The rise of musical bands in Pakistan began in the 1980s when cassettes first came into Pakistan bringing in a wave of Western rock music. Western-influenced rock music began to feature in underground concerts all across the country. In the 1980s, rock bands Vital Signs and Strings rose in defiance of the authoritarian regime and gained immense popularity amongst the youth. Vital Signs is widely regarded as Pakistan's first and most successful pop-rock band. Their single "Dil Dil Pakistan" was voted the third most popular song of all time in a BBC World poll in 2003, and is also called Pakistan's "pop national anthem". Despite being active since the late 80s, Strings attained widespread popularity after the release of their second album in 1992. The band went on to sell over 25 million albums worldwide. Junoon, Aaroh, and Noori followed suit in the 1990s.
Junoon pioneered the genre of Sufi rock, combining the poetry of famous Sufi poets such as Rumi, Hafez, and Bulleh Shah with the hard rock band of Led Zeppelin and Santana and South Asian percussion such as the tabla. Junoon is one of Pakistan's and South Asia's most successful bands with over 30 million albums sold worldwide; The New York Times called Junoon "the U2 of Pakistan" and Q magazine dubbed them as "One of the biggest bands in the world". Junoon became the first rock band to perform at the United Nations General Assembly Hall and only the second Pakistani act to perform at a Nobel Peace Prize Concert.
The early 2000s saw the arrival of progressive metal, progressive rock, and psychedelic rock with bands such as Entity Paradigm and Mizraab. Mekaal Hasan Band, Call, Karavan, Jal, Roxen, Mizmaar, and Qayaas also exploded onto the music scene with different brands of rock including alternative and soft rock. The television series Pepsi Battle of the Bands was instrumental in launching Entity Paradigm, Aaroh, and the Mekaal Hasan Band, all of whom competed in the inaugural edition of the show in 2002.
The resumption of the Pepsi Battle of the Bands in 2017 after almost 15 years, heralded the resurgence of Pakistani rock with the rise of Kashmir band, Bayaan, and Badnaam.
Although the heavy metal genre began to rise in popularity after the 1997 general elections, Pakistani heavy metal music can be traced back to the new wave of British heavy metal of the 1980s and 1990s with bands such as Black Warrant, Final Cut, and Barbarians. In recent years, numerous heavy and black metal bands including Overload, Saturn, Saakin, Karakoram, Burq – The Band, Taarma, The Nuke, and Aag have amassed followings in this niche rock music in Pakistan.
In 1986, the Vital Signs released its first single "", which became an ultimate success and the band built its reputation in Pakistan's underground music industry. The rock music bands and trios came to be perceived by many Pakistani fans and country's cultural observers as a "promising new era of cultural revival". Their enormous popularity significantly opened a new wave of music and a modern chapter in the history of Pakistan.
In the 1980s, rock bands including the Strings, The Barbarians, The Final Cut, Jupiters, Junoon, and Vital Signs gained a lot of public appraisal and popularity; the public opinion was generally positive and welcomed the bands for their uniqueness. NTM, launched a show titled Music Channel Charts to highlight new talent every week due to popular youth demand.
Vital Signs were followed by Junoon, Awaz, Strings, Karawan, and Jupiters, all of whom had exploded the pop, rock and heavy metal music genre in the country, bringing the significant shift of country's transformation into modernism during the 1990s. The Pakistani rock further matured itself and gained public appraisal with the arrival of American satellite television in the 1990s. The popular form of music quickly spread throughout the country and with that came the arrival of various rock bands in the 1990s. Early rock bands such as Vital Signs and Junoon are regarded as the pioneers of Pakistan's rock music. Other bands such as Strings began in the mid 1990s and during the late 1990s underground bands were becoming a norm in cities across Pakistan. In a short span of time, the Western-influenced rock bands gained enormous popularity and were generally welcomed by the public. The Music Channel Charts aired to NTM became the first pop/rock music entity that used to give ratings to pop/rock bands and singers. Music '89 was the first ever all pop/rock music stage-show to be aired on PTV.
Cities such as Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad witnessed an explosion of rock bands and concerts in 2000 as Pakistan began to liberalize under President Musharraf's "enlightened moderation" campaign. In 2002, a major shift in the rock music of Pakistan occurred with the arrival of the Pepsi Battle of the Bands, which saw bands like Aaroh, Mizraab, Entity Paradigm and Mekaal Hasan Band appear onto the scene. Finally, Pakistan saw good rock music, with respectable instrument playing.
Vital Signs emerged during a time in which Pakistan was embracing Islamization. With the rise of Vital Signs and later, Junoon and others, the rock music, exploded in the 1980s and 1990s, became a vehicle for expressing patriotic nationalist spirit in Pakistan. Undoubtedly, the rock music has been one major influential force which has truly kept the national spirits high amidst the prevailing social woes which had worsened in since the 1980s, such music included songs like "Dil Dil Pakistan", Jazba Junoon, Jaago and many more.
In 1980, such Western ideas were denounced in the country, and the film industry was deteriorating quick to compete with counterrevolution of Indian film industry. According to the editorial written in The Express Tribune in 2011, the "Vital Signs and Pakistan's ingenious rock music was the only "arsenal" the country had against India's encroaching entertainment industry."
Several popular bands, including EP, Call, and Noori, have been integral in revitalizing the rock culture in Pakistan.
After the successful emergence of Vital Signs in the 1980s and Junoon in the 1990s, the heavy metal music genre began to rise after the 1997 general elections. Black Warrant was one of the earliest heavy metal band that released its very first album in the public. The roots of Pakistani heavy metal music can be traced back to the new wave of British heavy metal when it was transferred in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In the 1980s, the bands Final Cut and Barbarians are considered the earliest Pakistani heavy metal bands. Although they were short-lived, they influenced many other musicians. Guitarist Salman Ahmad gained fame for his unique style of playing Sufi-style and neoclassical kinds of music in heavy metal form.
The second wave of heavy metal artists, comprising bands such as Dhun, which was Fawad Baloch's more conventional metal project, Blackhour, Ehl-e-Rock, Inferner, and Black Warrant, still continues to promote the genre. The most notable and productive work on the heavy metal genre was bestowed and carried out by Mizraab, whose Panchi album was an ultimate success in this genre. Guitarist Faraz Anwar of Mizraab's solo instrumental work is widely noticed by the public and news channels dubbed Anwar as "Pakistan's master of progressive-metal rock." In recent studies and reports conducted by CNN, heavy metal is one of Pakistan's most popular genres of music, and country's radio FMs broadcast the music each week. Since 2004, the economic liberalisation programmes of Prime minister Shaukat Aziz which helped open the new Pakistan TV and several music video channels, have triggered the underground heavy metal movements in cities such as Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad.
Although Mizraab, a band led by Faraz Anwar that is considered to be Pakistan's first progressive metal band, have also played a significant role in promoting the growth of metal music in Pakistan. Furthermore, bands such as Jehangir Aziz Hayat, Takatak, Messiah and Foreskin are examples of significant metal bands that have surfaced in the past five years.
In 2002, Atif Aslam and Goher Mumtaz formed rock band Jal. The band released Aadat and it became a major hit in South Asia. It was recreated many times. It was also used in the 2005 Hollywood film Man Push Cart. However, Atif left the band and Farhan Saeed joined the band.
In 2003 Saif Samjo formed a Sufi rock band named “The Sketches”. Which is still working on his way.Jogi, a song by Pakistani sufi-rock band The Sketches has been nominated for Best Song in the World Beat category at the New Mexico Music Awards. Jogi is the first single from the forthcoming full-length album of The Sketches, the track was recorded in Pakistan and USA and features a guest appearance by Grammy Award winning harmonica player John Popper and is produced by Jono Manson.
In Pepsi Battle of Bands, four bands rose to popularity. The first band is Aaroh formed in 1998 in Karachi is an alternative rock band. The name was given to it by Shoaib Mansoor. Kamran Khan was the founder of the band. It gained fame from Pepsi Battle of Bands by performing songs like Sawaal, Aag Ki Tarhan. It released two studio albums in 2003 and 2013 respectively. Aaroh released 'Jeet' in February 2018, a tribute to the Pakistan Super League.
The second band that gained fame was an alternative metal band 'Entity Paradigm' that was formed in 2000 in Lahore by Zulfiqar Jabbar Khan. In the Pakistani music industry, it's one of the pioneering mainstream rock bands. It disbanded in 2007 but reunited in 2009.
Kashmir was the third band in this series, The 2012 formed alternative rock band from Karachi, and also the winner of Pepsi Battle of Bands Season 2. The band has also won the Lux Style Award in 2017 for Best Emerging Talent 2017 for the song 'Kaaghaz Ka Jahaaz'. Badnaam is the last band of the series. It was formed in 2009 in Lahore. The name of the Sufi band was inspired from Bulleh Shah's poetry.Hassan & Roshaan is one of the new emerging duo/band with there major hit of the song Doobne de
This is a list of music bands in Pakistan. The list contains bands with their origin year, origin city, genres, labels, and the present and old members arranged alphabetically.

Current bands

Band	Image	Origin year	Origin city	Genre	Label	Members	Refs
Aaroh	—	1998	Karachi	Alternative rock, Pop rock, Power pop	Sadaf Stereo, Sangeet Records, The Musik Records, Independent	Farooq Ahmad, Khalid Khan, Jason Anthony, Haider Hashimi, Nabeel Nihal Chishty, Kamran Khan, Adnan Hussain, Rizwan Anwar
Badnaam		2009	Lahore	Grunge, Sufi rock	PepsiCo Pakistan	Ahmed Jilani, Lala Ahsan, Raheem Shahbaz Sunny
Bayaan	—	2014	Lahore	Alternative, progressive, folk, pop, rock	Rearts Records	Asfar Hussain, Shahrukh Aslam, Muqeet Shahzad, Mansoor Lashari, Haider Abbas
Beygairat Brigade	—	2011	Lahore	Rock music	Curosity	Ali Aftab Saeed, Daniyal Malik, Hamza Malik
Call	—	1994	Lahore	Rock music	Sadaf Stereo, Fire Records	Junaid Khan, Zulfiqar Jabbar Khan, Sultan Raja, Waqar Khan, Omer Pervaiz, Danish Jabbar Khan, Nadeem, Sunny, Usman Nasir, Shahzad Hameed, Khurram Jabbar Khan
Entity Paradigm		2000	Lahore	Progressive metal, Heavy meral, Alternative metal, Nu metal, Rapcore	Lips music, Independent, Rearts Records	Ahmed Ali Butt, Fawad Khan, Zulfiqar Jabbar Khan, Sajjad Ali, Hassaan Khalid, Salman Albert, Abid Khan, Waqar Ahmed Khan
Esta Livio		2006	Lahore	Progressive rock, Alternative rock	Sadaf Stereo	Hasan Shahid, Hamza Maqsood, Sheraz Arif, Rehan Akhtar
E Sharp	—	2005	Karachi	Alternative rock, Indie rock, Funk rock, Blues rock, Comedy rock, Pop rock	Silent roar, E Sharp	Ahmed Zawar, Anwaar Ahmed, Qumber Kazmi, Asher Minhas Damanwala, Rajil Anthony, Zia Zaidi, Imran Saleem
Furqan and Imran		2013	Karachi	Pop, rock, Classical	Flash and Bang Productions	Imran Butt, Furqan Tunio, Anas Imtiaz
Fuzön		2001	Karachi	Pop, Pop rock	Sound Master, The Musik Records	Imran Momina, Khurram Iqbal, Shallum Asher Xavier, Rameez Mukhtar, Shafqat Amanat Ali
Ismail and Junaid	—	2010	Peshawar	Pashto, Alternative folk, Sufi	Shoaib Anwar	Ismail Khan, Junaid Javed
Jal		2002	Lahore	Pop, Pop rock, Alternative rock	Sadaf Stereo, Fire Records, Tips Music, Universal Music	Goher Mumtaz, Ali Khan, Amir Azhar, Salman Albert, Atif Aslam, Farhan Saeed, Aamir Sheraz, Omer Nadeem
Junoon		1990	Lahore	Sufi rock, Psychedelic rock, Hard rock, Heavy metal	Sadaf Stereo, EMI Records, Lips Music, Universal Music	Ali Azmat, Salman Ahmad, Brian O'Connel, Taylor Simpson, Nusrat Hussain
Justin Bibis	—	2015	Lahore	Pop music	Coke Studio	Saania, Muqaddas Tabaydar
Karavan		1997	Karachi	Hard rock, Heavy metal	VCI Records, Sound Master, ARY Musik Records, Karavan Catalog Ltd	Asad Ahmed, Sameer Ahmed, Allan Smith, Tanseer Ahmed Daar, Najam Sheraz
Kashmir	—	2012	Karachi	Alternative rock, Indie rock	PepsiCo Pakistan, Rearts Records	Bilal Ali, Vais Khan, Usman Siddique, Ali Raza, Zair Zaki, Shane J. Anthony
Khumariyaan	—	2009	Peshawar	Pop, Folk, Ethnic	Fire Records	Aamer Shafiq, Farhan Bogra, Shiraz Khan, Sparlay Rawail
Laal		2008	Lahore	Sufi rock, Progressive rock, Alternative rock	Fire Records, Times Music India	Taimur Rahman, Mahvash Waqar, Haider Rahman, Shahram Azhar
		2006	Karachi	Pop Rock, Fusion, Multi-Genre	Fire Records, Universal Music India	Glenn Silverious John, Mohsin Allahditta, Sayyam Rana
Mekaal Hasan Band		2000	Lahore	Alternative rock, Sufi rock, Jazz	EMI Records, MHB Music, Sadaf Stereo	Mekaal Hasan, Mohammad Ahsan Papu, Sharmistha Chatterjee, Sheldon D'Silva, Gino Banks, Agha Ibrahim Akram, Amir Azhar, Asad Abbas, Riaz Ali Khan, Sameer Ahmed, Javed Bashir, Kami Paul
Mizmaar		2000	Karachi	Rock, Indie rock, Indie pop, Pop-rock, Fusion	Dreamstation Productions, Universal Music	Kashan Admani, Alfred D'Mello
Mizraab		1997	Karachi	Progressive rock, Progressive metal, Classical rock	Sound Master, Sadaf Stereo	Muhammad Muzammil, Faraz Anwar, Irfan Ahmad, Ferdinand Goveas
Naseer & Shahab	—	2010	Khyber Pakhtunkhawa	Soft rock, Alternative rock	Rearts Records	Naseer Afridi, Shahab Qamat
Noori		1996	Lahore	Alternative rock, Pop rock, Sufi rock	Sadaf Stereo, BIY Records	Ali Noor, Ali Hamza, Kami Paul, Salman Albert, Farhad Humayun, Murtaza Jaffar, Muhammad Ali Jafri, Louis J. Pinto
Overload	—	2003	Lahore	Instrumental rock, Experimental rock, Classical music, Psychedelic rock, fusion	BMN Records, Riot Records, Universal Music	Farhan Humayun, Aziz Ibrahim, Nasir Sain, Pappu Sain, Jhura Sain, Hassan Mohyeddin, Mahmood Rahman, Meesha Shafi
Raeth	—	2006	Karachi	Sufi rock	Universal Music, Fire Records, T-Series	Wajhi Farooqi, Sunny Ghamsham, Mustafa Asad, Hasan Farabi
Rage	—	1986	Lahore	Pop, rock	Sadaf Stereo, Lips Records, Gladiator Records	Salman Haidery, Christopher, Amir Ajmal, Murad Hassan, Ahmer Kenneth, Ali Raza, Haseeb Gora, Amir Abbas
Rizwan-Muazzam [Qawwali Group\|Rizwan-Muazzam]	—	1990	Lahore	Qawwal	Real World Records, Real World Studios, Narada Productions	Rizwan, Muazzam
Rushk	—	2000	Karachi	Rock, Jazz, Funk rock, R&B, Gothic rock, Dark rock	Sound Master, Independent	Tara Mahmood, Ziyaad Gulzar, Sikandar Mufti, Ali Jafri, Uns Mufti, Nazia Zuberi
Sabri Brothers		1956	Kalyana	Qawwali	EMI Records, Arion, Auvidis, UNESCO, Real World, Piranha, Oriental Star Agencies, Xenophile, Sirocco, Nonesuch	Mehmood Ghaznavi Sabri, Ghulam Farid Sabri, Kamal Ahmed Khan Sabri, Maqbool Ahmed Sabri, Amjad Fareed Sabri
Sajid & Zeeshan	—	2003	Peshawar	Electronica, Alternative rock, Ambient	EMI Records	Sajid Ghafoor, Zeeshan Parwez
Saturn	—	2003	Islamabad	Progressive rock, Progressive metal, Groove metal	Independent, Bandcamp, Tunecore	Shahbaz Zaidi, Salman Zaidi, Aashir, Shahbaz Asad, Usman, Rawal Shadab, Ahamad
Sikandar Ka Mandar	—	2010	Karachi	Indie music	Silent Roar Productions, 4inabillion Records, Elements Media	Nadir Shahzad Khan, Ali Suhail, Daud Ramay, Zahra Paracha
Strings		1988	Karachi	Pop rock	EMI Records, Fire Records, Sony BMG	Faisal Kapadia, Bilal Maqsood, Adeel Ali, Haider Ali, Aahad Nayani, Bradley D' Souza, Rafiq Wazir Ali, Kareem Bashir Bhoy, Shakir Khan
Topi Drama	—	2010	Lahore	Rock	Independent	Sohail Qureshi, Arafat Mazhar, Kenny Zeerick
The Kominas		2004	Worcester, Massachusetts, United States	Punk rock, Funck rock, Taqwacore, Alternative rock	Independent	Basim Usmani, Shahjehan Khan, Karna Ray, Hassan Ali Malik, Arjun Ray, Imran Ali Malik, Abdullah Saeed	-
The Sketches	—	2003	Jamshoro	Sufi rock, Psychedelic rock, Hard rock, Alternative rock	Lahooti Records, Fire Records, Rearts Records	Saif Samejo, Nomi Ali, Owais Shaikh, Roshan Sharma, Naeem Shah
Aag	—	2005	Lahore	Alternative/Pop-Rock/Synth band	Velo Sound Station	Haroon Sheikh, Usman Sheikh

Past bands

Band	Image	Period	Origin city	Genre	Label	Members	Refs
Atish Raj	—	1994–2007	Karachi	Industrial rock, Progressive rock, Art rock	Oriental Star Agencies	Nadeem F. Paracha, Rome K, Kashif Caan, Zeeshan Parwez
Aunty Disco Project		2006–2011	Karachi	Indie rock, Indie pop, Pop rock, Alternative rock	Independent	Omar Bilal Akhtar, Yasir Qureshi, Ali Alam, Rahail Siddiqui, Giles Goveas
Awaz	—	1992–2000	Karachi	Pop rock	EMI Records, BMG Records, Lips Music Records	Haroon, Faakhir Mehmood, Asad Ahmed
Jupiters	—	1980–1995	Lahore	Pop rock	Oriental Star Agencies, EMI Pakistan, Thar Production	Ali Azmat, Sahir Ali Bagga, Shahzad Ahmed, Bilal Hafeez, Irfan Kiani, Amir Munawar, Shakir Awan, Tahir Saqi, Kanan Rashid, Danny Williams, Ajay
Nazia and Zoheb	-	1980–1992	Karachi	Pop music, Pakistani pop, Indie pop	EMI Records	Nazia Hassan, Zoheb Hassan
Qayaas		2008–2016	Islamabad	Progressive rock, Progressive metal, Alternative rock	BIY Records	Umair Jaswal, Khurram Waqar, Rahail Siddiqui, Asfendyar Ahmad, Sarmad Abdul Ghafoor, Salman "Fifu" Rafique
Roxen	—	2004–2018	Lahore	Alternative rock, Pop rock	T-Series, Sony BMG, Universal Music India, Saregama, Zee Music, Fire Records	Mustafa Zahid, Haider Halim, Shahan Khan, Jawad, Omar Halim
The Milestones		1990–1996	Karachi	Pop rock	Visible Changes, Sound Master	Ziyyad Gulzar, Ali Tim, Candy Pereira
Vital Signs	—	1983–2013	Rawalpindi	Pop rock, Hard rock, Progressive rock	EMI Pakistan, VCI Records, PTV Studios, Pepsi Pakistan Inc.	Junaid Jamshed, Rohail Hyatt, Shahzad Hassan, Nusrat Hussain, Salman Ahmad, Rizwan-ul-Haq, Aamir Zaki
Zeb and Haniya	—	2007–2014	Kohat	Pop rock, Alternative rock, Sufi rock, Folk rock, Classical music, Blues	Fire Records, True Brew Records	Zebunnisa Bangash, Haniya Aslam
Above	—	2000–2010	Karachi	Pop rock, Metal, Classic Rock, Rock, Alternative Rock, Blues	Independent	Shoaib Khan, Ali Abbas Alavi, Humayun Ghias, Tabraiz Ghazi, Lenny Massey