Abish Mathew: The Funny Man's Journey from Singing into a Mic to Cracking Jokes With It

The Mumbai-based comedian opens up about his early years of being a vocalist before a comic and why he’s featuring independent artists on his talk show ‘Son Of Abish’

- David Britto

Music first

While we might know Mathew for his comedic excellence, he tells us that comedy happened for him much later in his life. Growing up in New Delhi, his first dabble with any art form was actually music. Mathew was involved in a number of bands while studying at Fr. Agnel School – most notably a group called Lithium X in which he was the lead vocalist. He says, “There was something called the Pepsi Storm which was the flagship [event] at our time. We used to rehearse day in and day out and perform and win most of the time because we had a really strong instrumental backing.” While he tells us that his band members were heavily influenced by American hard rock band Van Halen, he confesses with a laugh, “I’m coming from a family who never used to listen to music except for Jim Reeves during Christmas. My musical taste was later defined by my band members.”

In the early noughties, after being inspired by bands such as Bengaluru rockers Thermal and a Quarter, New Delhi rock outfit Parikrama, pop group Euphoria and Mumbai erstwhile rock bands Zero and Helga’s Fun Castle, Mathew felt that even he could form a successful band. “We were like, ‘These guys are doing it so we can do it,’” he says.