unaid Khan is one busy fella. Having conquered the fields of singing and acting, the performer makes sure he remains present on both our screens and our stereos. He recently appeared in the film Kahay Dil Jidhar, then starred in the Ramadan special television drama Hum Tum, and has now released a new single, ‘Yadaan’, a song that he says is very close to his heart.

“‘Yadaan’ is about a character who is missing his partner and is a little bitter,” the singer tells Instep. “It’s a sad, romantic song. It’s basically about longing, missing someone, and feeling that he’ll burn all his thoughts trying to get over her.”

The track was composed by Mehroze Gilani, whom Junaid describes as, “a wonderful music producer from Lahore from the latest Gen Z generation”.

“I wanted to do something very current in terms of the music arrangement and I wanted to experiment with the electronic genre,” he elaborates, “so I sat down with Mehroze and we created ‘Yadaan’. It’s a genre that I wanted to work in and I think my team has done a good job with it.”

The video for the single has been directed by Sadiq Azeem and stars actress Hira Mani alongside the singer as his love interest. While trying to think of a concept that goes beyond the typical, Junaid and the team at his recently launched production house, Jeem Films, came up with a plot that revolves around action and thrill, genres that the singer thinks are relatively unexplored in Pakistan.

“The protagonist, portrayed by me, is a guy who is maybe an undercover agent or maybe from the forces – we’ve left it open to the audience’s perception – a guy who has secrets – important, state secrets – and a woman is sent to honey trap him,” Junaid explains. “She lures him and extracts secrets out of him, and then plans to execute him. Agents are sent to do that, I fight with and defeat the agents, and then it dawns on me that Hira’s character has betrayed me in love. She is so daring that she then says that if you find peace by killing your loved one even if she betrayed you, then fine, do it. So that is the story we came up with.”

When asked about Hira Mani, Junaid has nothing but praise for the actress, saying she was ideal for the role and a pleasure to work with. “When me, the director, and the production team were discussing this character, we needed someone we could rely on in terms of performance, of course, as well as someone who has visibility and is also beautiful. The name that came to my mind was Hira’s. She’s a wonderful human being; she’s a friend of mine. Also, she’s an amazing actress. So I asked Hira and she was kind enough to accept this. And I remember it was very hot that day and she was also exhausted because of a prior shoot, but still she made it and gave her best, and it shows onscreen. I am very thankful to her for doing this with me, and it’s always been a great experience working with her.”

As for the singer’s long-awaited debut album, Junaid doesn’t have plans to release a full-length record at the moment, as, like many other popstars, he is focusing on singles which he one day hopes to compile into a set. “Even with Call it was all about narrating an idea altogether, giving importance to each and every song, and that happened when we took each song as a baby, and performed, explained, and shot the video as a baby. So every song is like a baby to me.

In an album, some songs get neglected, which I really don’t find acceptable because every song that I work on is very thought through, meray apnay dil ki baat hoti hai, which I don’t want to go unheard.”

Speaking of Call, will we be hearing from the band anytime soon? Not quite. “I do not think right now [anything] is in the pipeline because we as artists and individuals are quite occupied with whatever we are doing right now,” Junaid says. “Xulfi has done phenomenal work with Coke Studio so I’m sure he’ll be occupied for the next couple of years with that. I am occupied with my line of work, also Sultan is occupied with his. So in terms of Call I really don’t think something is coming in the near future, unless we plan something really big. So let’s wait and see if that happens.”