The Final 1’s final two

Greetings and salutations, fellow stargazers! Come Wednesday, one of these two people will be a star. Farisha Ishak and Shaun Jansen are the final two contestants who will fight it out to be The Final 1 standing on the reality singing competition stage – and to win the S$50,000 cash prize on top of the S$50,000 recording contract with Hype Records.

Are you voting for the little girl with the big voice or the suave rocker with the big hair? Whatever the outcome, one of them will go home as an also-ran, and one of them will have Ken Lim as his or her boss. Hmm, who wins in this situation, huh? Ha ha, Showbiz Sista is just kidding – but it’s mano-a-mano for Farisha and Shaun now, so no more kidding around!

Final 1 fans, look out for our exclusive Top Two photo shoot and interview coming up in the Aug 20 issue of TODAY. Meanwhile, here’s how Farisha and Shaun are feeling in the lead up to the showdown of their lives – on ‘live’ TV.

Shaun Jansen, 28, marketing executive

How are you preparing for the finale?

Practice. Lots of practice. We managed to speak with Ken for a while… he gave some tips. I also try to watch other singers and how they perform on stage and how they command presence.

What will you do if you win?

If I won the competition, it’s pretty much cut out for me. I’d probably be signing with Hype records. I’m sure they have a plan on how to market me and do music. But if I don’t win, I’ll still definitely be doing music. Throughout the competition, being immersed in music almost 24/7 has given me so much satisfaction that I want to continue doing it for the rest of my life, whether I win or not.

How will you celebrate if you win?

I don’t know, maybe go for a holiday? I think the best thing that I can do now, after the entire competition, is to go to sleep for one whole day or something. If I lose, I’ll still go and sleep for one whole day! Sometimes on Wednesday nights, we leave so late, and we’re so tired because we’ve been doing the show for the whole day, but the adrenaline is so much, you cannot sleep at night. So I go home and it takes me about three hours before I feel sleepy. The sleep patterns have gone a bit off. But it’s okay, it’s still fun.

How has life changed since you’ve garnered so many female fans?

It’s nice to know there are female fans out there and quite a number of them who like me. It’s fun. But at the end of the day, I still want to set out to become a musician who’s recognised for my music and not just for the way I look or how I appeal to girls. At the same time, like Ken said, it’s not a bad thing, right? If it helps in the marketing, yeah, why not? I’m really happy about it.

Are you still in your band, Supernova?

I’m still in the band, yeah. My band consists of friends from secondary school. I play events and all that. We managed to get some overseas gigs here and there – we played in Africa once for the Youth Olympic Games. We played New Years’ in Hong Kong last year at a bar – they invited us. So it’s going pretty good.

What does the band think of your joining The Final 1?

The funny thing is, there were quite a number of people who asked me to join the competition. I was thinking about it, but I was like, ‘It’s a solo singer thing. I’m not so into that thing.’ But the deciding factor that actually made me join in was my band members because they were the ones who said, ‘You should go for it’. I’m not too sure about their levels of commitment or drive towards doing music full time, so we always tell people that it’s a very serious hobby. I don’t know if it’s enough to go professional. These guys know that I see it as something that I could turn into my career. So I think that’s the reason they asked me to just try and go for this, because you never know what might happen. Once I reached the top 5, I spoke to them and what came out of that was, I think they asked me to go ahead with it. From what I remember. I mean, we discussed it. And it’s okay, if I do win, I should go ahead and see what the industry is like. And if it still doesn’t work out, the band’s always there.

Farisha Ishak, 19, student

Have you been singing to your friends for practice?

Well, no because I haven’t really seen many of my friends, actually, because I’ve been home most of the time. So it’s normally just to my family. Yeah, they bear the brunt of it, I guess!

How do you see the finals playing out?

I don’t really have a strategy but I know I’m going to go into the finals with just one thing in mind, and that is my performance. So my main aim is to just put up a good show. If it’s good enough, it’s good enough; if it’s not, then it’s all right because I know that I did my best.

How much do you really want to be the Final 1?

I think there’s no amount that I could put on it because I really do want this and apparently it wasn’t obvious at the start, especially, but now I feel that I’m really showing that I want it, because it’s at such a late stage and, like I said, there’s no amount that I can put on it because I really do want it, but I could just basically tell you that I’m really putting all of myself into this and I’ve never wanted anything as much as I do now.

When I first joined the competition, I didn’t even think about winning it… I wanted to see how far I could go, because I’ve never done anything like this before. I’ve never entered a singing competition before. But then as things got serious and I started realising that I could actually win this, that’s when I really put all of myself into this competition and nothing else mattered after that.

You didn’t think you would end up in the Final two?

No. Because from the start, this competition has been really unpredictable, especially with the voting and everything. So that’s why I’ve been telling everyone who asks – I mean, if they ask me, ‘Do you feel that the next week you’re going to get voted out?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, of course, because it’s so unpredictable’. When you’re standing on that podium, the only that’s on my mind is, ‘How do I phrase my goodbye speech?’ Because you really don’t know. So you have to be prepared for everything.

If you do win, what will you do?

If I win or don’t win, I know which direction I’m going to go (in). I foresee myself doing both music and studies as well. And if I do win, then I would assume the opportunities would be bigger than if I don’t.

What kind of artist would you like to be?

I really like the soul and R&B genre so I think I would want to explore that genre more. Especially in the Singapore music industry, I don’t think that that genre has been explored much. There haven’t been many artists in that genre because I think the Singapore music industry is somewhat leaning towards the indie genre. So I would like that think that I could introduce something new to the music industry. And beyond Singapore, I aim to expand into perhaps Malaysia or Indonesia, regionally, first. I don’t know – these things could be limitless, so I would definitely love to go international as well.

Catch the finale of The Final 1 on Aug 21 at 8pm on MediaCorp TV Channel 5.