Vital Signs (Urdu: وائٹل سائنز) were a Pakistani pop and rock band formed in Rawalpindi in 1986 by two Peshawar University students.

[1] The band's popular lineup consisted of keyboardist Rohail Hyatt, bassist Shahzad Hasan, guitarist Nusrat Hussain and vocalist Junaid Jamshed.

[2] The band built its reputation playing in university campuses and underground rock music concerts held in different parts of the country, before being noticed by PTV performing art section director Shoaib Mansoor.

[2] The success of their second album marked the international prominence of the band, first traveling to the United States to perform, becoming the first Pakistani music act to go abroad on a tour.

In 1987, Jamshed joined his engineering university's rock band, Nuts and Bolt, as a lead vocalist and performed at Flashman's Hotel in Rawalpindi.

Shahi attributes the name of band to when his older sister, who had just gone to medical university, told them: "This term of how you check the vital signs of life in a person".

[9] The rock music jolted the country in a time when the ultra-conservative regime of President General Zia-ul-Haq was reigning supreme as dictator masquerading as "democratically elected".

[9] The country's major urban music media centres saw a quiet but certain outpouring of brand new rock bands who wanted to sound somewhat different from the time's top pop-rock scions.

[9] Around 1985–87, the band gained national recognition and was offered a music video, by Rana Kanwal who was a producer at the PTV Studio.

She called Rohail Hyatt and asked the band to compose the classical poem of Parveen Shakir into a rock music video.

[6] But unlike their other young contemporaries, Vital Signs performances included ambitious and bold cover songs of famous western bands like Pink Floyd, Rush and a-ha, apart from the usual popular Pakistani film-pop music at that time.

[7] It was released in the summer of 1987 as a video directed by Shoaib Mansoor, in which the Vital Signs are shown singing the song over what looked like the lush hills of Islamabad.

[4] However, the allure of instant success and the amount of interest Shoaib was ready to invest in the band kept Rohail and Shahzad going and convinced Junaid to hang around for at least the recording of their first album.

Encouraged by it, especially by Junaid Jamshed, they provided their own inputs and ideas until they completed the tune, Shoaib approved it, and Hyatt composed the music and recorded it.

Most of the new acts were part of the many "youth festivals" that began to do the rounds in Karachi and Lahore, especially after one such show was specially conducted and televised by PTV in late 1989.

The resulting sound emerging from such emotional turmoil and uncertainty was heavily melancholic and introverted ("Rahi", "Yaad Kerna"), suddenly jumping towards thumping anger with the powerful, "Aisa Na Ho".

After performing a number of concerts managed by Rohail's elder brother Zahid, the group headed out with director Shoaib Mansoor to film Guitar '93, a Pepsi-financed venture featuring videos shot all across Pakistan.

The biggest took place at the KMC Stadium in Karachi, a mega-concert headlined by the Signs and also consisting of performances from The Milestones, Awaz and the newly formed rock band, Arsh.

[13] Rizwan was relieved and "shown the door" after which Hyatt chose technical guitar whiz Aamir Zaki to become the band's new lead guitarist.

Zaki was given the impression he was joining the band as a full member, not a session player, but was asked to leave after recording just three songs of the album.

[11] Hyatt later stated that the predominant reason was because Aamir Zaki had criticized David Gilmour's guitar-playing while the band was touring the UK and attending a Pink Floyd concert.

[15] Popularly known as "Queen of Pakistan Pop music", Nazia Hassan tragically died of lung cancer in London, shocking the entire country.

[16] After eleven long years, the members of Vital Signs and Junoon collaborated to release a patriotic song, Naya Pakistan.

[17] Written by Salman Ahmad and Aania Shah featuring Shahzad Hassan on bass guitar, Nusrat Hussain on keyboards, and vocalist Junaid Jamshed.

So when we came up with "Naya Pakistan", I asked him that this is the chance that's not going to come again so finally Junaid accepted the offer with the condition that he will sing only the opening lines with no music at all.

[4] Several bands and artists have cited Vital Signs as an influence or inspiration, including Abbas Ali Khan, Atif Aslam, Jal, Kaavish, Aaroh, SYMT and Fuzön.

[19] 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.

"[19] In a short span of time, the members of Vital Signs gained enormous popularity and were generally welcomed by the public; sometimes named the Beatles of Pakistan.

[2] Whilst Noor Jehan, Abida Parveen, Mehdi Hassan, Salma Agha, and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan remained mostly attached to Pakistan's film industry, the Vital Signs reached out to the regional and young population of the country.

[2] With the rise of Vital Signs and later, Junoon and others, the rock music exploded in the 1990s to become a vehicle for expressing patriotic nationalist spirit in Pakistan.