*This article is featured in our October 2025 issue – scroll down to flip through the issue for free or order a collectible print copy here.* 

Soulidified may be one of the newest boy bands on the scene, but their beginnings were anything but typical. Landon, Malik, Bradley, and Shade came together on Netflix’s Building the Band, a competition where contestants formed their own groups — with one big twist: they could only hear the voices of their potential bandmates. From the start, Soulidified stood out as one of the show’s strongest acts. Although they didn’t take home the win, they remained a fan favorite, and their fandom has only grown stronger. Their debut single, “One & Only”, is already a hit, surpassing 2 million streams on Spotify.

Now, Soulidified is gearing up for their first tour alongside Building the Band winners — and our August cover stars — 3Quency. Before they hit the road, StarShine caught up with the guys to talk about their journey, their name, and what fans can expect next.

Before joining the band, what were you each doing individually?

SHADE: I was a superstar in my own right! I had a lot of motion online. I was a big TikTok star, making money just singing on live. Sometimes, 150,000 people would come through a single stream. I was putting out my own music, and Building the Band kind of fell in my lap. Someone who watched my streams thought I’d be a great fit. At first, I didn’t want to do a singing TV show—I thought they were gimmicky—but the concept of Building the Band felt different. It was Netflix, so I knew that was forever.

LANDON: I was hanging out with friends, doing my own solo music. I toured around a bit in Europe and had some solo shows in the U.S. I never thought I’d be in a band, but when the Netflix opportunity came, how could I pass that up? I decided to take a break from the solo stuff and ended up blessed with these guys.

BRADLEY: I was a student at Berklee College of Music, finishing my last couple of semesters. I hadn’t done a lot of live shows yet—busking a bunch on weekends—but I was just focused on learning and growing.

MALIK: I used to be a server—just doing different jobs while recording and performing. Netflix was a huge platform, you can’t say no to that, and Building the Band was the first show like this, so why not jump on that bandwagon? It turned out to be the best decision ever.

Let’s talk about the name Soulidified. On the show, Liam Payne suggested changing it to Iconyx, but it looks like you decided to go back to Soulidified. What happened there?

LANDON: Keeping it real—it felt like a Netflix executive wanted us to have a flashier name and maybe have a judge suggesting it would make it stick.

SHADE: We think. We don’t know that for sure, let me just make that clear. I feel like if Liam really thought our name was weak, I think he would’ve said it earlier in the show, not at the very end. But we stuck with Soulidified because that’s how people knew us. That’s who we were for most of the show.

MALIK: It just fits us. We all have soul—different kinds of soul, whether it’s different fonts—and the fans felt that, too.

SHADE: We actually let the fans decide. We did a poll and we let them decide. We still wanted to honor Liam. They ended up choosing Soulidified with a little intervention from Bradley. But we do want to do something with Iconyx to honor Liam in the future, whether that’s the album name…

LANDON: Or a song, or our own brand or a tour. We’re going to use it at some point, but just not in our band name.

 

Your first single, “One & Only,” is out now, and you all wrote it together. What was the inspiration behind it?

BRADLEY: We wrote it at Shade’s place in Atlanta. It’s something that happened very organically. We all had a chance to throw in a couple of melodies, and then really write it together, and polish the story. I do believe that we’re one of the first boy bands that took a chance on our own writing and the first song that we released. And so, it kind of gave us a sense of, yeah, we can really do this, and we can do it on our own.

MALIK: The song is about love and unity—everything we want to represent as a group.

SHADE: And then our aesthetic, Landon talks about it a lot, like the 2000s feel, that early boy band craze, they were making girls fall in love. We wanted people to say something like, “oh my gosh, I haven’t felt this in a while”. I think “One & Only” does just that.

LANDON: People said we reminded them of nostalgic groups, so we wanted that sound. “One & Only” has that vibe. You hear it once and can’t stop singing it. We wanted to implement what we did on the show in our artistry as a group. We take inspiration from those groups [Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC], but our goal is to redefine what a boy group is—do something that hasn’t been done before on a vocal level and in how we present ourselves.

MALIK: The way we came together was so different—being “blinded” and not seeing each other at first gave us a unique connection. To come out of that with a song we all wrote feels like such a full-circle moment. And honestly, we’re just getting started. We came together in such an unconventional way. I think that’s what makes us so special. But you don’t come across moments where you’re able to have this connection and this energy that we have naturally, especially being “blinded” and not seeing one another and not knowing who each other was. I think that that was so beautiful. There are a lot of fun things that we’ve been able to do already. We’re just scratching the surface, honestly.

“One & Only just felt like something that could encapsulate everybody—all age ranges from kids to your mom. It’s just a love song for the world to fall in love with.” – Shade

You’re heading out on the Bandemonium Tour with 3Quency! What can fans expect?

LANDON: We were such a new band on the show, but if you thought we were good there, you’ll be blown away on this tour. We’ve learned each other’s strengths and learned how to put on a show.

SHADE: On Building the Band, we took chances. We could have just stood on that stage and flatfoot sang and sounded really good. But we didn’t want that to be our ceiling. We challenged ourselves to do more than just sing. Even though, for instance, [Bradley and Landon] were very new to moving and singing at the same time on stage. Other bands were a little more polished, like the girls, they all could already dance and sing. That was something that we were still kind of working through. And I’ll just tell y’all this, because I don’t want to give too much away, the dancing y’all saw from these two [Bradley and Landon] on the show and on that tour, oh, y’all are going to be like, wait, this is actually Solidified?

RELATED: 3Quency: Life After Netflix’s Building The Band

 

Which member would you want to be stranded on an island with? – Shiyah, Vero Beach, FL

MALIK: Landon—for sure. He’s a nature boy with random survival skills, and he’d keep me entertained.

SHADE: I think I’d be with Brad. We’d figure out a way to survive.

LANDON: I honestly don’t know. Probably Jayvon [the band’s publicist]. Real answer, probably Brad. We could fend off vampires together.

BRADLEY: I would just take little bits and bops of all of them and just—

The rest of the group interjects.

LANDON: Real answer!

BRADLEY: I’d pick Landon. If worse got to worse, we’d go out laughing.

What’s one must-bring item for the tour?

LANDON: Roller skates, so I can get out of there once in a while.

SHADE: PlayStation 5. Need it.

BRADLEY: I’d have to bring a guitar, 100%.

MALIK: Honestly, just good vibes and music. Give me Netflix and I’m good.

In five years, where do you see yourselves, and what do you hope to accomplish? – Diana, Rancho Cucamonga, CA

SHADE: Stadiums and arenas all over the world. I think we’ll be one of the biggest boy bands ever. Liam said he believed we could reach that level if we stayed locked in, and I believe that too.

What would you like to say to your fans and future fans?

LANDON: Get your tickets!

BRADLEY: We love and appreciate you guys so much. There’s more music coming and lots of opportunities to see us and connect in person. That’s what this is all about for us.

MALIK: Although Texas is not on the list of cities to go to, we will be showing love to them at some point, just not right now. We love you and we appreciate you and we thank you. And we couldn’t have done this without you. And honestly, on a serious note, I didn’t think that I would even end up in a group. I don’t think any of us did. So, it’s just beautiful to just be along on this journey with your brothers.

SHADE: I feel like there’s a lot of artists who get to a certain level and they forget that you’re nothing without your fans. We want to let y’all know how much we appreciate everybody that’s still supporting us on this journey because y’all could have just watched the show and said, “that was cute”, and moved on to the next thing. But y’all have stayed and y’all have continued to show us an abundance of love. We’re never going to forget it. We just want to be able to show that gratitude for the rest of our lives. If you guys have dreams of your own, chase them. I’m a big advocate for never giving up on yourselves.

LANDON: It doesn’t matter how exhausted we are, or if we’re getting absolutely mauled—we will take time to talk to you and make sure that you get whatever you want to say to us. We’re just so grateful and because of the fans we can do what we love.

BRADLEY: You guys are our Souldiers.

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