Talent and passion can take people places. And The Ransom Collective is in enough abundance of these two things for them to be able to go quite the distance — literally and figuratively.

Composed of Kian Ransom (vocals, guitar), Redd Claudio (drums), Jermaine Choa Peck (percussions, vocals), Leah Halili (bass, vocals), Lily Gonzales (keyboards, vocals), and Muriel Gonzales (violin, vocals), the indie-folk troupe gained wide recognition after winning Wanderband — a competition among young indie OPM acts — in 2014. The same year, they released their self-titled EP and has since been playing all over Manila, headlining music festivals here and abroad, and captivating huge crowds with their whimsical and intricately-woven music.

Over the years, the band has grown and continued to explore more of their songcraft. Tapping their playbook of proficiencies and picking up stories from personal experiences, The Ransom Collective showcased a more mature sound in their 2017 debut album titled “Traces.”

Performing four of the most popular cuts from their impressive, budding catalogue (including their latest single “Tides”), the OPM outfit took over the Wish Bus last October. During their first-ever guesting on the program Roadshow, frontman Kian shared with DJ Alice their goal of expanding their horizons through their next project.

Frontman Kian Ransom lent his elegant-sounding vocals for his band’s Wishclusive performances of “Tides,” “Settled,” “Open Road,” and “Fools.”

Last year, you’ve released your debut record. What’s next for the band? Are you working on a new album?

I don’t know yet whether it’s going to be an album or an EP; we’re not really trying to get distracted with having that kind of goal. We just let the music come out and let our creativity run. We’ll see where we are gonna go from there.

On your next project, what can your fans expect on the kind of sound they will hear?

I think one of the challenges we’ve encountered is going into writing new music as a lot of our influences have grown or changed. We like and respect each other’s tastes, and that’s an interesting element we’re trying to incorporate in our next record. Lately, some of us have been listening to a lot of more downtempo, electronic stuff like HONNE.

Now, we’re trying to [inject] electronic elements [to our music]. We’re trying to use more different sounds on the keyboard like synthesizers or different effects like that. Basically, we’re trying to push ourselves musically a little bit more, stepping up our instrumentation, trying chords we don’t usually try. We want to expand our horizons on any level we can.

How about your songwriting process?

Lately, we’ve been more intentional when it comes to meeting and having long sessions of just grinding through because we’ve reached some point wherein we were just kind of struggling to bring new ideas to the table. So we started dedicating huge chunks of our time for the songwriting process. It’s just exciting because we’ve seen a lot of growth through that.

“We actually fit,” bassist Leah Halili beamed as The Ransom Collective hopped aboard the Wish Bus and staged their first-ever Roadshow gig last October.

As an independent music act, you’ve already accomplished a lot of things in a short span of time. Is there something you still wish to achieve as a band?

One of our main goals was to travel abroad and to have a gig abroad. And this year, we were fortunate because we’ve got to play in quite a few places. We’ve played in Indonesia, Singapore, and India.

I guess now, it’d be cool to go farther and get out of Asia. It’d be cool to play in Australia, New Zealand, [the United] States, Europe — anywhere and everywhere we could — that would be awesome.

Watch the Ransom Collective in their debut Wishclusive performance featuring their latest single, “Tides”: