Channa Silva, a Sri Lankan living in the Philippines, is an important figure in the podcast community. He started the music podcast Channa Channa Channa where he interviews bands, artists, fans, and people of the music industry from around the world. So far, he has recorded over 145 episodes and interviewed many bands from around the world.
Silva grew up in Negombo and 15 years ago moved to Manila for a work assignment and fell in love with the place and people, and met his wife. He is also a dad to a son, two beagles and five cats.
Talking to Brunch about his love for music, he told us that he has been a music fan from the age of four or five when his dad gave him his first “Top 1000” cassette tape. Since then, he has been an avid listener, fan, collector of music, especially metal/rock.
His inspiration for the podcast, of course, stemmed from his passion for music. “I always knew I wanted to do something related to music, but I was always interested in watching bands rather than playing music,” he told us.
Telling us more about how he broke into the podcast industry, Silva commented that he always liked podcasts like The Joe Rogan Experience and The Eddie Trunk Podcast and he thought of starting a podcast about metal music, as that is something he enjoys. First, he began by interviewing fellow metal fans and they would talk about albums, concerts, songs etc. But after several episodes, he reached out to several local artists for interviews and they were happy to talk to him.
As the episodes started rolling, he began receiving requests from many artists from around the world, and it grew to a level where promoters, PR firms and record labels started working with him.
As a metalhead, he was a regular in the Sri Lankan metal scene in the early 2000s. Silva has attended many gigs in Sri Lanka during the “Golden Age of Sri Lankan Metal” when well-known acts like Stigmata, Paranoid Earthling, and Whirlwind were just starting out.
He pursued his passion for metal and has been going to concerts for two decades in many countries from the Philippines, Singapore, Australia to Ireland. Silva commented: “I have seen and met most of the idols from Megadeth, Slayer, Dream Theater, Arch Enemy, Lamb of God and many more.”
Currently, the audience for his podcast has grown to over 72 countries around the world and the top listeners are from the US.
The Channa Channa Channa podcast is available on all the leading streaming platforms, and also on YouTube.
Unfortunately for him, this hobby took a dive when the global pandemic happened in 2020, Silva couldn’t go to concerts anymore due to travel restrictions and many show cancellations. It was truly a devastating moment for him. Right now, since Covid-19 has eased up, he has begun going to concerts again – starting with smaller ones with less audience – but eventually, he believes concerts will be in full swing once again.
In lieu of the pandemic, Silva began hosting a “podcasting in Sinhala” event on the social app Clubhouse, which took off and is now a successful venture for him.
He told us that with the pandemic, many people have been forced to move their lives online, so he had observed a larger demand for podcasts with the current pandemic, as people can listen to them virtually, stating there is a big demand now.
Sharing more about it, he explained that it is an audio room he conducts on Clubhouse, where he talks about how to conceptualise, start a podcast, how to create and host content, how to grow and scale it, how to monetise and how to promote it. This is done in Sinhala in the hope of promoting podcasting in Sri Lanka.
We asked him how he found podcasting and if it gave him the same feeling that music did. “I found a purpose in helping bands share their music and stories with new audiences and while doing that, I keep on meeting amazing people and learning amazing stories,” he stated.
Having spoken to many musicians in the industry, we asked Silva to share his thoughts on the music scene in Sri Lanka. “I had the luck to talk to many musicians from around the world. Also many Sri Lankan artists, not just metal and rock, but also pop and hip hop artists. Sri Lanka has so much talent and I feel the floodgates are opened now with the digital platforms, which allow them to release music to a global audience.” He added that he keeps seeing so many great new artists and so much creativity. He also deeply admires the fact that a lot of artists write in Sinhalese or Tamil instead of just English.
We asked him how important he thinks it is to speak in both Sinhala and English when podcasting and if this promotes our country to a foreign audience. Silva feels that doing the podcasting in English is important so one can reach global audiences. But, he added that there is also equal opportunity in Sinhala as there is a new audience of Sri Lankans in the country and around the world who look for Sinhala content.
Out of all the podcasts he’s done, Silva talked about two that have stayed with him over the years. “I interviewed Sri Lankan rock icon Chitral ‘Chity’ Somapala and we had such a connection, and after the interviews we became friends. An international podcast that was memorable was when I interviewed famous American drummer Muruga Booker, who played the original Woodstock festival.”
“Currently there are over 2.5 million podcasts and it keeps on growing. The unique difference between podcasts compared to other forms like YouTube videos is people listen to podcasts while driving, walking, running or while doing house chores. There is also a big appetite for listening to deep conversations.”
Silva has also started another podcast called Almost A Music Podcast which he co-hosts with his friend Meg Caparas from the US. They record this live on Clubhouse and talk about how music complements and enhances other facets of life from education, spirituality and conscious living.
In other exciting news, Silva informed us that on Channa Channa Channa, he also released his merch and is working with many internationally well-known bands. He had prepared for a post-pandemic world where he now gets to conduct his podcasts in person and from backstage. “I’ve prepared for this with equipment and technology,” he commented, adding that he would also like to thank all the guests who joined his show and to all the fans who keep on supporting him. “Stay heavy! Stay metal!” he exclaimed, closing our conversation.
