The Devil Brothers add their voice to the people’s movement

• The first DJ trio in Sri Lanka talk about their new track, ‘Siha Nada’

The Devil Brothers broke into the music industry back in January 2020 as the first DJ trio in Sri Lanka. Keeping their identity anonymous to shine the spotlight on their music, cultural beliefs, and theme, their main focus was to represent the sounds and the spirit of our youth to an international audience with the help of electronic dance music (EDM).

Kick-starting their debut with an event called “transcendence”, The Devil Brothers shared the stage with big local names despite the audience having no idea what to expect from them. From there onwards they managed to build the hype throughout the local electronic music industry, and played at local events, including the biggest electronic dance music festival “EMF” – electronic mask festival. They were given the opportunity to do the theme song, intro, and outro songs for EMF.

The trio released a song a week ago called Siha Nada, speaking on the situation of our country.Brunch reached out to them for a conversation on their music and what we can expect in the future.

What inspired you to get into music?

We were inspired mostly by the artist Kshmr and a friend, music director Chinthaka Jayakody. We liked how Kshmr blends Indian traditional music with EDM in his songs, and Chinthaka Jayakodi has a great knowledge of Sri Lankan folk music, so that’s how it all started.

What was the biggest challenge you faced in your career?

Nothing too big so far, but I guess it’s the crisis in Sri Lanka that has become a huge challenge for us. There are no events, no musical programmes, and the mindset of people is not in the right place to listen and enjoy music right now. They are going through a hard time and it’s a bit of a challenging time for all musicians.

What would you say has been the highlight of your career so far?

We performed at Road to EMF last march. We were the only Sri Lankan DJs who performed at that event. Also having the opportunity to produce its theme song Yakkha Theja Bala has been a very big highlight in our career so far. It was our first international event.

You recently released a song. Tell us about it.

We released Siha Nada. We decided to do this track as a contribution to the people’s revolution from our side and felt that we must do our part as musicians in this country. We wanted to make our noise towards the unacceptable events that are happening in the country, and we felt the best way would be to turn our words into melody. We thought this way would be a better approach as artists. The video of this song was done by Ashi boy and art design was done by Saranga Artz and Giuli Arts.

Did you face any obstacles when creating this song?

Yes. When we were writing this song, it was hard for us to put in the words which would go well with the current situation. The first few efforts were hard, as we realised some of the words and expressions were too harsh and too straightforward. So we had to keep amending, as we went until we had the final outcome. Harsha Jayalal helped us to narrow it down.

Do you think as artists, it’s your responsibility to raise awareness on issues via music?

Yes. We believe that music is a great way of communicating our ideas and thoughts. We feel music has played a very important role in most of the revolutions that happened in the past. As an example, the song the French came up with for the French Revolution is their national anthem today. We believe music can switch on a person’s emotional side more effectively. So our opinion is yes, music is one of the best ways to raise awareness.

In terms of the current situation, how do you think this will affect the music industry and do you have any suggestions on how to keep it alive?

In our view, due to the current situation, the music industry in Sri Lanka has collapsed. We’ll have to wait until the country becomes stabilised and steady. We believe the most effective way to get over this situation in the country is to spread peace and love. We think at this point our country needs it more than ever. As artists, we believe it’s our responsibility to come forward so we can become a better example.

What is 2022 looking like for you? Any future plans?

2022 has been such a hard ride, as we have faced many challenges so far and had lots of changes we had to go through as well. We’re planning to release more new songs along with the new changes that are going to happen in the country. We believe there will be more interesting things that you will hear from us in the future.