By Bernadine Rodrigo
Five years into their music career and about two years after beginning to perform their original music, The Soul, a local music band of five guys, was featured on Rolling Stone India.
“Following their stellar 2018 album Round & Around, The Soul – who have also visited India a few times over for appearances in Bengaluru and at Bacardi NH7 Weekender in Pune last year – decided to surprise release their new album Enry Pete earlier this month. Just like Round & Around, The Soul are achingly beautiful amidst dense layers of guitar and percussion.
“The Colombo band are also equally about the groovy reggae vibes at different points, with soothing vocals from Dave F. Roberts. If you’re looking for an album that comforts you in your self-quarantine period, Enry Pete might just be your jam,” read the Rolling Stone India review of the band.
While being featured in a nation as large as India, to be seen by thousands of people is certainly an honour for the band and it brings great pride to Sri Lanka to know about the heights to which our own talents are capable of reaching.
So how did these five guys find themselves on such a large platform?
Their story begins as five strangers who met each other while dabbling in the music industry – each one with a great passion for the art. It isn’t about the money which fame can bring for these guys, but more about the message they send out to the world. What they want to pursue is to ignite as much change as possible and that is what drives them to keep creating and performing music.
With this aspiration, the guys began performing. They started with covers but came to think to themselves that they could not go on as a “cover band” forever. With creative minds and a passion as theirs, it was not too much of a trial for them to compose their own music. However, that does not go to say that it was a walk in the park, as time certainly waited for no band; composing a piece of good music that everyone was comfortable with had been a rocky path, according to the band. However, amidst all this, they were able to compile their very first album. The guys do say, nevertheless, that when it came to their second album, they were far more prepared and organised.
They said that although they would like to get together and brainstorm ideas and compose together, time is a luxury for them, especially with them trying to keep up with normal lives and also live in different parts of the country. Yet, they usually just let their ideas flow to them. If they think of something, they make a note of it and send it around the band and they add more to.
“Our gigs are where we experiment,” they shared, adding: “That’s where we fine tune our originals.” In this way, they compiled their second album which made it to Rolling Stone India.
However, their exposure in India was not similar to that of their experience in Sri Lanka, but it did begin here. The Soul has been performing in festivals Down South and it was there that they came into acquaintance with a few individuals involved in the grand, large-scale festivals in India, such as those of Tropical Wax. They offered The Soul slots at such concerts by Rolling Stone India. Then, the band was able to tour the country because the guys, as a result of their friendly, outgoing, and helpful nature, had made good connections with a few Indian artistes to whom they offered help with equipment and such when they were in Sri Lanka.
This way, the five became quite known within the subcontinent and when they heard about their second album, it was certainly music to their ears. The band spoke about how exposure in a country as big as India is beneficial for them in their music career. They said that just the concerts themselves attract about 40,000 people from across the subcontinent; even that itself gives them a great reach to a more global platform. Furthermore, magazines such as Rolling Stone have quite a large reach as well – even larger than the concerts making this feature a truly great opportunity for them.
However, they can also be supported now in more ways than you think. The Soul has released their album online on many platforms including iTunes, Spotify, and YouTube where we ourselves can now enjoy them, even as we are stuck at home.
