Sisters in music
There’s eight of them, they’re loud and their practice sessions usually end up in chaos. But anyone who was present at TNL Onstage 2013 would tell you that they handle their music beautifully - with a mutual understanding that transcends friendship and ends up at sisterhood.
The band performing at TNL Onstage. Pix by M. A. Pushpakumara
“We do have our fights and disagreements and its chaotic then,” says lead guitarist, Sachiko Jayaratne , “but those situations make us stronger as both individuals and as a band. We can never be mad at each other for too long,” she smiles. Audacity is a band that has tasted the fruits of hard-work sessions starting in the wee hours of the morning and spanning for more than six hours straight.
Its been more than two weeks since their win, but the enthusiasm still runs high. “It still feels amazing to have won, specially being the first all-girl band to do so,” says rhythm guitarist, Rushenka Jayasuriya. “We were also confident throughout the competition, because we felt how fast we were growing and improving. Also, we encountered every contestant in both the preliminaries and semi finals and won both encore rounds consecutively,” Rushenka tells us.
Back in 2009, Audacity had only three members to begin with -Suchiko, Sushmita Wijayaratna on vocals, and her sister Suhashana Wijayaratna as the drummer. They tagged themselves as a band that jammed for fun during the break time at their alma mater, Ladies College. “We then gradually started playing for school concerts and then performed at ‘The Battle of the Bands’ and ‘REVO’. We then believed that there was more to us than just a school band”, adds Sushmita, the bright-eyed vocalist.
Sushmita, has an added role to play in portraying the image of the band. “In addition to singing, you are the face of the band and bad days shouldn’t show on your face,”she tells us. “At Onstage, we really played to our strengths,” she adds.
The obvious appeal with Audacity is that they’re an all-girl band, quite a rare sight in the music industry in Sri Lanka. However, they do believe that the tide will change and pave way for more all girl bands in the future. “At first there wasn’t much scope for an all-girl band, but I think we’ve broken down that barrier,”says Rushenka. “There is no gender barrier when it comes to talent. I suppose we can be seen as an inspiration to many other talented girls out there and we hope to see them step up in the future,” she adds.
They’re all quite audacious as their name suggests, and we learn that risk-taking is a norm when it comes to choosing their songs. “Each of us are daring in our own way, confident in ourselves and we like taking risks when it comes to choosing songs and adding variation to our selections”, says keyboardist, Tihara Gunawardena. “Song selections are an enthusing part of our practice sessions. We always try to do something out of the ordinary”.
“Music is what brought all of us together. We work well together, because we all share that passion for music – it’s easier to co-ordinate and get things going smoothly,” adds Suhashana. Speaking of musical influences, much of it lies in the music of Coldplay – in fact their show stopping performance was of ‘Yellow’ by the hit British band. “Coldplay is definitely our biggest inspiration
as a band, although we all individually have our own idols as musicians. Such as Orianthi, David Garret, Maroon 5, The Foo Fighters, and Adele,” says Sachiko, “We don›t have a genre as such, but pop and alternative rock makes up our forte.”
“We›re quite different from each other, but we still manage to gel together,” says violinist Ashna Jeevaratnam, who happens to be the youngest of the lot. “We got a lot of positive feedback from our families and friends, as well as the professionals who watched us in the first two rounds. We grew confident that we could win at the finals (TNL Onstage 2013),”, says violinist Lydia Goonetilleke. They also mention a special someone who was always in support of their journey.
“Rakkitha Miththapala, has been our mentor and guru, and a special mentions goes out to him.” “We have had a lot of support from our mentors, in terms of advice and positive thinking, especially when things weren’t going the way we wanted it to. They’ve helped us fine tune our selections,” says bassist, Amitha Pilapitiya.
Although some of the members are already moving out to university, they say that their music will never die down. “It’ll be hard to be together as much, but we owe it to music, and you can keep your ears open for great music in the immediate future,” says Sushmitha.
Audacity made waves as the first all-girl band to win TNL Onstage and this determined group of talented musicians aspire to set the trend for diversifying the English music industry in Sri Lanka.
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