For the love of music
There are those, who find themselves, being able to relate to the lyrics of a song, while some find themselves lost in the notes. To Lasith Fernando, the only thing in life that ever moved or inspired him, was music, as he tells us.Following the release of his new single ‘Mathaka Mal’, the Mirror caught up with Lasith earlier during the week. He explains, it was his grandfather and father who first got him into music. While neither of them were musicians, they’d always have music playing around the house and a young Lasith, was soon to be inspired by it.
He chuckles, when I ask him what made him first pick up the guitar. “It was a mix of love for music and the teenage desperation to find things that could make you seem cooler than you really felt,” he relates. He adds that a group of his friends in school, wanted to start a band and asked him, if he could play the guitar for them. At the time, he couldn’t, but he longed to be in that band which prompted him get a guitar and teach himself how to play it. “I managed to teach myself just about enough in a couple of weeks to play with them and not totally embarrass myself.”
‘Mathaka Mal’, is song relatable to almost anyone. It speaks of memories shared between two people, perhaps lovers and the story that once was. The beautiful melodies, lead the listener onto an insight into the writer’s life. However, the track could have various interpretations, which is just what Lasith wanted. “I love it when people hear music without any information about what the artiste was shooting for with the song, and form their own emotional interpretations of it,” he says.
Lasith started playing at the pub and circuit around 2012 and has been earning a living as a working musician ever since. He has been a part of several bands, which include Angel Down, a local heavy metal band. However, Lasith finally found his footing and wants to keep writing music, that feels honest to him, without worrying too much about whether it comes out in Sinhala or English.
His latest song is the first that Lasith has recorded and it’s also his first time writing a song in Sinhala.
Our conversation moves on to his musical inspirations. He says that he was lucky enough to have been introduced to different types of music throughout his life. “When I was a kid I used to hear a lot of Sinhala pop thanks to my dad, lots of 80s pop thanks to my aunts (who used to make me dance to that stuff with them) and a lot of 30s/40s music thanks to my granddad,” he explains.
It was in his late teens/early twenties, that he got into a lot of hard rock and metal. However,over the last few years Lasith has been lucky to meet and jam with a lot of musicians who have introduced him to more genres like the blues and jazz, he explains.
To Lasith, performing in front of an audience, is the best thing in the world. When it comes to performing his new single live though, he adds that it will be a lot more fun and real, because you tend to “access the emotions that you synthesized into song.”
Through the years, he has learnt to go looking for negative feedback. This is“because that’s when I know where I need to hone my craft. I mean it’s always nice to hear good things from people and I always appreciate that a lot. But I try to make a conscious effort to always try and find out where I fell short,” he says. ‘Mathaka Mal’ was written and composed by Lasith. It was recorded at Paragon Muzik Studio under the Mixing and Mastering of Ravin Ratnam.
Listen to Lasith’s song at lasithfernando.bandcamp.com/releases