Fearless trailblazers: Meet the ‘Singing Potatoes’
Singing Potatoes — no this not a story about some genetically modified potatoes, this is a story about a musical trio of talented girls who came together by chance to give Sri Lanka not just their amazing music but also a strong message of accepting oneself.
Pic courtesy Ravindu Herath
Shenali Kirindagamage, Chinthani Senevirathne and Harini Dias were batchmates whilst in school at Musaeus College. In 2010, for their school talent show in an almost One Direction style beginning, they connected with each other for the first time and the rest as they say is history. “Ever since 2010, we have been composing music, performing and jamming at school events. We took music everywhere we went,” they share on how they first came to be.
On a random day right after their A-levels in 2016, they recorded a song together and posted it on Facebook and the positive feedback plus encouragement to form a band ignited with the mutual love and passion for music the three of them shared to started ‘Singing Potatoes.’
“Singing Potatoes means us, how we have embraced ourselves and how everyone can connect to potatoes,” the trio tells the Mirror.
Wanting their band to not just be about music, but also send a message of embracing oneself and rejecting body shaming whilst connecting with people, the girls believe the band’s name brought out both the fun aspects of the band and body positivity. “The number of times people have come up to us and told us about potato facts and their favourite potato forms/recipes is countless,” they share elaborating on their unusual band name.
Harini also known as Jabba, is the lead vocalist of Singing Potatoes. Originally wanting to get into the Hotel Management industry, she switched her career goals leaning towards music and is currently pursuing her dream to become a Choir/Vocal Trainer. A self-taught guitarist (with the help of her bandmates), she’s the brains behind many of their tunes and harmonies. She plays rhythm instruments such as percussion.
Pic courtesy Banura Sooriyapperuma
Chinthani who is fondly called Chiky, is known for her sweet and soothing vocals. She is the lead guitarist of the Singing Potatoes and their very own audio engineer who they say has an unbelievable amount of patience. Currently she is juggling a software engineering course at NSBM, following lessons on Indian classical music and conducting guitar classes at Kalabhumi.
Shenali who also goes as Sheba is deemed the “most responsible and the logical one out of the three potatoes”, she handles things such as dealing with clients, fixing gigs and handling social media. She plays rhythm, bass, lead guitar though her favourite will always be playing bass.
She is pursuing her business management degree at IIT while interning full time. She also does sports and is a talented photographer who loves to travel and hikes/camps when she finds free time.
They added a special mention to another background member who is their band manager Lochana Pandithasekara, a friend who earned the position they joke without her consent.
From genres such as RnB, Pop, Soft Rock to Retro the Potatoes really show their versatility when it comes to music by singing in English, Sinhala, Tamil and even the occasional Hindi.
Looking up to local musicians such BnS, Victor Rathnayake, W.D. Amaradeva, Umara Singhawansa, Umaria Singhawansa, Charitha Attalage and Ridma Weerawardana they want to utilize a combination of Classical, Rock, Pop, RnB and a bit of Jazz by adding their touch and colour to the music industry and make a difference.
Just last month, the Singing Potatoes had their first exclusive concert “ ප-අල-වෙනි එක | Singing Potatoes” in which they performed an acoustic version of our debut single that had not yet been released. The song was written by one of their friends from Pettah Effect, Tharaka Dissanayake and a batch mate of Shenali’d, Dilka Sirimanne.
It was there that Viresh Cooray from Daddy saw them perform and surprised them with an offer to produce it for them. They hope to release it soon.
Follow the group on facebook.com/SingingPotatoes/ or at singing_potatoes_sl on Instagram.