“You look up at the sky on a clear night, and it’s so beautiful. The thing is, in that beauty, there is so much you don’t know of. You can’t even count the stars! That’s the kind of life we’re living. You can’t rationalize or explain it. That’s what we want our music to reflect.”
That’s how Jonathan George (aka Skinnie-J) and Charitha Godakumbura (aka Big-G) explain their philosophy of life and music, and the name they call their two-piece band: Night Sky Awe.
Not only is their name daring but so is their sound. They refuse to be defined or boxed into a genre. “I don’t believe in conventional intelligence where you learn structured stuff and then imitate it,” says Charitha, lead vocalist and lyricist. “You’ve got to do things from the heart. Every time we make a song, it comes from the heart. Whatever idea we get, we try to just develop it without thinking too much about it.”
This easy, laid back attitude penetrates their music which is characterized by tastefully
smooth rhythms and well controlled but easy-flowing vocals. Though most of their original music leans towards R ‘n’B and soul, Charitha’s voice (an astonishing blend of R-Kelly and MJ really!) lends it a jazzy feel while Jonathan’s love of hip-hop and reggae gives it an unexpected extra punch.
The duo has a long history of working informally together in school. Jonathan (guitarist, drummer, keyboardist, backup vocalist and producer!) grew up in a very music-oriented household, both his parents being fully steeped in music and very involved in the music sphere in Kandy. Charitha, though he didn’t not have a similarly musical home-front still remembers himself as “always singing”. They recall a time when they’d suddenly be called up to perform at a school event: “the two of us kind of had an understanding. We didn’t practice before performing. We used to just… sing!” Some uncommon gift in the making it seems now.
“Everything we did was just for fun,” Jonathan keeps protesting. Which is why when they got the call from YesFM that they were getting on the HomeGrown artist data base, he
couldn’t believe it. “I was like ‘WHAT!?’” laughs Jonathan, “and I was like ‘WOW!’” smiles Charitha.
The two are different not only in their outlook, but also in their tastes in music as well as
personality. Jonathan, the more outgoing of the duo claims inspiration from a wide range of artists such as Chet Atkins, Steve Vai, The Carpenters, and Christian hip-hop acts including Tedaashi, Trip-Lee and Lecrae. He’s also a fan of Taylor Smith and Beyonce. Charitha on the other hand is shy and quiet and looks to soulful vocalists such as Mariah Carey and Michael Jackson for inspiration. “Also Albert Einstein” he quietly adds.
“We use our imagination a lot,” Jonathan laughs, adding that since they both had no siblings at home, “imagination is our best friend”. So when they make music too, that’s their first tool. “Einstein challenged what people thought was scientific knowledge” Charitha explains, adding that it was imagination that led scientists to challenge the boundaries of knowledge during his time. Night Sky Awe too looks to imagination in order to challenge the conventional musical boundaries.
But they are not out just to create a new sound. They definitely have a message they are
interested in sharing. “We’re very concerned about meaning in our music,” Charitha shares, which is testified in the lyrics to their first production ‘Move On’: “Move on! It’s a journey to destiny/ Hold on! You go empty if you don’t believe/ Move on! There’s a purpose to every turn you make”.
“These songs are personally important,” Jonathan adds, declaring “they change us.”
He describes how after producing ‘Move On’ he was able to literally move on from personal issues he was going through at the time. Unlike how generally musicians allow their personalities to shape their music, these young men simply unleash the sounds and allow the music to change them. Different?
It can’t be said enough.
Despite Charitha’s meticulous vocals and Jonathan’s perfectionism which make their music of a higher quality than one might expect from an amateur band, the two are unwilling to be overconfident about what they do. Let’s hope the smoothness of their music also characterises their rise to fame and maybe even the Grammys as they dream! |
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