Stigmata revel on their 15 year road to fame...
With their album launch of the ‘‘The Ascetic Paradox’ just around the corner, we caught up with the band members, Suresh De Silva, Andrew Obeysekara, Tennyson Napolean, Lakmal Chanaka and Tharaka Seneviratne, to talk about the band, the last 15 years and the story behind the new album.
Your new 4th album took 5 years to make, why is that?
Stigmata : well, for a lot of reasons. We’ve been touring overseas a lot. We performed in Bangladesh at an army station and in March we performed in Dubai. So it’s not like we have been doing nothing – it’s just that we were busy touring and working and of course, managing our personal life.
How is this album different from your previous ones?
Stigmata : Musically, its more accomplished. We like to think we’ve raised the bar. All our albums are a representation of our skills at that particular junction when it was released. Here, the album is musically different, lyrically different and the concept is also different. It’s a very special album for us being that it’s our 15th year and we felt like releasing this album was the perfect way to celebrate it. If we were to be completely pompous – there’s no other album like this in the entire world.
Why did you’ll decide to do an interactive concept?
Stigmata : The concept was in our heads for a while and we discussed it and said ‘hey man this would be cool’. Today times are different and the value of music is just lost to a great degree. We want this album to not just be another record in the background. We need this album to be embedded and imprinted in the person listening to it. This album has the whole ride - the visual experience and the lyrical experience. We want the album to be something people can listen for years and years and still hear something new. I guess the best way to describe it is that it’s a holistic experience.
What does this album signify to the band?
Stigmata : It’s 15 years after we started right? So it takes us back. The idea what we’ve been able to stick together, learning from each other is important. We’ve been through a learning curve with our previous albums which had certain shortcomings but this time we have a very good producer and we were a lot more confident to come out and play our part in this album.
You released a track from the new album (An Idle Mind is the Devils Workshop) – how was the reaction?
Stigmata : It was pretty amazing. It went viral and we wanted that. Especially because after 5 years we just randomly release a track and people are like ‘wow, what is it?’ It’s totally different from what we used to compose and we got a great response and that feels good – it feels like something paid off.
You’ve taken Sri Lankan metal to an international level – how hard was it to break into the international market?
Stigmata : We always target that market because majority of the people listening to metal lives abroad. Over the years, we’ve toured a lot. We started in Maldives then Malaysia and then Melbourne (which was one of our biggest concerts!), Bangladesh and India we’ve played many times.
You are celebrating your 15 year anniversary as a band – what would you say about the journey?
Stigmata : Well it’s like a dream come true. When we started we were in school, just after O/L’s and jamming. In 15 years we’ve gone through so many era’s in this country and we express it through music and each album we’ve given our listeners a message on what we felt through those era’s. The albums have also evolved thematically – when we started out we had no idea on music, sound and production and stuff so we were just experimenting so we’ve definitely come a long way.
Interviewed by Panchali Illankoon
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