A Hyped Up Voice.Print in August Concert

They mesmerized Sri Lanka with their harmony. They revolutionized the way we saw English choirs. Then they flipped and for the first time in Sri Lanka, performed a hit Sinhalese cover in A cappella. The bold move took their fame to a whole new level. Voice.Print has been busy since its last concert five years ago. Releasing a Singhalese original and a series of music videos, a Christmas mix and a lot of gigs here and abroad. They says they have also changed. Exactly how we will have to see at their August 14th Concert.

“Sounds Like Voice Print will go on the boards on the 14th of August at the Hiltion Colombo. The band has put together a riveting line up that promise to keep the audience engaged from the get go, right to the end. We caught up with the band recently. Here is an excerpt of the conversation.

Why five years? Why now?

I think it is not a conscious decision. It is just that time has really flown by. Even actually when we talk about it, somebody said listen, it has been five years since you guys have done a concert. We were really busy with lots of things which we have been doing. We had at least four gigs a month. We have charity concerts, jingles to record, songs to put out, video shoots and we do voice training and we are building our own recording studio. There has been always an activity at Voice Print. It is just that we haven’t taken a hiatus and kind of stayed back. Plus we also work. And not many groups have come up to this level with full day jobs.

What has Voice.Print been up to since the last concert?

Basically if we are to summarize it, we were experimenting. We ventured into the Sinhala mainstream, released an original. We played everything from small shows to huge concerts and did lots of interviews with local TV stations. We did that entire round of things in the last few years and in the meantime, did a lot of corporate events as well. It was all about doing our own version of songs, we even recorded our own Christmas song and did a series of music videos. That what kept us busy doing the last five years, besides our full time careers in the corporate sector of course.

Can the audience expect something new?

They definitely can expect something new. When you look at our fan base and people who have been around and supported us, they have always liked what we have done. In that sense, they probably know what we except as well. But we again have challenged ourselves with this concert and we don’t want it to be a standard concert that a choir group would have. We have taken a conscious step from our music to the production to how the entire concert is going to be, to make it stand out. Definitely yes, something new and something different can be expected from us this time.

What exactly has changed with the band?

Starting off, I think the main change that has happened is the members. It is a new bunch of faces. Four of us; Michael, myself, Dilan and Eshan have been with Voice Print ever since it was formed. We had people coming in and moved out due to their commitments. We got in Ryan and Nicole as new faces of the group. The outlook of the group has changed so that would be number one.

In terms of music, we had actually gone into kind of new musical arrangements. They are not complicated but it is different. There is a different sound coming out from us now and we have used new equipment to get more depth and effects. This concert will see a different kind of sound coming from us. We haven’t performed in any kind of corporate events this way I guess.

And the overall look and feel of the concert in terms of choreography, attire has also changed. We have always maintained a suit and tie. That also we are building on. The entire look and feel of Voice Print has kind of shifted a couple of years. In that sense, we will be different.

What kind of a flavour is the band looking at for this concert?

See, we have performed at events where we had thousands of school children. They screamed when they heard our names. We performed at the Temple Trees, we performed for the Cardinal, for churches, for charity events and so forth. We have a repute of performing for different kind of people and Voice.Print is not just there for a certain set of audience. This concert is going to be one stage where you can actually have people who are young as well as the people who are in their 50s.

This concert would be idle for hard core music enthusiasts who are into the A cappella segment. We will also be really pushing to maintain our mark of being an A cappella group.

Why get into Sinhala?

Actually, it created a whole different market for us. Even in corporate events, they started requesting those Sinhala songs which we put out as videos. It actually increased our whole market when it comes to selling music plus we needed that awareness. We needed to reach out to a fan base that was beyond Colombo. We wanted people to know what we are doing and we wanted Sri Lanka to know what we can do in terms of A cappella, beat-boxing and so forth. The best way to do that was to get into Sinhala music.

Adding on to both these questions, over the last four year or so; we have been building our brand both from a brand identity perspective which also had different kinds of music and we progressed from the traditional choir concept to being a standalone band and also took our music out from Colombo.

Was the transition difficult? Moving from being an English choir, having those classical elements to Sinhala mainstream?

Sinhala music industry has its own nuances. Apparently, when you use an accent, people do not like you. We had to blend into the real Sinhala music but we did our own things anyway. People told us when we were doing our original music that this is not a mass sound market. This is not one of those mass markets and you guys won’t go anywhere with it. We still went in there anyway because we wanted consciously to stick to our plan and that paid off very well because people started recognizing Voice.Print. We wanted to be different with our own sound. We successfully did that. We actually went into large beach shows where Sinhala bands would perform and we would stand there and do our own performance. It went really well. That is what we established and that is a big move for us and it was the first time in the music industry of Sri Lanka where we took a western genre and made it into the mass market.