Chity, Sri Lanka’s icon of music activism

Pix by Upul Abayasekara

Popular rock musician and firebrand Chitral “Chity” Somapala slammed the local music scene in an interview with Weekend FT, asserting that Sri Lanka does not have a music industry. Pointing out that most musicians present crude and vulgar lyrics and videos for cheap popularity, constantly try to bring other musicians down, and even steal from each other, Somapala asserted that it’s important for musicians to be honest to themselves and to music. Somapala’s goal is to help develop a music industry in Sri Lanka and raise it to international standards. Following are excerpts of the interview:

By Ruwandi Gamage

Q: What got you into music? Could you trace the journey that made you a musician?

A: My passion when I was younger was sports. I started playing cricket, I was the opening bowler for Isipathana under 11 cricket team. Asanka Gurusinghe was the Captain and Hashan Thilakaratne was the Vice Captain. Simultaneously, I was playing soccer because my father was the Vice President of a famous football club in Sri Lanka and he was passionate about football. I even played for some amateur football clubs. In 1977, I got selected to play football for the International Year of the Child program in Japan. I ended my cricket career when I was in the under 15 team at school. Then I started playing hockey. 

When I was 14 years old, for the first time in my life, I had the chance to try out a guitar that one of my friends had. This made a lasting impression on me and I believe it is where my musical career started. 

My brother and his friends has been listening to rock music LPs and when I experienced that it gave me a different perspective about music. It was very different to the music I had heard, especially music I had heard around the house. It was such a refreshing experience, even though I came from a musical home. This changed my outlook on music and I was a different man.

Rock music helped me to be different from the musical influence I received from home. It is who I am today. I’m a different personality compared to almost every other artiste in Sri Lanka. I’ve been living out of the country for 33 years. 

In my 35-year music career, I have done more than 35 albums worldwide with diverse line-ups in different countries. I got criticised by these people and that’s how I got to the top. I believe that constructive criticism is essential for everyone. I’ve been living out of the country for 33 years in many different countries. When I take these countries and the people there and their attitude as an example, nationality and religion are not in their game. All they want to do is work and be constructive, not destructive. 

One must do music with passion, not for fashion. We do have a music scene, not an industry. I’m disappointed that it is so, but this is our own fault

Q: Your songs carry a lot of meaning. What drives you to make this kind of music?

A: Basically, if you take songs from the past, there’s always a storyline or a message. Because of commercialism, things have been destroyed. Music, the film industry and even comedy have incorporated the use of crude language and they have ruined the art. 

I respect the culture and the art so much that each time I criticise when I dislike something, they don’t approve. I don’t like fake people. I’m still existing today in this music career because I deliver my music genuinely, towards an audience which loves it. People have ruined music genres in Sri Lanka because of commercialism. In Europe you have a diversity of music genres and artistes always identify with at least one. That is not the case here, they don’t know what type of music they’re doing. If someone asks me, my answer would be that I fall into the rock/metal category. 

I will never stop what I’m doing right now and my songs will always have a story to tell or carry a message or have a meaning. It is the same even in latest music video. It almost depicts my life story. I was naturally pushed to pursue sports with the influence at home but my passion for music overcame those barriers. In that sense, all my friends even in Germany are doing what they love and what they are passionate about. 

I have a goal to help the industry in Sri Lanka develop, because this is my country, even though I have the opportunity to work with international artistes indefinitely. It’s a difficult task because there’s so much jealousy and hatred within the industry. I remember how when we were schooling, we used to share even our sandwich. You can see such actions today but it’s not heartfelt, it’s not genuine. 

Q: You use music as an instrument in your activism, fighting to right the wrongs in this country. What are the main messages you strive to put forth? 

A: When I got into the music field, the only advice my father gave me was to get ready to receive criticism, jealousy and hatred for the work that I do, if it is good and worthy. People will always try to pull you towards their wavelength or their energies, but we need to believe in ourselves to ride through it. 

This is also what I tried to capture through the ‘Wilapattuwe’ song. With the incident in Wilpattu, people targeted Muslims, but everyone forgot to look deep into the matter and realise that such orders come from higher authorities and that they should also be held responsible. I had to voice this issue, because I was distressed that people were pinning this on an ethnicity, a race. People forgot that there’s two sides to every story. Chinthana Dharmadasa wrote the lyrics to this song when I related to him my feelings about this issue. 

This Sinhala-Buddhist wave that exists today has started with the influence of certain politicians. When we were growing up, during the ’70s, we didn’t have that kind of culture, with this crude language and profanity. This is even there on social media. 

It’s the norm that the singer of a rock/metal band writes the lyrics. In the ‘Civilisation 1’ project, the songs included in ‘Calling the Gods’ were about the destruction humans were causing the earth and how we still pray to God and ask to be saved when things are going bad for us, and in ‘Revolution Rising’ the concept was questioning God why we deserved something as catastrophic as the tsunami the day after Christmas and for people to be encouraged to go back to their roots and think carefully about what has to take place, both politically and socially.

You take all these big bands like Motorhead, Judas Priest, and Iron Maiden, their lyrics are based on politics and social issues. The American band Living Colour’s song ‘The Cult of Personality’ is about Martin Luther King. Similarly, I would really like to write certain songs about people of Sri Lanka, but unfortunately we don’t have personalities or legends like that making a change here. 

Q: What do you think about the music industry here in Sri Lanka? 

A: I doubt very much that there’s a music industry here because everybody has ruined it. We don’t have proper record labels or a copyright association, so, everybody is stealing from each other. 

For the music industry, we need to give a very versatile record from each artiste, with at least eight to 10 songs that people could listen to one by one and understand what the artist is trying to convey to them. All the artistes in the future must have a concept and must know what they’re doing.

Contd. on Page 8

One must do music with passion, not for fashion. We do have a music scene, not an industry. I’m disappointed that it is so, but this is our own fault. For the last 70 years all these politicians never thought about it. In every developed country, they have an artistic culture, which is how they represent their country to the world. We don’t have anything as such. The politicians, the leaders in our country are to be completely blamed for this misfortune. They didn’t do anything to develop or even to protect what we had.

My father did music for 49 films during the 1983 riots and most of them were burnt and this destruction was done by our own people. We don’t have an art culture anymore in this country. 

Q: Our music industry is still struggling to meet international standards. What do you think we should be doing to improve that status?

A: We must work internationally to improve this status. For that to happen, we must have foreign record labels here and have representatives coming all the way from there and working here with us together. However, our people don’t like to do this. 

Again, it is up to the Government to facilitate this. Even if a foreign company comes here and wants to invest in this country, they are begging for profits and that’s their main and only concern. That’s why we see no progress here. 

If we take India as an example, they are very open-minded people. Though being a highly-populated country with many social issues, they have a well-protected film industry and a music industry that is appreciated around the world. Even in Germany, they telecast Bollywood movies. We lack that sense of how to attract people. We boast about a 2,500-year-old history but what have we done to prove that worth or to protect that legacy? The fault is in the hands of the leaders of this country, who have done nothing constructive for the future of our children. 

Q: There’s been a drastic drop of quality in popular music and music videos released here in recent times, and they are in fact very crude. What are your thoughts on this?

A: When I composed the ‘Wilpattuwe’ song, we wanted to do a music video for it and reach a bigger audience, but we didn’t have funds and nobody was prepared to sponsor it. You see how today for many music videos that have crude language with displays of profanity and vulgarity there are sponsors lining up and people jumping at the opportunity to gain quick fame. 

Most young musicians want quick fame and end up putting together a music video with sub-standard music, lyrics with no meaning and no message and are proud when they get views and think they have made it big because of it. That’s not the purpose of doing music.

These sub-standard music videos must be banned, first of all, and then they must be fined for all the nudity and the vulgarity of the content. The internet is a great tool if you use it for the right reasons, but it has its pros and cons. I believe in a system where people’s cyber activities are monitored and filtered. 

When I got into the music field, the only advice my father gave me was to get ready to receive criticism, jealousy and hatred for the work that I do, if it is good and worthy. People will always try to pull you towards their wavelength or their energies, but we need to believe in ourselves to ride through it

Q: Do you believe that a professional education in music is essential to be a successful musician?

A: I doubt it very much. There are many musicians in the world who never studied music. Music is a language and I believe that the basic theory of music would suffice. Most of what I’ve learnt, I’ve learnt by myself. I only had tutors to learn about the basic theory of music. Having a degree in music won’t take you anywhere, I suppose, unless you want to be a music educator. 

If we take Hans Zimmer, the world’s most famous music composer today, he cannot even read music notes. He is a Grammy award winning film music composer and he doesn’t know music theory. He is able to compose music visually. This is something we need to understand; because the music in our films, most often than not, doesn’t fit the specific scene. This is because we lack the ability to visually compose music. 

Q: As a veteran in the music industry, what is your message to young musicians?

A: Be very open-minded and at the same time be down to earth. It is very important to have a proper attitude, to be honest to yourself and to music. You must do something that represents you, something that has meaning and not pretend to be someone you’re not or create something you don’t believe in. It is also important to remember that you must cater to the audience. You must try your best to pass on a positive message, not a negative one. 

Q: What can we expect from you this year?

A: I started the year with a tribute concert for my parents on 10 February at BMICH, after completing 35 years in the music career. 

I have joined up with one of the best bass players in the world, Magnus Rosén from Sweden, and two of his friends from Sweden, and we are planning to release a record worldwide in September. The drummer is someone who has played with Glenn Hughes and Joe Lynn Turner as a session man and the guitarist has done a lot of gigs with different international acts. 

This is an all-star line-up and a project from Sweden where you could expect some groovy rock music with my own concept called ‘Hate Breeder’. Though we haven’t yet decided on a band name, the lyrics will be focused around that theme. With a Sri Lankan front man and three Swedes, you can stay on the lookout for that.

FT Profile

Chitral “Chity” Somapala is a hard rock and heavy metal vocalist. He is known for his work with European power metal bands Firewind, Power Quest, Avalon, Faro, Red Circuit and Civilization One. His track ‘Nadee Ganga,’ which was released in 1998, gained him a lot of popularity in Sri Lanka. His songs are embraced by many for their rich meaning and captivating music.