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| Sunday, 21 March 2004 |
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"It seems like only yesterday that we won TNL's Onstage", "But I have to say that the last 5 years have been a really fab part of my life, the thing's I've learned trough the band have been incredible, yes there have been the good and the bad, but it's been an inspiring journey." "Playing our first gig as Indie Square, back in 1999, that was a rush. It was at a play at the legends called Slag, put together by Mind Adventures. Our Buddy Tracy who headed the cast asked us if we'd like to play a set before the play. We were totally overwhelmed with the idea of performing for an audience in our new form. It had to be unplugged of course and that in itself was an intriguing proposition as we had never performed accoustic ever before. The gig went well and so did the play, we also managed to sell a few copies of an early edition of "Bring back the sun" on tape." Soon after came TNL's Onstage. Indie Square entered without ever thinking they'd walk away as winners. They rehearsed tirelessly and from preliminary to semis to the final it was a real wild ride says Anil. "Winning onstage gave us a taste of what it felt like to be acknowledged for all the hard work that we had put in. It felt good, we wanted more..." Ever since they started rehearsing in their bedrooms, their one dream collectively was to put out a full-length album. In late 1999 this dream became a reality. "Sometimes the best things happen by accident, someone told someone and we were introduced to the very talented Shoby Perera. Shoby was instrumental in keeping us on track and never compromised when it came to perfection. After scraping every last single cent the five of us had to our names (which wasn't much), we completed production, printing and pressing of CD's, we prepared ourselves for the launch of the album we called "Bring Back the sun". The album was a sell out, the reviews were rave, We were all happy bunnies. Back in 2000 playing any kind of original music on a stage was still kind of frowned upon. It was a cold night in February of 2000 when they were asked to play a beach Carnival. "I remember Batiya going onstage and entertaining the crowd with his new form of Sinhala rap. We were up next. We got on stage and strutted our stuff launching in to a couple of Pearl Jam Covers and then unleashing song's from "Bring Back the sun". To be fair to the audience, we sounded different looked different & maybe it was just too much to take. Well One lady decided to take things in to her own hands, she came up to the stage and told me what she thought of our originals (they weren't exactly words of encouragement). She also went on to say that we should have done more covers as that was what the crowd was there to hear. We stayed cool, I took the mic & told the audience what I had been told, I also told them that I knew that the square was a bit different but all we wanted to do was give them just that, something different & share a little bit of us with them," Surprisingly most of the crowd applauded. "I never saw that lady again. To this day I don't know if they cheered us or if they felt sorry for us or if it was cause they got me & our music, I like to think it was the latter." As the months went by they gigged extensively promoting their album. Slowly but surely things started happening, people started approaching them for shows. "Songs like Anger, Poison on a tray, Egocentric & Mrs. Cowdry became favourites on request shows on TNL Radio", says Anil. "No one ever came up to us and told us to stop playing originals ever again, infact they demanded that we play more originals." The whole of 2001 was spent on recruiting new members for the band. Three of the original line up had by now relocated to different parts of the world. Enter Sunil on Bass, Gune on Drums. OP & Anil still needed a second guitarist. "I was called upon to judge the annual talent search. Someone told me about a certain Guitarist in an AIS band called power failure who played a double neck guitar & played it pretty damn well. When it came time to judge PF, I liked what I saw. What I saw was Malinda." "With the line up complete & a little bit of savings in our bank accounts we set out completing our second Album. Once again we picked Shoby to tweak the knob's. The result was "Five & A Half". And this same publication was gracious enough to run an in-depth account of our 2nd album a couple of weeks ago. Therefore I will not go in to too much detail on this accept to say that "Five & A Half" was released in October 2002. The response to the album was overwhelming & to date has yielded the radio hit's "Cummonover", "Morning After", "Windows & Doors" & more recently the title track "Five & a Half". But this account's doesn't even scratch the surface of all that has gone down in the life of Indie Square in the last 5 years, Anil adds "Believe me there's more - the arguments, the long night's of excess the most wonderful people we've come to know trough the band". Anil and Independent Square are full of thanks to the media for assisting them in the last five years & all the fan's for giving them the kind of high they needed to keep them doing what they do. "We love you for that ... cheers!". |
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| Produced by Lake House |
The Square turns 5 in 2004. In order to celebrate being one of the
pioneering successful rock acts in the country, the band will stage on
evening of music at Clancy's 9.30 pm onwards on March 26. Official Media
Sponsors Are ETV & The Sunday Observer Magazine.
