Infatuated by Ritual

By Nilma DOLE

Potential groupies of the metal scene will hold their breath when they see Ritual live and in the flesh. Leader Givanke is the tall, cute nose-ringed vocalist cum guitarist who is also the wordsmith of the band. Karmic Sulphur hottie with the brow-piercing Thushara is their left-handed bassist, the ‘never on time’ drummer is called Udaya and Randev is their rocker guitarist.

Givy and Randev initially hooked up from school and eventually they met Udaya. Remembering when they first performed live, Givy reminisces “We were jamming when Suresh heard our jam and at once told that he wanted us to perform for their ‘Chaos Invited’ gig.

This impelled them to compose their original, a popular rock.lk download, ‘Principle of Pain’ in just four days. This was last year in May and the dudes haven’t looked back ever since.

The Ritual genre revolves around spreading the gospel of Rock & Roll. Says Givy, “Our music is an advocacy of the spirit of Rock & Roll”. They can’t name particular influences as such but they are influenced by a wide range of hard rock to metal outfits in general. “It’s more experimental distorted guitar and drumming,” states Givy.

Ritual recently performing at their joint gig with Sword of the Spirit called ‘FEED THE BEAST’ at a fire-studded Mount Lavinia beach. Ritual whipped up a delicacy of their delicious numbers like ‘Mother’, ‘Daggers of Duality’ and ‘Children of the Gun’. They tell that they’d like to record their own type of music in the future.

“We have no formula, no conformity, no barriers and no restricted mindsets and we like to emphasize effect by not repeating the same music,” states Ritual.

The support has been pretty good from all around since the guys have musical families. The others have got backing otherwise they wouldn’t be in this field. Givy was the former vocalist for Insanity and Randev was a guitarist before. Music is a union, they say and tells its for different people with common traits and common interests.

Regarding their supposed full-time careers, Givy says, “I grow plants”. Randev is teaching his dog strictly to speak and Udaya works, eats and sleeps while Thushara does somewhat the same thing except he is a freelance writer. As for advice, “Learn different roles because it is important to capture different streams of music”.

They acknowledge Ganga whom Givy says “Have you ever met four guys who like the same girl?” Replying in the negative, they say they’d introduce me to her and I hope that there is a chance for all the other iron maidens. They thank all those whom they love and they hope to “Support their cause, save Dudley and plant their music whilst living freely and joyously”.