Rattling their power at Deconstruction

Demi HEWAMANNA

Very way before I was born, there has been a group that truly shook the music industry in Colombo and got people to start appreciating music that was never heard of, to many years at that time.

On May 19 these four guys got back together once more to give a night to remember to their friends and fans who loved them 30 years ago. They are none other than the band Rattle Snake. The guy who made all this possible was Lasith Fernando from Angel Down at the Deconstruction concert that was held two weekends back. It was a full house and it was a mad house.

Lasith got in touch wit Keerthi Fernando and asked whether they could play and he got hold of the other guys Kamal, Thilak and Bonny and within two weeks of practice they gave an unforgettable performance to their audience.

I got a chance to speak with Keerhti and ask him what it felt like to get back on stage and perform.

"We have been in the industry for 30 years. In the first line up of the band there were five and Bonny Appaswami came after 10 years", Keerthi said as he went back 30 years. We were friends - Kamal, Thilak, Srimal Wickremesinghe came up with the idea to start something and sing. It was actually initiated by Thilak and his brother Bandula Dias.

"At that time western music was never a big thing among our crowd", Keerthi added. Bands such as Gypsies were known here and there but rock musicians didn't have much opportunity and we just started out as school boys.

Thilak playing the guitar

Kamal Perera strumming away

Keerthi performing with the band

Bonny Appaswami caught in the music

Keerthi on the flute

Lasith with Angel Down

In the early days, the only form of rock that people knew was Folk Rock. We grew up listening to artists such as Grand Funk Railroad, Led Zepplin, Deep Purple and Black Sabbath and then Jimi Hendrix. We didn't have cassettes those days and the only way we used to listen to them is by buying the big records. I have a huge collection of them at home. Whenever we had the time we got together to hang out, we played our instruments and practiced.

Our first concert which was sponsored by Srimal was held at the John de Silva auditorium to a packed audience. And we continued playing to packed crowds in open theatres and our last ever concert was at the Ladies College Auditorium.

We made two originals with lyrics written by Asoka Fernando. One was Lost in the Forest - a song about people who are lost in society and who have issues in the society and drown themselves in the worries of the world. The other was Down to the Earth and Prisoner of Dreams, a classic that I did with my band Venom.

There was a concert at the Viharamaha Devi Park that brought in a crowd of over 3000 to watch us perform and to us it was the biggest audience we ever got.

In one of the Golden Cliff Awards that was handled by Lake House, I won the Best Vocals and the band Venom became the Best Rock/Metal Band of the year.

I created my Band Venom with Bonny and that was truly a very heavy rock band. I started to like heavy metal and hard rock and spent days listening to Iron Maiden. I have in my years seen Iron Maiden perform live five times. I've also seen Anthrax, Slayer and Alice Cooper.

I have performed in many concerts and played in 10 to 15 hard rock cafes and performed in places like Rome, Paris, Scotland, Bangkok and Singapore. There was a rock café in Woodstock called Chromo and on that particular night I walked in, they were having a tribute concert to White Snakes.

I went to them, had a chit chat and then after some talking they asked me whether I can sing any of the White Snakes tracks and I said yes. I sang songs like Here I go again, Sailing Ship and I was so glad with the response I got from them because all the songs I sang were the ones I sang with Venom.

The rest of the guys also began their own thing in their own way. Kamal played with the ever popular Mirage, Thilak began his own studio of music and Bonny played in my band.

Everything has changed in a big way from the way we performed to how bands are performing now. The guys are ready to perform for their fans if anyone is willing to come forward and do a show. And even playing at Deconstruction was something we thought would not be possible as it's not easy to get the guys together.