Music is their medicine | Daily News

Music is their medicine

Music gives meaning to our memories. It makes us look at our memories differently and think differently about our memories. It makes us believe in ourselves. Music makes us imagine and that is the greatest quality about music. Melodies speaks to Lanthra Perera of the band Doctor on how music has found its way into their hearts and how they are compelled to share their music with their audiences.

When asked if there is a story about the mysterious name ‘Doctor’, Lanthra said that when they named the band it did not have a story as such, but later on they used the theme ‘doctor’ in their concerts as part of their introductory act, where they used the sounds of sirens and dressed in white doctors cloaks.

“Given my family back ground in music where my father was the first bassist in gypsies and having been born to a family involved in music, I've always been in the music scene. But I initially started taking music professionally was when I was about 16 years old.


Lanthra Perera 

When speaking about my humble beginnings, I have a lot of fond memories of the amazing people that shaped me into what I am today. Starting from my father and then to my early days of rock music with the band Akash lead by Mr. Thilak Dias to forming a duo with Krishan up until today, to a full band, those are my memories,” said Perera.

Music stirs passion within people. From the savage in the forest to Mozart and then to modern musicians such as Madonna, music has always awakened something within us. In that moment we are capable of anything.

“Why it makes us passionate is a difficult question to answer, given that passion is not something you can reason out, hence it's that urge within you to be in it and how much you enjoy being in it. All of our band members have different stories on how we came into music. But I believe it is that urge that has drawn us all into the music scene out of a million other things we could have chosen instead,” said Perera.

In terms of international artists the band greatly admire bands such as Maroon 5, Cold play and artistes such as Ed Sheeran, Bruno Mars. As for local bands, they admire the Gypsies, Marians & Misty and artists such as Chitral Sompala and Sanuka Wickramasinghe

“We do not emulate anyone, because we believe every individual is unique, so for that matter if we sing a song of Bruno Mars that'll be a Doctor’s version of that song, not an effort to emulate Bruno Mars.

We mostly do pop music. We do not have a theme that we have restricted ourselves to. When making music it eventually becomes something that is related and appealing to the younger crowd. All these themes are close to our hearts, but we always try to bring variety based on the crowd we are catering to in live performances,” explained Perera.

The band has released six originals and an album is still underway

“I believe being successful has a few ingredients that is common to all despite what industry you are in. They are simply hard work, passion for what you do, prioritization, humbleness and continuous improvement.

Specifically in the music industry today music is the global language, hence we cannot isolate ourselves to one particular genre of music such as local music. Therefore my message is to keep yourselves updated and learn the new trends and technologies that keep coming,” pointed out Perera.

Doctor’s secret to success is dedication, desire and discipline. They are a committed band and they care about their audience. Music is their medicine. And music can heal.

“It's pure dedication and team work and a mix of all this and all the good deeds that follow that have made us successful. To come to where we are today, it has taken hours of practice sessions and also on the job training. The more we perform and the more experience we gather, it gives us the ability to better read the crowd at every event. The rest follows like a ritual where the songs just flow in as we sync in with the audience,” added Perera.

There are a lot of cliché terms about music such as ‘music inspires’ and ‘music soothes the soul’. Everything under the sun that has been said about music has been said. For the band Doctor, music is basically the meaning of their name. They are healers who heal through their music.

“Nothing is hidden, usually our music is quite straight forward and we always try to convey a message that is close to our heart. We are looking forward to celebrate the 10 years of Doctor next year and few plans are in progress for that. We are working on another original too. If you speak of the long term, it'll be forever to make great music and entertain the audiences locally and internationally,” said Perera.


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