The recent winners at Inception, a music event organised by Goa Institute of Management, Goan metal band Within Ceres has been on the scene for around four years. The Goan caught up with the youngsters
There have been quite a few metal bands that have emerged in the Goan music scene over the years. But what makes Within Ceres stand out is their commitment to do whatever it takes to make it big. And their electrifying performances at various events, be it in Goa at Sea Rock, Battle of the Bands, Rock in Goa, Guitar Gods of Goa or across India at Strawberry Fields in Bangalore or At-Mosh-Sphere in Gujarat, all stand testimony to this.
Started by guitarist Odin de Sa back in 2013 for the Sea Rock event organised by BITS Pilani, Goa, the band has been on the scene for almost four years and had a few changes in their line up since then. “While Kadesh (D'Souza) has been part of the band since the beginning, the rest joined us in 2014. Although we are from different parts of Goa, the metal scene is quite small and everybody knows everybody here,” says de Sa. While Nazian Fernandes plays the keyboard, David Rebello plays the drums, John Gomes plays bass and Arnold Carvalho does vocals, with their music mainly revolving around Ambient djent (a sub-genre of metal).
“We love metal because it makes us work on our instruments better. However the audience for this genre in Goa is still small as compared to the bigger cities like Mumbai and Bangalore, because of the mentality here and also due to lack of exposure,” says de Sa. “But at the same time, when we perform we know that the crowds have come in not because they want to just listen to some music but rather because they are fans of our music.”
At the same time, the guys admit that not everyone gets their kind of music. “Its like Math. If you don't understand it you won't get it,” says de Sa, while Carvalho chips in, “When we were performing in Bangalore for a show, one guy came up to me and said, 'If you aren't listening to rock or metal, then you are just lazy' and that stayed with me.”
And what about their families? “My mum doesn't get this music at all,” chuckles D'Souza, while in de Sa's case, his family has learnt to accept it. However, interestingly in Carvalho's and Fernandes' case, it was their families that got them into this genre.
The band has also come out with a couple of original songs ( Skyless and Dissonance) with de Sa being the main composer. They are currently in the process of recording their third track State of Emergency which they reckon will be out next month. Apart from this they also hope to come out with an eight track album by the year end. “We aren't concentrating on the Goan scene but rather we want to focus more on the India scene and perhaps do a tour of the country soon,” says D'souza while de Sa quips, “We want to make it to the moon and back!” He may have been joking, but it sure is a sign of how serious their intentions are.
