NuAsia brings a new sound, a new love to country music, from Asia to America
By Kurt Beyers
NuAsia’s upcoming debut album, Quiet Violence, releasing June 9, will break some new ground in country music.
Judging from the title track, the album will draw a lot of country fans and create some new ones.
Most of the new ground, in case the band’s name doesn’t clue you in, is that all six of the musicians are of Asian heritage, by design of the band’s drummer, leader, executive producer, and founder, Roshan Seresinhe, who is a Sri Lankan native.
Another is the band’s lead singer and co-writer, Saint Cloud, a 22-year-old Boston woman of Vietnamese descent, whose voice can go from whispery and ethereal to clear and forceful. Roshan describes her voice as like Billy Eilish in her lower register and Taylor Swift at the high end.
Comparisons, certainly, are in the ear of the beholder, but equally certain is that Saint Cloud has complete artistic control of a beautiful voice with remarkable range from low to high.
Five of the album’s seven tracks cover the arc of a love story, beginning with the title track, “Quiet Violence,” a slow-tempo ballad in which Saint Cloud sings the beginnings of a love going bad.
Saint Cloud’s voice tells the story of the “quiet violence” of not being heard by her lover, the rich vocals and lush melody perfectly complementing each other.
The four succeeding tracks tell the story of recovered love, “Why Are You Back,” “Take Me Home,” “Lovesick ‘The Way I Am Loving You,’” and ending in a dance number, “Lost and Found (We’re OK).”
The album includes a cover of “Islands in the Stream,” an homage to the country legends who wrote it, Dolly Parton and the late Kenny Rogers.
“We completely reproduced it,” said Roshan, “but out of respect the melody has not been changed.” It features Justin Kawika Young, another musician of Asian descent.
The album closes with a dance tune celebration of America, “This Country of Mine,” and includes sentimental versions of two tracks.
“When I started the project, when I had the vision for the project, it was because we are all country loving musicians, but country pop, not blue grass or honky tonk.”
Four of the six members had strong careers as session musicians. Roshan has had cover bands on multiple continents.
“Part of the challenge when I disbanded my cover band,” he said, “is that you don’t find any Asian country bands. To my knowledge, there is only one Asian artist in Nashville that has done anything with country music, and he is a solo artist.”
Country songs are in the playlists of cover bands in all Asian countries, yet there is a perception that people of Asian descent don’t care for country music. This perception is shared by Asian people themselves.
So, he said, there’s a lot of Asian people who like country music, listen to country music, but since they think other Asian people don’t like it, they don’t talk about it.
The same dynamic was in the musicians Roshan was playing with in Southern California.
“Out of 50 songs we’ll play at a gig, we will play 15 country songs. So, I ask the rest of the band, I said, ‘Hey, it’s something that we enjoy playing, so I’m thinking maybe it’s a good niche to explore as we all seem to enjoy it.’”
He has assembled an extraordinary group with the goal of producing scintillating music to break through the stigma. The music NuAsia has produced for Quiet Violence shows this is the group to achieve Roshan’s goal.
Saint Cloud, who is Roshan’s co-writer on all the original songs on the album, has sung pop, R&B, trap and other genres, started busking in Boston and singing at open mic events around town. She has also been a contestant on “The Voice.”
Keyboardist Isamu McGregor, of Japanese descent, says Roshan, “is a jazz pianist and keyboard player of the first order” who has played all over the world in a variety of genres. He has also put out two well-received albums, Resonance and Live at the Baked Potato. For six years, Isamu was the tour band leader and keyboardist for country start Colbie Caillat.
Mark Flores, lead guitar, was born and raised in the Philippines. In addition to being a popular session musician, he is an audio engineer and has his own production company, Markflo Productions. He has played with several SoCal bands and worked in soul, funk, blues, classic rock, ’90s rock and R&B.
Dhammika “DJ” Jayasinghe, Sri Lanka, the bass guitarist, has played backup for more than 40 fellow Sri Lankan artists. He started playing at age 14 and moved to California at 18. Since his move, he has played with many Indian and Sri Lankan bands in Los Angeles.
Janesh Ruwanpathirana, like Roshan and DJ a native Sri Lankan, is a percussionist, songwriter and singer. He began playing in Western cover bands while in school in Sri Lanka and began playing in Los Angeles while working and going to school.
Roshan, at 62 the oldest member of the band, has played in, formed and led several cover bands in Los Angeles. He has also played in bands in the United Kingdom. He put aside music as a younger man to raise a family and establish himself professionally. After successfully achieving both goals, he started playing again 30 years ago.
For Roshan, forming a country band of musicians of Asian descent and recording original music is the realization of a dream he had from his younger days.
“The songs have been carefully designed to fit the story and mood of each song,” said Roshan. “We have string quartets, lap steels, pedal steels. I had this very unique sound I wanted to get out of the tracks, and I believe we achieved that richness while maintaining the traditions of country music.”
Make sure to stay connected to NuAsia on all platforms for new music, videos, and social posts.
https://www.facebook.com/nuasiacountry
https://www.instagram.com/nuasiacountry/
https://open.spotify.com/album/0ZK2x6KAp148vmDyN6TNzh?si=wLx2TKxNTFenvV1dBsK2Pg
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