As the head prefect of the college and a member of the college band way back in 1988 I set my stage to pursue a career in the music world and develop leadership qualities to steer our new band “MARIANS” to a success, in this beautiful coastal hamlet called Chilaw. Studying at St. Mary's college I was proud to be called a Marian, and still feeling excited that the name “MARIANS” for the Band was suggested by Brother Aloysius our College Principle.

As school boys we couldn't afforded more than my grandmother's rice storage box as the drum set, some hardboard boxes as tom tom's and also some scrap metal plates for our symbols and of course a high spirit of determination to make it to the top. My mother tirelessly cooked and fed the whole band in those memorable days. Giving us all the support, looking for Electric guitars, keyboards was a dream. Practices went on with acoustic guitars and Melodica.

The first great day was our first show. Wow! The response was great from the audience especially from the teenagers. I was the vocalist while playing the bass guitar and also presenting the show. The long and winding road to success took more and more musical shows. As shows came in, we gained experience each day and improved our self's to be unique and innovative. We had our highs and lows. Some band members took different paths and new blood was injected to the band. My focus and determination was to get to where I want to be… “To be the cream of the crop in the music industry”

In 1990 we released our first album; every music store in the country soled it. It was Marians SANGEETHA NAADE. Which interpret as “the musical sounds of the Marians', SALES OF THIS ALBUM COPIES ASCENDED TO 500,000 PLUS. This was produced by Rathnasiri record bar. Since then many more albums followed. We thrived in popularity, it was a real boost when we got an invitation with the local TV Station ITN in 1990, reporters crammed us and cameras flashing and we appeared in almost every newspaper, Magazines and supplements.

The time to go international arrived and we toured Dubai with an unprecedented success story. This followed with more tours of USA , Canada , Italy , France , Austria , Australia and the United Kingdom . We performed over 20 musical concerts covering nearly half the globe by the end of 2004.

We believe we are half way through our journey and our goals are set very high, what would really excite us is to push our boundaries, discover new horizon's and in short to create history in the world of Music and entertainment...


NALIN PERERA