Baring his soul not through music but the written word
View(s):Rock star Suresh De Silva of Stigmata fame discusses his new book which he calls an ‘anti-memoir’
By Duvindi Ilankoon
It’s a cardinal rule of a good memoir that you must have led an interesting life to write one. Certainly, no one could accuse Suresh De Silva of having lived a dull life. The frontman of Stigmata has commanded attention since he first took to the stage at school in 1999, at the tender age of 16. Today he’s 42 and the author of three books – the latest, ‘Stigmatized: Lessons from My Storms’, part of his life story. “An ‘anti-memoir’,” he says.
Suresh is the kind of person one imagines they know well enough already – he has been a familiar face in music for a couple of decades, with a social media presence to match. Stigmata too needs little introduction; the band made metal mainstream in Sri Lanka, inspiring generations to venture beyond pop hits and take creative risks. But Stigmatized spends much less time than you would expect on Stigmata. “If a book is being written about the band, then all of us should do it together,” explains Suresh. That seems fair.
Family man: Suresh with his wife Jessica and daughter Callie. Pic by Riyal Riffai
Instead, he has turned inwards, exploring, sometimes in painful detail, the childhood that made him who he is today, the twenties where he lived up to a true rock’n’roll image, and the rock bottom followed by intense soul searching in his mid-thirties that put him on his current path. Sober before shows, for one. Much more likely to be reading than out partying, for another.
If Suresh’s thirties were about soul searching, his 40s are all about fatherhood. Suresh and his wife, Jessica Stave (“..my lighthouse. My guiding star. A compass that never fails.”, he writes), are devoted parents to two-year-old Calliope, fondly known as Callie. For the ancient Greeks, Calliope meant ‘Chief of All Muses’; Suresh describes the joy of watching Callie play her baby instruments, sometimes mimicking her father’s performances. He is determined to be a present, attentive parent – giving her space to come into her own while ensuring a safe and secure childhood.
Suresh devotes the first part of Stigmatized to his own childhood, from being a misfit at STC to discovering books and music in his teens. Born to a middle-class home, his family went through a turbulent time after his father unexpectedly died when he was around 10 years old. His mother, a strong-willed, self-made woman, did her best to care for her son. But she was a complicated woman, writes Suresh, with her own demons to battle. When she passed away in 2018 after a long struggle with her health, he was devastated. In the book he reflects on his childhood with perspective and understanding; “I wish I could have eased her burdens,” he says of writing about her. “Where I failed in life, I can try to at least immortalize my parents in the written word.”
It was at times very hard to revisit the past, he says, and he would often find himself with sweaty palms while writing a chapter. Much of writing the book involved revisiting old memories and finding they were not as watertight as he expected. “The more I wrote, the more I realized that there was a big gap between what I chose to remember and what really happened. This is my problem with biographies. It’s so easy to buy into your own canon and paint yourself in a certain way to gain empathy.”
To be as faithful as possible, Suresh visited family, friends and acquaintances – mending burnt bridges and confronting difficult truths about himself. His insistence on “not wanting to paint myself as a hero or a victim” pays off for the reader – you get an honest, almost unvarnished portrait of the writer as he was and is. Overall, Stigmatized is longer than one would expect, with numbered chapters interspersed with vignette chapters that pay homage to various people, pets (“they have saved me on more occasions than I can count”) and ideas. The skilled editorial hand of Marianne David shines throughout.
Suresh is as eloquent in speech as he is on stage, and quotes philosophy with remarkable frequency throughout the book. You’ll find all the familiar faces – Socrates, Seneca, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, whose writing he discovered during COVID (“my Robinson Crusoe-era, hair and all”). His home is now filled with the classics.
Exploring new creative outlets, he has already published two novels, with another in the works. Suresh is also making new solo music. If Stigmata and heavy metal are his first loves, then this new music reflects who he is becoming in the second act of his life. He is also busy professionally, carving out a career as a creative strategy consultant, supporting Jessica to run her family business, and starting a doctorate.
We come to the close of our interview just as the door opens and Callie wanders in, back from playgroup, demanding her father’s attention. Although Suresh started penning down these stories about seven years ago, it was Callie’s birth that crystallized his resolve to finish. “It gave me a sense of urgency to achieve more and leave something behind,” he says. “Not necessarily for her to read, or to be lauded by others but to prove to myself that I am more than ‘that Stigmata guy’.”
By this point, Callie is in full-throttle play mode. Suresh asks her to share her chocolate, then picks up a little dinosaur from her toy stash. He knows them by name. Even a rock star has to know which dino his little girl loves this particular week, after all.
‘Stigmatized: Lessons from My Struggles’ priced at Rs 3500 can be purchased by
visiting Skyn Family Wellness
(353, R.A De Mel Mawatha, Colombo 3) or emailing sureshwordsmith@gmail.com
Searching for that next furry family member but couldn’t find one in your area? Hitad.lk has the solution with our extensive listings of dogs for sale in Sri Lanka!