Imaginary Friends offers stress relief with 2016 hit

Gail Alexan­der

"Save this coun­try, save this land,

Wash the blood from off our hands..."

When T&T al­ter­na­tive rock band Imag­i­nary Friends re­leased those lyrics in Might in 2016, they felt its soul­ful pop/rock and Tri­ni blend might have pro­vid­ed pos­i­tive vibes for lis­ten­ers at that stress­ful time, when one of the largest oil price de­clines in mod­ern his­to­ry oc­curred.

Nine years and sev­er­al glob­al ten­sions lat­er, Might is again trend­ing as a vibe boost­er, pro­vid­ing com­fort in tense times.

"It's that kind of com­po­si­tion — mu­sic and lyrics that speak to you," says Imag­i­nary Friends founder and lead vo­cal­ist/com­pos­er Joon Sil­ver­moon.

"The Friends start­ed off like many bands — at­tend­ing shows, spot­ting re­spec­tive tal­ents and dis­cov­er­ing the mix worked."

The band com­pris­es of Sil­ver­moon, a gift­ed singer/song­writer whose mu­sic has topped lo­cal charts; Michael Chang Wai, a mas­ter­class mu­si­cian per­form­ing glob­al­ly with top acts; Rod­ney McLean, ex­pert­ly hold­ing the sig­na­ture bass groove; Ian Joseph, with pre­ci­sion, en­er­gy and feel for the drum­beat plus in­ter­na­tion­al ex­pe­ri­ence; Ben­jamin Joel, skilled on gui­tars and in build­ing them; and Paul Beep­han, mul­ti­tal­ent­ed on many in­stru­ments.

Keep­ing Imag­i­nary Friends' en­gine run­ning is band man­ag­er Wendy Ram­char­i­tar.

They’re no strangers to T&T’s mu­sic scene, hav­ing graced air­waves and per­for­mance slots with a string of com­po­si­tions.

Now, af­ter 11 years, Imag­i­nary Friends has cul­ti­vat­ed a rep­u­ta­tion as a high-en­er­gy, genre-blend­ing band with a seam­less fu­sion of rock, reg­gae, so­ca, pop, and R&B — along with its own Christ­mas com­po­si­tions.

It’s led to in­ter­na­tion­al stages — the Club One New Re­leas­es TV se­ries — trav­el­ling to New­found­land and Labrador, Cana­da. The se­ries was broad­cast in Cana­da and the US.

Might, their first com­po­si­tion, boast­ing haunt­ing sig­na­ture gui­tar work, was writ­ten and arranged by Sil­ver­moon, from lyrics and melodies to riffs.

"I think it res­onates. The fact that it stirs peo­ple who hear it for the first time now means it’s rel­e­vant — maybe it can help na­tion-build­ing some­how."

"Hear for your­self: Imag­i­nary Friends is at Top­pers Grand Bazaar on Thurs­day, 6th," Sil­ver­moon added.