BraveWords and keyboardist Vikram Shankar share a history going back to 2017, when we challenged him to cover a Devin Townsend song, specifically something from Ocean Machine in celebration of the album's 20th Anniversary. Up to that point, Shankar had made his presence known on YouTube via single camera clips featuring his piano renditions of songs from Evergrey, Behemoth, Amaranthe, Sabaton, Rush and many, many more; BraveWords was happily drawn in. Discussions of which song Ocean Machine song to cover eventually turned into the gauntlet being thrown down; why not cover the whole album? Challenge accepted, and what Shankar conjured up was a jaw dropping 28-minute medley (check it out here).
This was an exercise drawn up simply for the love of metal and music, and since then we've seen Shankar's star rise as a member of Redemption, touring with Pain Of Salvation, his prog-metal trio Lux Terminus, and perhaps most importantly, his Silent Skies partnership with Evergrey frontman Tom Englund. They have just released their third album, Dormant, once again to positive reviews from that part of metaldom with a blackened heart for dark, melancholy keyboard / vocal-based music.
"There is a direct line between the covers and where I've ended up, pretty much with every gig I've done," Shankar reveals as we reflect on the Ocean Machine medley. "The one direct exception is Redemption because I'd never done a Redemption cover. I got that gig through Tom, and I got in touch with Tom because of an Evergrey piano cover I'd done way back in 2014. I played a dodgy-sounding version of 'Missing You' in the conservatory practice room in college, and I guess he watched it. Incredibly, it stayed with him for three years. He hit me up in 2017 to start Silent Skies. Pain Of Salvation was much the same, where in 2017 I covered 'On A Tuesday' and the drummer of the band, Léo (Margarit), saw it and remembered it five years later when they needed an American keyboard player."
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