Jethro and Prem Williams make music for inner peace. In it for the long haul, the couple have toured the world with their three children in tow, performing their signature brand of contemporary mantras and selling nearly a quarter of a million albums in the ambient genre.
Finding their way into ‘sacred earth music’ was a natural evolution for the two musicians.
‘I was in my early 20s bumming around playing music and exploring. Prem had been in a successful band called Tribal Trance. We weren’t sure what we wanted to do so we studied to be yoga teachers. We let go of playing music because our daughter was four at the time, and that’s when the change of direction musically came along, and we got introduced to mantras and what our souls were singing. We wanted not to be the performer that was there for the glory but to really enter into that stream of depth that is available in sacred music.’
The couple had struck on something unique.
‘It was an amazing time,’ says Jethro, ‘and we were able to just explore it. Rewind 18 years and there wasn’t anyone really doing anything like this. We made bold declarations that we weren’t going to play where anyone is drinking, so we took our music to the markets and we sold tens of thousands of albums playing up and down the coast. It was the heyday of the CD – there were no digital media, so we used to sell hundreds of albums in the morning, and when you played to people from Eumundi markets you had such a mix, always international people on holidays; we were in London and a lady came up and told us she’d bought our CD at the Eumundi markets!’
Prem and Jethro feel that their music has really come into its own.
‘Right now is fantastic.’ says Jethro, ‘We have been though different seasons with our work. It’s quite an amazing time right now.’
Sacred Earth plays at the Byron Theatre at the Community Centre on Saturday 29 April at 7.30pm.
Tickets and information at byroncentre.com.au.
