When one thinks of music and a musical family, the Sobers family certainly rings a bell.

Pepperpot Magazine sat down with the Sobers to talk about their lives as musicians and their deep desire to see music and musicians in Guyana accelerate to another level.
“I am a second-generation musician,” Christian Sobers explained. “My dad has been a singer/musician and worked with bands, worship leaders, and groups. I found later on in life was in the Guyana Star competition with Charmaine Blackman back in the day and Sean Bhola, so, both my brother and I were born into this. My most vivid memory of shows was when Ron Kenoly came to Guyana. I remembered him being backstage and shaking my dad’s hand.”

Christian related that he must have been about 10 years old when both he and his brother and their dad were part of the musical accompaniment for one of America’s legendary gospel singers and songwriters, Ron Kenoly, who was part of a group called Integrity Music, one of the leading Worship groups at that time in the USA.
Some may have made it traditional, playing gospel music in the morning. The older of the Sobers brothers said that he remembered waking up in the mornings and hearing gospel music in the house while his mother was cleaning.

“The cool thing is yes, there will be gospel music playing, but we heard our dad singing it, and that will be a rehearsal. I recall him ironing and singing a worship song or one of his original songs,” Christian said.

Christian can recall when his dad (Pastor, Sean Sobers) wrote the song “Healing our Land “, sitting on the bed, and he is ironing in front of him, singing the melody.
However Christian did not gravitate to music until he became a teenager.
After looking at the popular show “American Idol “, he became inspired to pick up a musical instrument at 14, saying to himself, “I can do this.”

The younger of the Sobers brothers, Jeremy, got his inspiration from watching a Michael Jackson video that his dad brought home from the United States of America, having travelled there.
Jeremy recalled, him being intrigued by the musicians and the way they played their instruments. “How do these guys do this?” was the magical question and would be for any child Jeremy’s age.

Growing up as brothers, and sharing a brotherly chemistry, if you see your brother do something, you want to follow the same line.
“We are literally like two peass in a pod, so when he started playing guitar, from being inspired by the American Idol show, I just followed right after and we did a couple of courses, and we just learned the song and you know what, let us try to make this something,“ Jeremy shared.

The pair had different career paths that they wanted to take prior to becoming musicians. Christian was going to be a doctor, while Jeremy was going to become a lawyer.
“I was at one point at the University of Guyana, I just kept leaving class to go and do music and because of my consistency, I have explored a number of avenues, just because I stuck to my goal,” Jeremy said.

Christian related how he found his niche in music when he was in the sixth form at Queen’s College, where he was fondly known as the “guitar guy”. He also recalled that he started teaching music when he left Queens College while at the same time pursuing his academic career and finishing his tenure by completing his CAPE examination.

After being certified by the National School of Music, he launched his teaching career in music and began teaching the piano and other musical instruments at a small fee.
Christian recalled telling his parents that he was more interested in teaching music than anything else and pursued it with great passion and excitement and soon rose to play for several bands in the country.

Christian noted that because of what he had to endure, musical chemistry and language have developed between them.
“ Whenever we play in the band room, sometimes we don’t have to say anything, folks would be like ‘oh these Sobers’, “ Christian said.