Sriram and Ganesh Balasubramanian began experiencing constant headaches and nerve pain in their upper bodies at 15. The Singaporean twins were diagnosed with fibromyalgia, a chronic disorder that causes widespread pain and symptoms such as fatigue, muscle stiffness, and insomnia.
There is no known cure. “The doctors called it fibromyalgia, not because they found the cause but because nothing else could explain the pain. We had to drop out of school,” Ganesh recounts.
They however found relief through music, in particular singing, mantra (a word, sound, or phrase repeated in spiritual practices like meditation and prayer) and pranayama, the yogic practice of controlling one’s breath.
It helped that they had formal musical training at the Singapore Indian Fine Arts Society. “Those years of searching for answers taught us that music is not just decoration, but also regulation. It reshaped our nervous system before we even had words for it,” Ganesh adds.
After completing NS, the brothers enrolled at Berklee College of Music in Boston and joined the Berklee Indian Ensemble, where they developed a signature sound by blending raagas (melodic frameworks in Indian classical music) and vocal affirmations.
What resulted was music that soothes and shifts consciousness. “This taught us to ask what is music, really, when nothing else remains?”
The 29-year-olds started performing as The Bala Boys. After their father uploaded a video of one of their performances, listeners wrote in to say that the music helped them deal with ailments such as sleep issues, heartbreak, and illnesses.
“We never set out to heal anyone. We sang to survive,” Sriram says. “But through positive listener feedback, we understood that the vibration that helped us was moving outwards to help others.”
It’s not because their music has some magical frequency, he makes plain. Its ability to lend comfort instead lies in its intention, resonance, and the way in which it reaches the nervous system. “We call it music you don’t just hear but also feel inside,” he explains.
Now based in Los Angeles, the brothers were invited by American radio broadcaster SiriusXM and Pandora, a music streaming service, to produce a special release for World Meditation Day last year.
Their four-track album Om And Affirmations, featuring tracks like I Am Love and I Am Light, became Pandora’s top-streamed wellness release in its first month, exceeding 400,000 streams. This earned them a week-long spot on a Times Square billboard in New York City.
The Bala Boys see themselves not as musicians or healers, but as cultural changemakers. In addition to collaborating with The Chopra Foundation, founded by new age guru Deepak Chopra, they have participated in Harvard University’s Sages & Scientists Symposium.
Their experience has reminded them that music born in intimacy can live in the loudest corners of the planet, Ganesh says. Also, that the number of streams matter less than the stories their tunes tell.
“Our music has entered people’s lives at moments of loss and rebirth, and those mean more than any metric.”
