|  Halloween
night at Hard Rock Café. Almost all of Bali’s
most influential bands were there to witness the performance
of an indie punk band from Jakarta, The Brandals (literally
naughty/badly behaved). There were Dethu, J-rinx (SID),
Igo (Telephone), Robby (Navicula) and Aldino (Kaimsasikun)
standing right up front stage to support Jakarta’s
self-made underground heroes. So what is so special about
The Brandals?
Born and bred in the underground music scene of Jakarta,
the history of this band began ages ago when the members
of Waiting Room, Brow Sugar and Underwear got together
to form The Brandals in 2001. With an already soaring
reputation from their previous bands, it’s just
a matter of time for them to rise to stardom…
You boys definitely have the attitude and style as punk
bands go!
Thank you!
You’ve been raised in the underground music scene.
Would you like to stay that way or are you heading for
the majors?
We don’t restrict ourselves like that, I mean, of
course we wont say no if there’s a major label approaching
us. It is out goal to be able to make a living out of
what we’re doing. But the most important thing is,
we don’t want our style and music to be watered
down in any way by anybody. It has to be 100% absolute
Brandals!
So how’s the second album coming?
We are still working on it. Levi, guitarist of The Fly
is producing it and so far we’ve finished 2 songs
already. It should be ready to launch in March 2005.
So, are you still going to hold on to your 50’s/punk
rock image?
Yes, and we’re planning to do more. In our debut
album, we talk a lot about the social awareness of Jakarta,
the place where we live. We have so many social issues
unsolved in Jakarta, and next year we will be about more
than just punk music and social lyrics. We are going to
act on it.
What kind of action?
Well, we will work a lot in conjunction with social welfare
foundations (LSM) and profits from our shows will go to
help their programs. We just finished doing a concert
with Baby Jim Aditya (AIDS activist-red) and soon we will
do a gig for a foundation that supports ex-drug users
in December.
Wow, looks like there’s no stopping you guys. I
heard you’re going to be featured in Upi Avianto’s
new movie!
Yeah, that’s something else! The movie is called
“Lovely Luna”, the creator, Upi, approached
us personally since she likes our music very much. We
will be in the movie performing as ourselves, on stage
as a cameo. We’ll also give 2 of our songs to the
movie’s soundtrack.
Sounds fun to me. Ok last question. How do you feel about
last night’s gig?
It was the first time for us, and we felt so honored and
blessed. So many people appreciate our music, way beyond
our expectations; it has always been our motto to give
the best on stage, like what we’ve learn from rock
n’ roll heroes like Keith Richard, for example.
So when people do appreciate us, it’s truly an expression
of rock ‘n roll. /MK
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