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J-rocks: Constantly evolving
JP/Ricky Yudhistira With high-rise hairdos befitting Japanese Dragonball cartoon characters and some pretty dramatic outfits, the four band members visiting The Jakarta Post that day would fit right in with Tokyo's Harajuku style
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JP/Ricky Yudhistira
With high-rise hairdos befitting Japanese Dragonball cartoon characters and some pretty dramatic outfits, the four band members visiting The Jakarta Post that day would fit right in with Tokyo's Harajuku style.
Hearing their name, one can easily guess where they looked for inspiration: They are called the J-rocks.
Vocalist Iman Taufik Rachman, 27, guitarist Sony Ismail Robbayani, 25, bassist Swara Wima Yoga, 26, and drummer Anton Rudi Kelces love Japanese rock music, commonly known as J-rock. These days, the most prominent J-rock band in Indonesia is L'Arc-en-Ciel, also known as Laruku.
It was their love of J-rock music that brought the four together, eventually winning a national band competition, inking a deal with music label Aquarius Musikindo and releasing two albums and a number of video clips. Their set at A Mild Live Soundrenaline 2008 -- involving live performances from rock bands across five cities -- won the award for "Best Band To Free Their Voice", topping rock bands Nidji and Gigi and providing them with a shot at recording in the UK -- at the legendary Abbey Road Studios, no less.
J-rocks will be the first Indonesian band to ever record there, joining a long list of international musicians, including The Beatles, Pink Floyd and U2, among others.
With all this success coming only three years after the release of their first album -- in 2005 -- it looks as if everything is going right for the J-rocks. Things weren't always rainbows and butterflies for them, though.
When they released their first album "Topeng Sahabat" (A Friend's Mask) in 2005, fans of Japanese rockstars L'Arc-en-Ciel accused them of plagiarizing. Their band name -- one "s" away from the musical genre, J-rock -- also stirred up controversy among fans of Japanese rock music.
"Yes, those days were disturbing and it did put us down for a while," Wima said about the experience.
"We took the positive comments to heart and didn't listen to the negative ones," he added. Their enthusiastic drummer, Anton added, "J-rocks music is our own. As long as the four of us are together, the music that comes out of us, that's J-rocks, and not somebody else's."
The boys visited offices of The Jakarta Post on Thursday -- all but vocalist Iman, that is. "He's in a religious boarding school during the fasting month," Wima said.
As they were heavily influenced by Japanese music, including L'Arc-en-Ciel, it was inevitable the latter's music would inspire their own, he added.
"After all, we did form the band and made music out of our love of J-rock," Wima said, adding their first encounter with Japanese rock music came through the soundtrack of the 1980s Japanese anime series Saint Seiya, which aired in Indonesia in the early 1990s.
What lured them to J-rock was its freedom of expression, Anton said. "It's free, it's quirky, and harmonious, it's wide-ranging. One song can consist of several kinds of beat, but it's still in the right corridor. It's responsible," he added.
According to Sonny, the band was initially called J-rockstar, "but the label thought the name was too long, so we shortened it to J-rocks".
They also tried out Rockstar, Anton explained.
"But that just felt too pompous on our part. That's why we added the letter J, to make it J-rock, because we're from Jakarta, and the music is jujur (honest)," Sony added.
In their first album -- with singles such as "Lepaskan Diriku" (Release Me) and "Kuingin Kau Untukku" (I want you for me) -- Iman's voice had the nasal character of Hyde from L'Arc-en-ciel. Iman dropped the nasal sound for a duet with upcoming singer Prisa, recorded on their second album. Nor does their music sound that similar to J-rock anymore.
"In the first album, we were still trying to find our identity. In the second, we didn't sound like J-rock bands too much," Sonny said.
"We try to constantly evolve. We adopt the J-rock philosophy of freedom," Anton said.
The group says they will use the opportunity of working at Abbey Road to record some new singles for their new album. They also intend to shoot a video clip there.
Asked who they would love to work with, given a choice of any musician from around the would, they all answered without hesitation: "L'Arc-en-Ciel".
