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Inferno: The underground studio that helped launch Surabaya’s heavy metal scene
As the pandemic ravishes music studios, The Jakarta Post visits one of the country’s most influential - one considered the birthplace of heavy metal music in East Java.
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Samier founded the influential rehearsal studio Inferno as a young man after dropping out of college to focus on music. (JP/Sammuel Christ K.A)
T
he music of British metal band Napalm Death was reverberating loudly from a speaker when The Jakarta Post arrived at Inferno studio in the Dharmahusada area of Surabaya. The studio’s windows and walls were covered in stickers and posters of various metal bands. At the end of the hallway, a long-haired man was listening loudly to music.
That man is Samier Abdullah Talib, a member of influential metal bands Tengkorak and G.A.S 178. Whenever he is not busy playing gigs, Samier usually spends his time in the studio that he built more than two decades ago, in 1997, right before the financial crisis hit Indonesia.
Samier started the studio, which soon became the center of Surabaya’s metal scene, when he was 23 years old (he is now 49). At the time, he was not interested in continuing his studies. He quit college and set up the studio in his parents’ house. “It was my intention all along to be a musician wholeheartedly. Even though fate said otherwise, never once have I ever regretted that decision,” said Samier.
When the financial crisis hit Indonesia, most studios in Surabaya closed access to metal and punk bands for rehearsals because those bands would allegedly break instruments quicker due to their hard playing. A sticker stating “No Underground” was stamped on the front door to deter those bands from trying to book a session. Inferno was the only studio that opened the door to underground bands. According to Samier, that was the main factor that made his studio a monument for metal music in Surabaya.
