As serious fans of rock music, Sammy Bramantyo and Arian Arifin are hoarders of such merchandise, collecting posters, bandanas, sweatshirts, tees and music in all formats, but as members of one of the country’s most respected underground acts Seringai, they also have a unique role as purveyors of rock paraphernalia.

For the purpose of distributing the paraphernalia to their fans, Sammy and Arian set up a shop in Cipete, South Jakarta, aptly named Howling Wolf.

“We set up this shop because we found it very difficult to distribute our band’s merchandise in Jakarta,” says Arian, who is in charge of Howling Wolf’s art department.

“We want to have 100 percent control of our merchandise distribution,” Sammy said. But it soon dawned on Arian and Sammy that they should set up a bigger store to distribute merchandise from other bands that they also loved.

Howling Wolf therefore made efforts to turn itself into a rock shop with a cutting edge. “You can find shops like this everywhere now and the biggest challenge is how to make it different from the others. We have music merchandise in our inventory, but we also sell CDs and some vinyl records,” Sammy said.

Being in a band and having inside knowledge of what the rock scene looks like gives Arian and Sammy the ability to survey the landscape and devise the most appropriate marketing campaign for their products. For the Seringai duo, the Indonesian music scene is a huge untapped market.

“The market is big and we have loyal fans, not only us but most rock bands in Indonesia have loyal fans as long as they keep creating. Band merchandise is part of the sub-culture. I know a metal band who can earn Rp 60 million only from selling their merchandise. It’s more than enough to run a band, isn’t it?” Arian said.

The shop can also serve as a place for fans to hang out. Earlier this year, Seringai held a party for the release of their documentary film at the shop.

They even put a tattoo parlor in the back of the store.

“Tattoo and rock music are like twins. They are inseparable. Fate brings them together,” Sammy said, chuckling.

So next time you are in South Jakarta, make sure to check out Howling Wolf or you can follow them on twitter @howlingwolfjkt.

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