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Jakarta Post

The Fly: Back to roots

They're back: The Fly's three members ' Adithya 'Adith' Nugraha, Kin Aulia and Pahlevi 'Levy' Indra Santoso

Andreas D. Arditya (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Fri, February 21, 2014 Published on Feb. 21, 2014 Published on 2014-02-21T12:39:34+07:00

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They’re back: The Fly’s three members — Adithya “Adith” Nugraha, Kin Aulia and Pahlevi “Levy” Indra Santoso. (Courtesy of The Fly) They’re back: The Fly’s three members — Adithya “Adith” Nugraha, Kin Aulia and Pahlevi “Levy” Indra Santoso. (Courtesy of The Fly) (Courtesy of The Fly)

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span class="caption" style="width: 498px;">They're back: The Fly's three members ' Adithya 'Adith' Nugraha, Kin Aulia and Pahlevi 'Levy' Indra Santoso. (Courtesy of The Fly)

After almost two decades and a career full of ups and downs, rock band The Fly plans to keep moving forward.

Kin Aulia (vocals and guitar), Pahlevi 'Levy' Indra Santoso (bass) and Adithya 'Adith' Nugraha (keyboard) ' the only three remaining members of the original seven ' are ready to release their second single as a three-man group.

The single 'Oh My God' will be released later this month.

'The three of us have stayed together since our formation in 1994. We have decided to bring The Fly back to its rock roots,' Kin told The Jakarta Post during an interview earlier this month in Jakarta.

The new single, Kin explained, would be up-tempo rock music with a flavor of blues.

'It was a rearrangement of our song 'OMG', which was supposed to be our third single from our sixth album in 2011 if not for financial constraints,' Kin said.

The band's sixth album, A New Beginning from Another Beginning's End, featured the band experimenting with darker nuances and minor key chord progressions, with then vocalist Teddy Suryaman's falsetto drawing comparisons to Muse and Radiohead from critics.

Emulation, or some would say imitation, of well-established Western groups is nothing new for the band.

Their debut album was August 1997, and was followed by their breakthrough self-titled second album in 2001, for which The Fly drew criticism for copying U2 with guitar-driven alternative pop rock songs and then vocalist B'jah sounding like a crude copy of Bono.

B'jah stayed with The Fly until they released their fourth album Keindahan di Dunia (Beauty in the World) in 2004.

In 2007, The Fly released If Loving You Is Wrong, I Don't Want To Be Right with new vocalist Firman 'Gian' Siagian, who was an Indonesian Idol finalist, but failed to repeat the success of their past years.

The band again tried a new vocalist Teddy Suryaman and a different brand of rock, but A New Beginning from Another Beginning's End in 2011 was met with lackluster response and reviews.

In 2013, Kin finally stepped up to the plate to become the band's vocalist, much to the relief of fellow musicians and music critics.

'I sung The Fly's first ever single 'Pelangi Semu' [False Rainbow] in 1997 and since then everybody has questioned why I did not become the vocalist,' Kin explained.

'I am a guitarist and we had always wanted the band to have both a vocalist and guitarist frontman like the Rolling Stones and Aerosmith.'

After failing to cope with B'jah and his replacements, The Fly finally gave in and introduced Kin to his new position.  

'The three of us have been together since high school. It is really hard now for the band to add a new member. We've tried and failed; consolidating the same vision and mission of a band is really hard,' said Levy, who is also a videographer and producer.

'I don't think we'll ever add new member; it's unimaginable now.'

Adith said they were grateful to be able to experience many things as a band and would not want to end their journey just yet.

'We've been through many ages. We once recorded on magnetic tape and released cassette albums. We've toured all over the archipelago and abroad, as well as opening for many big bands,' said Adith.

'I am grateful for the experience I've had with the band.' The Fly plans to keep their music alive by releasing singles and playing live shows.

'The current circumstances of the music industry do not allow us to reap benefit from releasing a physical album. Digital sales are yet to fulfill their potential,' Kin said.

'But we will keep making music and releasing singles. Writing songs and playing music is what makes us musician; artists must keep producing work.'

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