Angie.

Akbar, what's happening?

7 o'.

Clock?

7 o' clock, p. M. 7 o' clock here.

Where are you in a.m. in Jakarta.

Okay.

So I'm currently having my coffee.

All right.

And still a little bit sleepy, but it's all good.

Okay.

Yeah, it's four for me, so I'm a different kind of sleepy.

Akbar, are you in Jakarta too?

Yeah, yeah.

And I just woke up, like, four minutes ago.

Okay.

Do you drink coffee?

Not yet.

Maybe after this.

Okay.

So you all live there in Jakarta?

Yes, we all do.

We moved to Jakarta because we finished our college.

Okay.

And we're working here now, all three of us.

So you met in.

In college?

Yeah, we did.

Was that where you started the band?

Yeah, it was.

I was only a freshman when Akbar invited me to make a band.

And not gonna lie, I think it was, like, one of the best decisions I've ever had as a college student.

Because fast forward to 10 years later.

We're here now, and it's just been a really fun ride doing this.

Yeah.

The best education you could have.

I say I went to college.

I finished college, and I almost went to graduate school, but I got offered to be in this great band, and I did it, and here I am talking to you.

Did you both grow up playing music?

Yeah, I actually learned how to play the piano back in elementary school.

And growing up, I was always surrounded by music because my dad was.

He's a big fan of, like, rock music, so he introduced me to icons like Joan Jett and.

And Deep Purple, and later on taught me how to play the guitar, and it just stuck with me ever since.

So is guitar your primary instrument now?

Yeah, it is, I guess.

My voice, too.

Yeah, of course, your voice.

And when you were growing up, were you seeing live shows, rock bands?

No, but I guess, like, school performances.

But there was this one time for my high school prom, I did perform with my classmates, and we covered an Arctic Monkey song.

All right, so that was fun.

Which one?

That was my.

It was when the Sun Goes Down.

Great song.

Yeah.

Akbar, did you grow up playing music?

I actually did.

I used to have this band back in junior high school.

Well, we are too lazy to learn other people's songs, so we try to make our own song.

It's not really that good, but we did had a lot of fun back then.

Like, we played local gigs around the city, play with other bands, and yeah, it's super fun, but we only have three songs, and that's it.

Are those songs recorded and out there somewhere for people to listen?

To.

I need to check it first because I think we did record something, but we never released it.

I don't remember what's the reason, but yeah, I gotta check them out.

And did you.

Did you see a lot of live shows growing up?

Oh, yeah, like local gigs.

And then one of the most life changing experience for me is back in 2013, stone roses came to Indonesia.

And I was still in high school that time.

And it just changed me.

Like, I used to listen to hardcore and punk and kind of stuff, but I never realized that there's this Brit pop band, pop band that have the same attitude.

And actually Stone Roses is the band that connects me and Angie when we were in college.

So we both love Stone Roses and the Doors.

That is actually the first discussion, right, the first discussion that we had about back then.

That's a good combo.

I've been listening to the Doors a lot lately.

I have a young child and he loves the Doors and I have no idea why.

Yeah, I don't know how he found him.

Kind of a fascinating, weird west coast band.

So you bonded over these, the Stone Roses and the Doors.

And about what, 10 years ago you started Girl Gang and you have this new.

I call it an ep, but I've read that it's called a maxi single, which is a lot more fun to say.

So you have this new maxi single and these songs are great.

I love all three of them.

They're pretty distinctly different.

But it seems to me that you might have replaced a little bit of a bubblegum pop with some ferocity and deliberate delivery of almost.

Aggressive isn't the right word, but somewhere along those lines, it's very poignant both sonically and lyrically.

And a lot of bands kind of go the opposite way.

And it seems like with this group of songs, you've gone just a little more aggressive, harder, bigger sounding.

Any significant changes since Spunky came out?

I mean, aside from western culture becoming a dumpster of lying culture, There's a million things to be mad at right now.

But yeah,

I guess Spunky was the first mark, I would say, for us to respond to our audience's energies whenever we're performing in these live shows.

Because, I mean, back during our dream pop and bubblegum pop days, people were just like moshing and crowd surfing.

And I guess their energy sort of like fueled us to.

It caused us to translate those in our records as well.

And with Spunky, I was just also letting out a lot more anger that I've been like storing inside my body that I didn't know how to express in our earlier works.

So I guess with our latest release online 24 7, it's just, like, projected out a lot more because, again, there are, like, a lot more stuff to be angry about nowadays.

Right.

And you're.

You're.

You're a great lyricist.

And I really appreciate, especially in these new songs, this.

This sort of blunt commentary.

And your lyrics are.

Are.

They kind of fit in between metaphor in, like, these commentaries.

And you just have this knack for, like, vocally, you know, just your.

Your voice is an instrument.

You.

You have the pop skill.

But then your words are so great.

It's a beautiful combination.

Thank you.

Has your vocal style changed a lot in the last few years or.

Or lyric writing style?

I guess they have sort of changed in the past few years.

When it comes to my style of singing, it developed a lot more ever since I started taking vocal lessons about three years ago after Spunky.

Because in that album, the songs were pretty challenging for me to sing live.

I was so bad.

I was laughing because it was like.

It was a weird time.

It was a weird time for us.

Yeah, it was a weird time for us because I was not singing that very well.

The songs were pretty complicated.

And so by taking vocal lessons and you're playing guitar.

I was playing guitar as well.

And so I guess taking those vocal lessons really helped for me to kind of solidify my voice and for me to be more confident in taking up more styles, I guess.

And lyrically, for online 24 7, it was sort of like an exercise for me to change how I would write a song.

In oh My Love, for example, it's.

It's basically fictional, although it's based on real life events.

Right.

At first, I really wanted to write about Femicide for the longest time because I think it's just, like a really gruesome thing to happen among other things that could happen to a woman.

Right.

But I didn't want it to.

I didn't want it to come across as, like, just a.

Like a topic that I'm carrying.

For me, just, like, to be able to say something I don't.

I figured that I should, like, take a more empathetic lens because I feel like that's the great thing about fiction, right?

It's a vehicle for you to be able to, like, step into someone's shoes and, like, live through their experiences.

So I wanted to use that as a way for me to kind of, like, experiment with Girl Gang and our music and our.

The stories that we talk about.

And of Course, with it being such a scary thing and might be triggering as well, because there are connotations of sexual violence in the song too.

Right.

So I just.

How can I make this safe enough for someone who's experienced this?

It would not feel too uncomfortable when they listened to it because.

Not gonna lie.

Even when I was, like, writing some parts, it was sort of triggering.

Well, I'd like to play oh, My Love.

How's that sound?

Okay.

Nice.

Oh, my love I've done so well Speak when spoken to Present my mouth when you force me to swallow it all.

What you do the things you do When I've been so good to you all my life I've done so well Try to rid my unclean nature when your blade strikes reach things masks you see through it all.

All right.

There we are.

Oh, my love I couldn't decide whether I wanted to play Lap Dog or oh, my Love.

I've listened to Lap Dog a hundred times this week.

That might be an exaggeration, but I've listened to it a lot.

It's great.

Thank you.

So how do you.

How does the band typically write songs?

Do you sit down all together and write tunes?

We share files.

Yeah.

Since Punky, right?

Yeah.

It's like all the music produced by our guitar player, Edo Alfenta.

Yeah.

And then, yeah, most of the music are produced by him.

And then, yeah, since Punky, because of the pandemic, we just find a new way.

We have to find a new way to workshop, to produce new songs and all.

And yeah, we are pretty comfortable with sharing files now.

Yeah.

Because back then, it's hard to meet up in a place or somewhere in Jakarta.

So we share files.

But right now, since we have another personal stuff happening in our lives, with working and all, we still share files.

But we can do workshop too.

At Edo's place, he rented a house.

It's pretty big.

It's very spacey, and we usually create music there.

Well, for these three songs, we all workshop at Edo's place, right, Ingi?

Mostly, yes.

And I guess another reason why ever since Spunky and kind of carried until today, why we just continue to share files is because of our locations.

Because we all live, like, around 30 minutes away from each other.

That's like.

That's without traffic.

With traffic could be, like, way longer.

And compared to, like, when we were all in Jogja back when we were in college, we were just like, relatively closer to each other.

It's like a way smaller city anyway.

Right.

So it was a lot easier for us to meet up and to workshop together.

So sharing files has been the best way for us right now.

Right?

Yeah.

And I think that.

I mean, I.

There's some people I work with and it's best if we're just all together or it's a waste of time to share files or vice versa.

And do you typically start songs with.

With a guitar riff?

Does Ito come up with a riff and you start writing around it or do you have any particular way you do it?

I think he mostly starts with.

With a riff with a melody that he hears in his head.

Yeah, it's usually like that because he's very guitar driven person.

He's a guitar driven person.

Yes.

He's also a person.

He's not just a guitarist.

It's kind of hard to like, acknowledge that sometimes.

Like most guitars are usually like really annoying and they make the.

Then they make it their whole identity.

Right?

That's right.

Well, yeah, well, he.

I mean, that's the other thing.

There's a lot of.

There's some.

A lot of muscle.

Guitar muscle on this.

On these recordings too, which is.

Yes, it's great.

Thank you.

You seem to have a reputation for putting on great shows.

I haven't seen you.

Do you have any shows coming up?

We're actually coming to the US this March 10th cities.

Yeah.

For the very first time.

So we're really excited.

Are you on the west coast and East Coast?

West coast and East Coast.

All right.

For now, Seattle.

Yeah, Seattle.

Portland, Louisiana.

New York.

Boston, D.C. philadelphia.

Man, that's a good tour.

Fingers crossed.

Great.

Well, I hope to see it.

I should be in Seattle for your show in March.

I'll come on out.

You should.

You should.

Yeah.

I don't want to sound like an idiot, but I'm just going to ask this question because I am truly interested.

Where do you tour?

Out there in the Pacific Ocean, in the Indian Ocean.

Is it is a lot of flying if you want to go play a bunch of shows outside of your country?

Yes.

Mostly airplanes.

I mean, if we want to low key thug it out, we can actually catch a ferry from Sumatra to Singapore if we want to go.

Actually super bohemian.

But for efficiency's sake, we would just take airplanes.

Take flights, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Could you tour Indonesia?

Is.

Is there a market there where you could get a week of touring or are there a bunch of bands doing that?

Yeah, not a huge market actually for music Indonesia for these past 10 years.

So it's like festivals every weekend and then for touring.

Back in 2018, we did a 20 cities tour across Southeast Asia?

Well, yeah, Indonesia and Thailand and Singapore.

So, yeah, Hido market is pretty.

It's pretty huge, actually.

And people listen to more.

More and more music, like every day, any kind of music.

And then for us, because we are.

We are band from a small community back in Yogja.

And so the first time we went on tour, so we played in small shows across the country, and it developed a new community that we never tried to develop before.

So there's like a whole new listener, a whole new fans of this kind of music where it's not pretty common in Indonesia, but there's more bands doing it, there's more people listening to it across Indonesia.

And then it's become a. I think, yeah, if you.

If you talk about market, it become new market here.

So touring is like.

It's pretty normal for us.

It's not like in the US where we plan.

It's not even like the US we plan a tour for like two months and that's it.

Like, if you're a band in Indonesia, you can play like every weekend in every cities in Indonesia, there's always shows here right now.

Right.

And as I preface that, I didn't want to sound stupid and naive, but I guess I'm not.

I'm naive.

Got to be honest and interested.

So I thought I'd be brave and ask.

Thank you for being brave, Joe.

Yeah.

What about?

To be here to see.

And I. I love Australia, and you're really close compared to me.

Do you.

Do you do bands or do you wind up going up there?

Yeah, up there, right.

North.

Down there.

Down there.

We.

We only started, like, going to Australia three years ago for Spunky for a South by show in Sydney.

But that was the only time that was.

That was it.

And then, I don't know, like, maybe we just, like, didn't get any offers or anything, so we just haven't gone back there yet.

But

it'll be really fun to do an Australian tour.

Maybe someday.

Yeah.

Australians love rock.

Get up there.

Get down there.

Get down there.

Well, I hope to see you.

And congrats on these songs.

They're really great.

I'm going to listen to them until I see you here in Seattle at the Clock Out Lounge.

What's the date of your show?

Now I'm getting specific because I'm playing at the Clock Out.

It's going to be a 28.

Okay.

All right.

We'll leave some blood on the floor for you, and then I'll come see you a few days later.

Yes, please.

Do.

All right.

Well, again, congrats on this record and it great to talk to you and travel safe when you start traveling.

Thank you so much.

See you in Seattle.

Take care.

See you.

Bye bye.

Once upon a time they promised you a pot of gold.

Your building will always be full of meat, rice and cake Only if you take a step right through the door.

You don't need to worry where it all came from.

All you have to do sweep in here.

If you're dogs after endless beatings they don't tell you hey, keep your chin up.

Go fix that tie.

You got a lot of reasons to live for the great cubicles isolate you a lifetime sentence you have to go through that beach vacation, forget it, your soul is tied here but no matter,

you just gotta sing?

You see your other fellas dropping like trees cut by lumber if you keep your head down Say yes to any of their whim, applaud to their billion ideas?

You guarantee a seat at the table by Fred?

You turn a blind eye to all the suffering you see like hey, you got a heart?

These people will understand just how much you're breaking your back to pay off the debts of your shiny new watch?

So yeah, just got to sing.

La la la la la la la la la la la la

la.