Interview with KEKAL (Indonesia)

KEKAL is an Indonesian progressive /avant-garde act from Jakarta, whose style is combined with ambient, rock, drone, metal, electronic,etc. KEKAL still lasting for a long time despite the winding path ahead. Imagine how the painstaking efforts of the 13th album with its twisted styles finally paid off... "Envisaged" is 51 minutes of a genre that might be a bit confusing for some! The music is still hard to describe, as they are generally a very eclectic sounding act with an exotic and strange musical identity in several corners that will leave you amazed. So, I think, They are an extremely innovative band who is not afraid to venture beyond the restrictions and boundaries usually associated with the metal genre... Below is an additional news, about a single 7" vinyl of "Born Anew" released by a Singaporean label Vanilla Thunder records. Side B of the single featured a VOIVOD cover "The Prow". .https://vanillathunderrecords.bandcamp.com/

Let's delve into this band with the versatile Jeff…

MD - KEKAL has been around the arena for over 2 decades, and What motivates you to continue working as a songwriter/musician?

Hi Jef, this is Jeff representing KEKAL. There's an old saying that says "once you're a musician, you're a musician forever", which is true. In that case, for me personally, I can't quit writing and playing music. It has become a part of me because music is a main channel for my expression. I can't express myself fully in other media other than music, even though I'm a graphic designer by career, and can draw some sketches as well, but music is the only thing that feels very intimate to me. I can express my deepest emotions and thoughts through writing music. As for doing music for KEKAL, it's just common sense, I mean after more than 20 years doing music, why should I divide my music in multiple bands or projects? One is enough, as long as it's authentic. So when KEKAL name is still available as a "canvas" for me to "paint" on it, why should I refuse? I'm no longer an official member of KEKAL, but I still put my contribution to the music because this KEKAL canvas is comfortable to me. I can express myself on it without hesitation.

MD - Who is the player behind KEKAL?  Do all its musicians still remain to this day?

Well, since 2009 KEKAL has been a band without official members, meaning it's not too important to state who's playing which instrument and whatnot, and who writes the music or lyrics. The main reason was because I moved to Canada permanently in 2006. It was impossible for the band, then 3 members, to continue unless we decided on 3 possible options: First, I'd move the band to Canada, leaving the rest of the members out and re-branding KEKAL as a Canadian band. I didn't want to do that. 2nd option, I'd quit, and the rest of the members would continue with KEKAL as an Indonesian band. They didn't want to do that. The 3rd option was to disband completely, but our listeners didn't want to because they wanted to see KEKAL continue making new music and releasing albums even without playing live shows any longer. We felt that the wisest solution was to leave the band altogether, so KEKAL would remain as an Indonesian band without any official members, and then any of the former members can contribute the music "for Kekal", as opposed to "as Kekal". The contribution will always be open and voluntary, no strings attached, no money involved. All the money we received from sales and donations are being recycled for productions, album promotions, and online presence. Sometimes we've got other musicians join in to work on a few songs. Since 2015, we decided to go anonymous without listing any credits on who plays which part, because it really doesn't matter.

MD - Congratulations on your latest  album on July 2022, If you could describe “Envisaged” in a few keywords, what would those be?

Thank you. In my opinion, "Envisaged" is the kind of album that did not need an analysis in order for the musical structures to be built. It is not based on the construct of the mind, but from the heart instead, from the feelings. As for the keywords, I feel that "spontaneous" would be the one that fits the most for this album, because this is the most spontaneous KEKAL album ever recorded so far. The music was written as it was recorded, and many of the guitar parts were recorded in one or two takes without prior rehearsals. Other keywords can be "authentic", "heart-based", "spiritual". You can also add "unique" or "uncommon" if that's needed.

MD - It seems that your appearance at the moment is more inclined towards variation, electronic, experimental rock and clean vocals compared to your early material.  Are you tired of being a raw black metal look?

Well, we simply grow up as musicians. KEKAL began to explore many other territories from our 3rd album in the year 2001, so it has been over 20 years already that we keep redefining ourselves through constant explorations. Everything is natural, never forced, and it wasn't that we were tired playing extreme metal, whether it's black metal or anything else, but because music is music. Music has already existed thousands of years before metal as a genre was invented through explorations, and the music keeps growing and evolving through further and further explorations. I feel that KEKAL evolves through a natural process of finding ourselves, discovering and rediscovering the core within our music, the reason why we write and play music. And we also have a philosophy that moving forward is the only way life can be experienced wholly. When we express ourselves through music, the music has to reflect what is within us, otherwise it's just a fake expression or a gimmick. The most essential thing is how we play, as opposed to what we play.

MD - What instruments have you used other than guitars, drums, keyboards etc. I found there are other strange sounds in each songs on your albums, even myself can not catch it either?

Most of the "unknown" sound came from the sonic manipulations of synthesized instruments. I used some soft-synths and ran them through various effects. All done on the computer. It's the end result that matters, not the source of the sound itself. Even many of those that sound like a keyboard are actually guitar played through some effects, and some that sound like a guitar is not guitar but from a free smartphone synthesizer app run through guitar amps. And I also used samples, strings samples, percussion samples, and so on. It's just a matter of willing to explore new things, through trial and error of course. In past albums, I used guitar pickups to record some vocals, and believe it or not, some vocals could achieve a better sound aesthetically with that kind of treatment. During our demo days back in 1996, we used a large bucket put around the head to work as a reverb effect during vocal takes because we did not have the luxury of recording them in a studio.

MD - Which part of the songs is very complicated in the mixing work?

For this album, I would say, almost the entire parts, because the music was written at the same time as it was recorded, section by section. This approach is quite common within the electronic and hip-hop genres actually, but not in metal or rock for sure. Many of the base tracks like rhythm guitars, synthesizers and drums could not be finalized for the sound until everything was ready for mixing. I recorded them dry, or raw, and I had to create the right tones during mixing because every song required a slightly different character and sound to bring its atmosphere up. I could not just use the same sound setup as a template like most metal bands. The whole process was quite complex and time-consuming, enough to give me a headache even though I was trained as a sound engineer. But this was a fun challenge to be honest, especially because everything was recorded in my home using a basic DAW setup. Definitely not inside a fancy studio with a great sounding mixer and professional outboard effects and expensive microphones.

MD - There is no doubt that many Indonesian metal fans as we know are fanatical with the brutal type of metal, and it is definitely far from your appearances. Personally, how do you consider local metal fans with your own style ones?

KEKAL isn't popular in Indonesia, but it's ok. Maybe older metal fans know the name Kekal and probably have heard a few albums we released in the past. Many say that our music has become too "far out" or "weird" for any metal fan to really understand and appreciate. But on the other hand, we have listeners from many types of people and very diverse music enthusiasts, ranging from jazz musicians, electronic music DJs, music teachers, singer-songwriters and so on. I would say metal fans, local or international, make up to roughly about 50% of KEKAL's audience. The rest is from many other realms. It is understandable because normally music fans are very segmented and very genre-based. Even many fans of progressive metal and avant-garde metal, the "closest" genres to what KEKAL has been associated with, still have a hard time getting our music, because it's not about the styles or genres, it's more about whether the music would resonate with them or not.

MD - Tell about your lyrics..Where did the inspiration come from and what exactly do you want to convey?

The lyrics from "Envisaged" talk about many things that have been revealed to me. Most of them have spiritual significance, and they are reflections from my personal journey in life. All the lyrics were written first before the music because I needed quiet times when putting the words together, almost like writing through meditation. All the songs have a common theme: it's about The Great Awakening of humanity and Earth's Ascension. It is a direct continuation from the previous album "Quantum Resolution", in which I also wrote the entire lyrics before the music was written. It is very long to explain this, but I've also written the behind-the-lyrics document called "Recalibrating Destiny", 124 pages long, and it has been published as a mobile-friendly PDF that is free to download from the album site https://www.kekal.org/envisaged

MD - What would you like to try out in the future? Is there anything you haven’t done yet?

Good question. I really don't know, and to be honest with you, I don't want to think about getting or achieving something in the first place. The most important thing is to keep moving forward with what we have right now, being content with yourself in the present moment. Music is part of life and it is an expression of our inner-selves, so it doesn't really matter how and where we go, the band would always be following its music. We haven't done many things of course, even after 27 years and 13 albums now, but still, looking back, we've also done many things that we didn't even realize we could have done in the past, such as touring Europe as an example. But after we did it, we didn't feel like we've "achieved" something, even though as an Indonesian band we were the first one touring Europe back in 2004. It was our music that led us to get there. This is the same music that makes Kekal to become what we are right now, because we always play music authentically. Even though as a band we're not commercially successful at all and still remain in the underground so to speak, how many small bands are able to release 13 albums in 27 years? Not that many. Many bands would just break up or dissolve after 4 or 5 albums that weren't "successful" enough, even less than that, because their motivation was based upon external factors, you know, that "make it or break it" mentality. For us, the key is to just keep going because it's the music that drives the band, not the external factors. It doesn't matter where we go next, but when we believe our music is an honest expression, everything else is secondary. Honest music transforms us the musicians behind it, and it also transforms those who listen to it. Personally, music has helped me to grow spiritually as a human being. I get goosebumps when thinking about this.

MD - Which musician or band do you admire the most and use as a reference?

There are way too many! We never put one or two musicians or bands as a base reference. For KEKAL, everything we listen to and at the same time has made an impact would automatically become our influence. And we listen to various kinds of music, not limited to metal or other types of hard music in general, but everything across many genres you could imagine, because we don't want to be limited by boxes. We don't want to set any limit to what we hear. Good music always be good music, no matter what kind of style it carries. We posted over 150 influential albums on our Facebook page that have helped to make KEKAL to what it is right now. You can check that out if you're interested: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10152754353699542&type=3

MD - You are a writer, composer and producer yourself, I think you have managed to divide your schedule as well as possible. So, how do you organize your daily routine as an artist?

Right now because everything is done inside my home, I don't have any difficulties in finding the right time because the moment has always been there. Everytime I have spare time and am not being too tired, I would just sit down and type lyrics or even record some stuff on the computer. My laptop has always been plugged-in to the audio interface and MIDI controller. When I worked with other contributors we just swapped audio files back and forth and wrote and recorded music that way. In the earlier days, it was a different story. It was hard to find the time to meet together to write the music and rehearse, so we made some compromise in how we wrote the material as opposed to keep writing music as a band through jamming. But those days have gone since over 15 years ago. The most important thing is to avoid overwork. Overworking will not make any music sound good, and when you are tired and hungry you would lose temper often, and that would negatively affect the energy of the music.

MD - Thank you for answering this interview. Please throw in a few words for anyone you wish?

Feel free to check out our new album 'Envisaged". It's available for download from Bandcamp as well as streaming through various platforms. We also have 6 earlier albums that are available for free download on Bandcamp, so I'd invite you to check these albums out, especially if you're not familiar with KEKAL. It can be accessed from... . https://www.kekal.org/download
Thank you for the interview. It's really appreciated. Cheers.