A day before Mew kicked their show in Jakarta for Guinness Arthur’s Day, we caught up with the band and had a chance to interview them. We discussed a lot about the band’s influences, the friendship that they have been building with their fans, and the band even gave us some spoiler of their upcoming album.

Q: Are you guys currently working on a sixth album?

Bo :  Yes

Q: Can you tell us about it?

Bo : We have been writing for a while now and have recorded most of our new record and it’s taking a while to make it as it always does. We have a very professional and slow approach to it working with. The writing is a slow process but it’s turning out to be a really great record so it’s really exciting, actually, but we’re like 2/3 of the way. We’ll go back to Copenhagen and try to finish the record.

Q: Can you give us any spoiler about the album?

Jonas : Hmm, well, there’s a finished—there are a few tidbits of—not the final, but the song structures of the materials in the app we put out. We can hear a little bit of stuff and some of that is not even very honorific but it sounds good.

Bo :  The tracks make the—uh—the every song a—you know—personality like its own person and—uh—  they’re very different from—very different from each other, but they still fit in the family, but I think that it’s the most different tunes we’ve had, but also probably some of the best, so yeah. Like, it sounds like another world, you know?

Q: Is there any song that you wrote after a dream? Because I heard that “The Zookeeper’s Boy” you wrote after you had a dream?

Jonas : I think that dreams, it’s not so literal, it’s not like you have a dream and then you write it down, that’s not the secret for it. In the beginning I thought about making a children’s song, teaching children about different animals. That’s kind of the idea, and then it turned into something completely different. But I think there was a dream involved in the sort of mood of it, kind of.

Q: Bo once said that music experience is not music only. So, I mean, that world that is created on its own. So what’s the world you got created for yourself and your fans in your album?

Jonas : I guess it’s where we feel at home at this point in our lives. Like if you move into a different house each time and then you might have a different–feel at home in a different environment and so you change the environment to go with how you feel, or what you’re into at that point, so it’s kind of sort of a diary about where we are at this point in our lives.

Bo : But it’s also kind of like having to go from to show one thing to reference the other thing and that way you create a whole network of things that you have connected with and meaning and you do that with some kind of purpose and not random and you put yourself into everything that you have, because you are in control of it and that means it gets personal and connected that way, so I think that’s a way of doing it.

Q: What did inspire you in making music?

Silas : Nowadays it’s more…I don’t know if there’s that much that we’re really attached to…different things…but we still have that love for that old…but it’s not the same anymore. Cannot accept that what I want then is what is now. A lot of song’s genres…we all listen to different genres, not all fit into one of them. So that could be technical music, African music, hip hop or whatever.

Jonas : So I think after a year of us working together our friendship really begins. It takes time to, you know, find your own world, in a way, your own musical world.

Bo : You have a lot to express when you’re a kid and you have so many feelings all the time and having a way to come out with that in a different way than talking, because, when you’re a teenager, nobody really listens to each other. Trying to find someone you can really– So it’s a great way to express things that you can’t really do in another way. It felt very much like that when you were younger. When you’re older it feels a little bit different but the same thing.

Q: It turns out that you guys have been making a quite friendship with your fans. Especially in Indonesia, you contributed as the final judge of their competition. So, how did it actually start?

Jonas :I think we obviously took notice a long time ago, and will meet different groups or people are doing these things. And I think nowadays, because we’re doing things on our own now, we’re kind of taking charge of our own career. The role of the label has changed a lot, and we kind of feel like we want to be in control of things ourselves. Your fans are really the people who create the career for you, they are the people you depend on. Not the label but the fans are the people who buy records and come to your show. Usually the people who can both understand you your view of the world are the people you can connect with on some level. So we always find it very enjoyable to communicate with them. So it’s a big honor that they do lots of stuff.

Q: You’ve left your major label right? You left Sony. So has this affected your creative process?

Bo : Not so much the creative process. You got someone from the label, checking in, you know, you play, and they go “All right, well, I’m not sure about that.” But that makes us feel like, yeah, we’re doing the right thing, but more like, you know, we spend a lot of energy and time trying to create these albums and then if you feel like you hand them to somebody who doesn’t really care about it, sometimes, you know, some play a song and care about it, some play a song and didn’t care about it. And then you go out, and it feels wrong to have somebody who doesn’t really care about your music handle it, you just care about it a lot. So in that way, just getting rid of those people who are just there to like, rip your heart out, but didn’t really care about it, that’s really nice. So something like that. I think that also hard work starts if people who work with you connect to what you do, so that’s something we wanted to do more. So we’re setting up a whole way of instruction on independent labels and working knowledge and we’ll see how that works out.

Q: You launched an application called ‘Sensory Spaces’, what motivated you to create it?

Jonas : We wanted to present music in a different way. We wanted to try to be inventive about how to present it. We wanted people to have a little look inside the process, and we booked these guys you know who are, like a classic design hi-fi company, who know your brand and they are very creative guys and we had the same views and we wanted them to be a part of that.

Q: You launched you song ‘Making Friends’ through this application. Is there any relation between the song and the application, or “Sensory Spaces” is pretty much a medium for you to launch your song, or is there any concept between “Sensory Spaces” with the album and the song?

Jonas : I think the song is just to show some music from the new record and yeah, I mean, I don’t know.

Bo :The color on the record is going to be black and white. We’re looking for different ways to do creative—working together with other people creatively, and getting our music out in different ways, you know. You gotta do all these things. It’s interesting, but it’s also a pain in the ass. You have to do all these things to get your music out there but you just want to make music. Everybody’s got to listen to it. But the fact is that you have to do all these things to promote it and stuff. And stuff like that that’s based on something that’s like creative or inventive shows through, and that’s fun. You can do a google and like take your shirt off and that’s awesome [laughs] That’s kind of fun too, but it’s not really us.

Q: What is the one thing that you’ve been enjoying about the trip you’re on? Was there any trip you’ve taken that inspired you to write a song? I heard that “Hawaii” –

Bo : We’ve never been there

Q: Yeah, you had a dream about Hawaii? You made the music.

Jonas : No, we’re going to. But I think Hawaii is just, where we’re from, is just paradise. Your troubles, your problems

Bo: That’s why we came up with, used that name. It already has this surreal, sort of quasi- I don’t know, I just remember Hawaii from that movie [laughs]

Q: According to your local fans, I’ve heard that Jonas would like to see a gamelan show and try experiencing the local culture in Jakarta. What makes you want to hop on the local stuffs?

Jonas : Yeah, I’d love to see that and also I’m not sure where in Indonesia that has Kecak dance? I’d love to see that as well. But I think we’re all fascinated with different kinds of music and really intense and fast and so much information at once.

Q: You’ll do this when you’re here?

Jonas : don’t know if there’ll be time. I’m really hoping we’ll do a longer tour so we can take a few days off.

 Photo : Ainur Rasyidah

Ps : Thanks to Ann (MewXInfo), Peggy (Cita Cinta), Hardy (Jurnallica), and Renny (Concertholic) for making this interview happen!

Early this month, Singapore got visited by list of Indie bands around the globe thanks to Symmetry Entertainment. From the neighbor Australia to England and America, the bands headed to Symmetry’s debut big festival so called Camp Symmetry. Despite of the super humid weather, we can say this festival was pretty much hit the scene, especially if you’re one of the crowd who came to see your favorite indie bands playing live.

The festival which located in the same place as Singapore’s Laneway Music Festival at The Meadows, Garden By The Bay, started by British promising indie band Veronica Falls. Played their indie pop songs which most taken from their latest album “Waiting For Something To Happen” such as Tell Me, Broken Toy, My Heart Beats, Buried Alive to songs from their debut self – titled album, with Bad Feeling and not to mention their hits My Heat Beats.

Not sure if its because of the fact that it was a group of youngster who organized the festival or I became older every minute, but with so many young urban-outfitters-summer-hipsters-victims filling the area, I knew for sure the next two Australian bands was the reason these kids coming to the festival, either because of their cute looking appearance or catchy pop rock music.

The first band was four pieced cool guys from Brisbane, Last Dinosaurs. They succeed proofing that Brisbane wasn’t just a place for multicultural kids to grew up but also to make catchy indie music, as we can see that most of the crowd can sing a long to their songs from Zoom album. A plus from me personally when they covered songs that only people who lives in the 90s can understand how it feels when Modjo’ s Lady and Spiller‘s Groovejet cheesy songs plays in a catchy indie tunes - Time. To. Dance.

The second act from Australia is no other than the cute group San Cisco, as they always reminds me of a younger version of British band Metronomy, same concept – catchy tunes and a girl as drummer. Its amazing how I found out about these bands several years ago and never thought they succeed taking Golden Revolver to Metaphors a half way through the globe and finally perform in Singapore and seeing them live still as cute as I remember them back then.

From catchy Australian tunes we moved to the American indie lo-fi music, as  Jack Tatum with his band Wild Nothing entertain more laid-back-chill crowd. To be honest, they are the reason I came for the festival on the first place, and it was pretty sad that due to the technical problems, their performances wasn’t as good as I expected, but anyway they handle it pretty cool, and played songs I wanted to hear live, which mostly from Empty Estate album such as Ocean Repeating, Data World, A Dancing Shell, and mixed of Nocturne and Gemini album such as Midnight Song, Nocturne, The Blue Dress, Summer Holiday and Chinatown.

The next performance was this bearded big guy with heart of gold (I just add that so it sounds mellow), William Fitzsimmons smoothly weeped all the sweat and tiredness of the heat with his swift modest acoustic folk tunes, which mostly taken from his Golden In The Shadow album and a little of Derivatives.

This was the second time I saw Ra Ra Riot performance, as they have played in Jakarta last year for Love Garage, in which reminds me of our cool interview and their quick snap in snap go catchy show back then. But as it was in a different place and time, this time they were more relax playing mostly form Beta Love album, and suprisingly they played songs from The Rhumb Line as well such as St. Peter’s Day Festival.

Then, the one and only California Best Coast came on stage with her Metallica shirt and not mention the multi instrumentalist Bobb Bruno stealing everyone’s attention with songs such as Crazy for You, Fade Away and The Only Place and everyone’s ultimate hits song, Boyfriend.

It was kind of embarrassing sometimes when it comes to recognizing band members, I will probably be the worst of all since I am one of those person who care less about who’s who in the band, all I want to know is how well they play. So when Ryan greeted us before their performance, we thought he was just some random tech guy, which then we realized that he was the member of The Cribs in which that night played We Share The Same Skies, Things You Should Be Know, Mirror Kissers, Glitters Like Gold, to Chi-Town and Leather Jacket Song. Well, they are pretty cool peeps though, and a plus for singing songs from my high school era..

Apparently, Indonesia (and some other asian countries) can be proud of because being able to brought Mew for the 4th time and now finally be able to play in Singapore for the first time. So it wasn’t a surprise when the crowd couldn’t stop being amaze by the symphonic tracks from Special , The Zookeeper’s Boy , Making Friend. 

There’s no other better way to end the festival beside watching Explosions in the Sky explode the sky literarily with their lighting stage and songs which taken from Those Who Tell The True Shall Die, Those Who Tell The True Shall Live. And as the clock heading to midnight, it’s time for us to catch the last train downtown (Oh well singapore!) and looking forward to see more progress on their sophomore festival

More pics & infos from the fest here

People say “the third time is a charm”, but it is actually Indonesia’s Guinness Arthur’s Day (GAD) fourth time that makes a charm. As the event promises something ‘Made of More’ for the Indonesia’s edition, we were pretty sure this would be something new. After striking the lights in Medan, Bali, Surabaya, and Makassar with performances from Firehouse and Steelheart, it’s now Jakarta’s turn (26/10) to close the curtain of this momentous event.

Club 8, the Sweddish indie-pop duo (eventhough on that night they were not really putting up as a duo for the live performance), got the chance to open the brewery’s festival. Karolina Komstedt’s gentle and polite voice, and Johan Angergård’s low-key music yet danceable beats eventually swirled the crowd for a round of dancing session. With songs like ‘Cold Hearts’, ‘All I Can Do’, ‘Saturday Night Engine’, and ‘Whatever You Want’ quite made the venue into a Scandinavian’s mini pub. Club 8 were pretty great as the opener as their tunes never sounded deeper nor darker, they kept the performance to stay thin and a bit wispy (which we think it was pretty good to have them as the opener since we still had two performers left to hit the night). We found having them to perform seventeen songs of gauzy electro-pop into a mellower groove and even stomping with Queen’s We Will Rock You sampler was a light entrée to have. Overall, Club 8’s performance was sweet and pretty natural with the band sounded the typical of Euro-indie aesthetic.

A large white sheet was released, it seemed we’d have some ‘guess-the-act’ agenda of the next performer (eventhough the performers’ set have been released on @SoundRhythm’s twitter). The lights were focused to the stage, the crowd started screaming and cheering as One Republic’s silhouette was projected behind the large sheet. The band picked ‘Light It Up’ which is a song from their third studio album to kick off the performance. After three minutes of ‘secrecy’, the white sheet finally revealed the band. The predictable opening then followed by a beautiful sound of cello which led the band to ‘Secrets’, it was clear that most of the crowd knew words per words of this song, One Republic continued the set with another hits, ‘All The Right Moves’, a bit pumping move we saw here. We would like to appalud Ryan Tedder’s skill in bringing the humour and emotion from the band, everything was perfectly planned and packed nicely. He even showed his skill in playing the piano or hitting some of the highest notes with a stunning improvisation.

The honour was also received by the Jakarta’s crowd for being the first witness of the band to perform ‘Don’t Look Down’ (as the band had never performed this song in any other previous concerts, Ryan added “If we mess it up, please don’t put it on YouTube”, and it constantly responded by a laughter from the crowd). The band also did some mash-ups of ‘Apologize’ to Rihanna’s ‘We Found Love’ and Justin Timberlake’s classic track ‘Cry Me A River’, the mash-up was surprisingly good and changed up the melancholy mood of the song. Another gimmick from the band was when Ryan did a cover of ‘Gold Digger’ with a help of Brian Willet (the band’s additional in synth and keyboards), and it exploded the crowd to jump with the song. The energetic performance was like an unstopable stuff on that night, when the band performed ‘Good Life’, they remixed the song with M-83’s ‘Midnight City’ infectious intro and featured heavy electric guitar. And ‘If I Lose Myself’ closed the band’s set in GAD 2013. It’s easy to conclude that One Republic seriously killed the night, seeing their live performance was something we ought to do if we have a chance. The biggest credits are given to Ryan Tedder for taking a nice control in making the show to be more entertaining instead of just showing off his talents.

Two performers were done, the crowd was given about fourty five minutes to catch their breath before having another round of great performance. The crowd started shouting “Mew!” and some shouted the band’s member, it showed how we were so keen to see band. Some ads of Guinness were being played repeatedly on the bigscreen, gave a space for the band’s crew to do some checking before Mew took over the stage. And then, the lights were dimmed, the blue lights spotlighted to the stage, gave some daunting ambience as Mew started making some appearances to the stage, and you know the rest, the crowd got more packed with some loud shouts.

The first up was ‘Making Friends’, Mew’s latest song which was released through their application called Sensory Spaces. The first starter seemed not getting much sing along chance to the crowd (well, because the song is pretty new and people seemed not really familiar with it), but when the band played ‘Special’, the real crowd was awakened and started singing. Followed by ‘ The Zookeeper’s Boy’, the crowd did beautiful choir over its chorus. Jonas Bjerre’s vocals also gave a goosebump when he did multiple mild falsettos and his captivating smooth voice that blended with the atmosphere of the night, it also transported the night to a mystical dimension. Songs like ‘Snow Brigade’, ‘She Spider’ (color us surprised with the fact that this song was on their set, because a day before the show, Jonas told us that it’d be quite impossible for the band to perform this song), and ‘Apocalypso’ were being the highlight of the night, Bo Madsen’s guitar playing also perfectly complimented the whole set of the band. After some bangable and jumpable songs, Mew soothed the crowd with ‘Koor’, which is a medley of The Zookeeper’s Boy and The Seething Rain Weeps For You. The band also introduced their new song ‘Klassen’ before moving up to perform the hooks from their classic records.

Song after song, it felt like we were given a shot of steroids, the crowd sang every single word along, especially when ‘Am I Wry? No’, ‘156’, and ‘Eight Flew Over, One Was Destroyed’ blasted up the speaker, it was obvious that the crowd was a fan of Mew’s earlier work in album ‘Frengers’. The band nearly performed sixteen songs, they whipped the crowd really well and the demand of having an encore was totally inrefusable. For the encore, Mew had ‘Comforting Sounds’. The beautiful intro, deep meanings, and simply one of the best ballad songs from a prog-rock band to date, made the night into an epic closure. To make the moment calmer, some of the crowd (which we found out that they were Indonesian Frengers, the local fan base of Mew) blew soap-bubbles to the air, the gloomy and mellow mood quickly sprang as the songs fused in with the crowd’s emotion. The addition of confetti also gave a touch of dramatic ending. Without some trippy visuals that they used to have, they were still able to shine us out with their humble performance and a carefully-crafted setlist. It pulled everything together in an magical way. In short, Mew did beauty.

It is hard to string a sentence of GAD 2013, having bands like Club 8, One Republic, and Mew altogether in one stage, gives a festive vibe of the celebration. One thing for sure, the tagline “Made Of More” that the GAD has for this year, is not only giving a sailor’s promise. Because as what we experience this year, GAD has gone bigger and more massive.

(Photos : Guinness Indonesia)

Arthur’s Day Jakarta (A Mixtape by SVANAPAPER) by Svanamix on Mixcloud

There’s nothing more fun than finding out ten hidden interesting facts of your favourite band. For now, we’ve got ten interesting facts of Mew that you should know. With a help from Indonesian Frengers, we are ready to give them all to you!

1. Mew consist of three members, Jonas Bjerre (lead vocals), Bo Madsen (guitar), and Silas Utke Graae Jørgensen (drums) after their bassist, Johan Wohlert, decided to depart from the band in 2006. For their live performances, the band have Doctor Nick Watts (keyboardist) and Bastian Juel (bassist).

2. On October 26th 2013 will be Mew’s fourth time of performing in Indonesia after having their previous shows in Bali (2003), Jakarta (2009), Surabaya (2010).

3. Jonas Bjerre (lead vocals) is so keen to see the gamelan show in Indonesia and the most interesting is…. he wants to try riding Jakarta’s TransJakarta!

4. Bo Madsen (guitar) once worked as a Germany teacher for a couple of months.

5. Silas Utke Graae Jørgensen (drums) has been fully inspired by African music, which can be heard in his rhythm (in album “And The Glass Handed Kities”) eventhough you won’t find the African music clearly. But it’s there.

6. In song “Apocalypso”, there is “Nolan” in its lyrics. Nolan is actually Jonas Bjerre’s dentist. The story is he had to wait for a while for his dentist to come, because of that, he wrote “in Nolan time..”

7. Lyrics “No Shadow Kick” are written in “broken cantonese” language, That’s why the band are not going to be able to perform the live version in its own studio version.

8. Mew will be making their debut as the final judge of “Covering Sounds”. Covering Sounds is the Indonesian Frengers’ competition of doing a cover work of Mew’songs. The finalists’ cover work can be heard on indonesianfrengers.com

9. Mew just released their music application, “Sensory Spaces”, and published their official announcement in several languages, including Indonesian. The application is designed by a french designer, Kevin Hammon.

10. Been thinking to give some gift to Mew? Do it! Mew are known as a gift-keeper from their fans! As they still have the gifts from Indonesian Frengers, such as the handmade flag of Indonesian Frengers, “Eggs Are Funny” face mask, t-shirt, event flyers, and etc.

Guinness Arthur’s Day music event started making the noise by bringing international artists in 2009, in the previous years, they have got Mr.Big, The Script, Creed, and Lifehouse. Each year also has a different theme that describes about the event’s content. And for 2013, Guinness Arthur’s Day will bring ‘Made For More‘ as their theme which the title itself describes that the music event will feature more international artists. Guinness Arthur’s Day 2013 will be kicked off in Medan and closed in Jakarta.

Mew

Mew are a Danish rock band consist of Jonas Bjerre (lead vocals), Bo Madsen (guitar), and Silas Utke Graae Jørgensen (drums). The band who have remarkable songs such as ‘Zookeeper Boy’, ‘Am I Wry’, and ‘Snow Brigade’. This will be the band’s third time to perform in Indonesia, because they have been here in 2009 and 2010. In 2006, Mew were chosen by MTv for their Buzz-worthy artist.

Club 8

This indie pop duo consist of Karolina Komstedt and Johan Angergård. The Swedish duo has been facing some transition on their music perspective, from bossa nova, dance to chill out music are all included in all of their eight albums. On May 21^st 2013, they have released their latest album titled ‘Above the City’. Their single, ‘Missing You’ once became a club and radio’s favourite in the European countries.

Firehouse

As what their name says, their music will burn you into dust. Firehouse are an American rock band consisting of C. J. Snare, Bill Leverty, Michael Foster, and Allen McKenzie. In the 90s, Firehouse were a rock music phenomenon in Asia, especially in Japan, Indonesia, Thailand, and Singapore. The band have release eight studio albums and one live album.

One Republic

One Republic are a Colorado-based band. The band was firstly known by publishing their cover work on their MySpace page. One Republic consist of Ryan Tedder, Zach Filkins, Drew Brown, Eddie Fisher, Brent Kutzle. The band started getting their limelight when their debut, ‘Apologize’, hit more than 10.000 air plays in US’ Radio stations. Through their career, One Republic have been nominated in many prestigious awards, such as Grammy Awards and MTv Music Awards. They released their third music album, ‘Native’, on March 26^th 2013.

Below is the informations about the price of Guinness Arthur’s Day 2013 :

Medan       : 12 Oktober 2013 at JW Marriot | Ticket : Presale Rp.100.000 – Regular Rp.200.000
Bali              : 15 Oktober 2013 at Hard Rock Café | Ticket : Presale Rp.100.000 – Regular Rp.200.000
Surabaya : 17 Oktober 2013 at Grand City | Ticket : Presale Rp.100.000 – Regular Rp.200.000
Makassar : 19 Oktober 2013 at Celebes Convention Center | Ticket : Presale Rp.100.000, Regular Rp.150.000
Jakarta      : 26 Oktober 2013 at JIExpo Center | Ticket : Presale Rp.350.000, Regular Rp.500.000

 Ticket can be purchased via gad.loket.com.

Ps : You must be +21 to attend this event.