INTERVIEW WITH ARIAN13

Arian13, He’s gone further to the dark side…

Arian13 a former vocalist of the Juggernaut act Puppen (RIP) and a current vocalist for the high-octane rock band Seringai, has been an influential person in the music scene in Indonesia since many years ago and a music-junkie also. He has wide knowledge in music and a very open-minded guy. After the “legendary bunny” magazine he worked was disbanded, he writes for his own blog and other media. He does a lot of things besides headbanging with his band, his recent activities are related to youth culture from distributing records, parttime DJing (said that it pays well J), writing reviews, to drawing. Yes, he’s a potential artist and had a chance to have exhibitions such as “Ace of Spades”, “Untitled Exhibition”, “semarak Tengkorak” and “Deer Andry”. He did many illustrations for his own band that came up mostly in t-shirts and other merchandise (of course the two of his band’s album cover were his too) and also for everyone who wants him to do so. He likes to draw skulls, bones, and werewolves – his favorite creature – He got a lot of influence from his lifetime admiration Briann “Pushead” Schroeder, and we can see the pushead’s style of drawing in most of his works.

I adore this person since I was in high school and longing for a chat with him. But since we live in different city, it’s almost impossible to have a conversation, although chat stuff via internet has been an easy way to communicate. And finally, I encouraged myself to reach him via message in Facebook (once again this web had saved me). Then I dropped him an e-mail containing my interview draft and he kindly replies my message as soon as he can. This interview is not only related to his band but also his interests too. Well it is actually an intermezzo because it’s sort of soft conversation. So you must enjoy this one. Here it goes!!!

Hello, how is it going lately? What are your recent activities now?

Hi Adi, I’m good. I just got back from this talkshow/seminar tour about music journalism, and it went really well, so it’s good. Other than that, I am busy preparing my merchandise store along with Sammy from Seringai. It is mostly a merchandise store, but we were thinking to sell some new and 2^nd hand CD’s and vinyls. There’s a lot of work to make the store happen, it keeps us busy. Haven’t draw and paint anything this past month, but hopefully I can start all over again with my artwork.

How’s Seringai been doing lately?

It’s a bit slow, actually, besides doing weekend shows, because all of us are working our asses off. We are preparing to release our home video on DVD format, it’s still in process. Well, it’s out of schedule. Our drummer who’s supposed to do the final touch for the home video is super busy –so he said- and really disorganized that it misses our scheduled deadline. It supposed to be released this month [June], so I blame him. Also, we have written about 15 new songs for the 2^nd album, so far they’re still demos, need changes here and there. Most of the songs are more in the heavy metal direction, in my opinion. We’ll see.

We know that you’re a vinyl junkie, and have a distribution called Parau distribution, can you tell me about it?

I’m a music junkie. When it comes to the music I like, I’m a nerd. I started to collect vinyls since 1994, my father has a quite a selection of ‘60s-‘70s music, so it was influenced from there.

Parau Distribution is not really active now, since I told you before that I’m preparing to open a store, so a lot of stuffs are going to be sold there.

I have to congratulate you about the exhibition you had last time, can you tell me a little bit about it?

Thank you. Which exhibition do you mean actually? The last exhibition was a group exhibition, Deer Andry-Jakarta, which is held in Ruang Rupa Gallery in Tebet, Jakarta. It’s along with like 200 other artists.

Since you were listed as a journalist, do you still have time to write? Because I’ve been following your writings when you were in some magz.

Today I only wrote for my blog. Sometime I wrote for some publications, be it some webzines or a local magazine. Almost all of them are about music, and mostly reviews. Since I try to keep up with what’s happening in music today especially in rock/heavy metal music, I can write reviews about new releases.

You’ve been DJ-ing too under stage name DJ13, how can you end up with that stuff? Have a plan to be a fulltime DJ?

DJ13, yes. The first performance as a DJ was in Bandung, for this party thrown by Ripple Magazine guys in Amsterdam Cafe back in 1998, I think. I played mostly heavy metal and some punk rock music. No, I never planned to do it seriously, just for fun. But sometimes I got paid really well for DJ-ing. Some people cringe when they heard I am DJ-ing because they think I spin those dance music like trance or house, but those are the people that does not understand the word ‘disc jockey’. There are a couple times I cleared the dancefloor because I played some sludge metal, doom, and drone stuffs. And there’s this one time that I blew up the main speaker in the legendary Parc because I was too drunk DJ-ing and I didn’t notice the volume level was above normal level. I was playing Slayer “Angel Of Death” at the time. It is like a Rp.5.000.000,- worth speaker, but somehow I managed to get away with it. Sorry, Parc.

It sounds very cliché and boring, but can you list your favorite records of all time? So it can be a guide for those who start to jump into heavy music (you can list as many as you want since there’s no limitation here J)

Then there will be not enough pages for people to read.

Here we go, in no particular order:

-         the first 4 albums of Black Sabbath

-         Prong’s first 6 albums.

-         Poison Idea Black Blackout Vacant.

-         Roky Erickson & The Aliens I Think Of Demons.

-         Entombed’s Left Hand Path, Clandestine and Wolverine Blues.

-         Most of Napalm Death’s catalog.

-         Most of Nancy Sinatra’s catalog.

-         Black Flag’s first 6 album. Or more, can’t really remember.

-         Anything from Slowdive

-         Thee Plague Of Gentlemen demos.

-         Most of Electric Wizard catalog.

-         Everything from Sleep.

-         His Hero Is Gone Monuments To Thieves.

-         Iron Maiden Killers. well, most of Iron Maiden records.

-         Cathedral Forest Of Equilibrium.

-         Fugazi Steady Diet Of Nothing.

-         S.O.B What’s The Truth.

-         James Plotkin Indirmek.

-         Most of Johnny Cash.

-         Burning Witch Rift.Canyon.Dreams.

-         Most of Les Baxter.

-         Anything from Hellhammer.

-         Cocteau Twins Heaven Or Las Vegas.

-         Anything from Motorhead.

-         Joanna Newsom Ys.

-         Khanate s/t.

-         Beastie Boys Paul’s Boutique.

-         Hawkwind’s Hall Of The Mountain Grill & Space Ritual.

-         Watain Sworn To The Dark.

-         Killing Joke’s Extremities, Dirt, And Various Repression and Night Time.

-         Gang Green’s Another Wasted Night, I81B4U EP, and Older… Budweiser.

-         Anything by The Accused, D.R.I., Christ On Parade, Ripcord.

-         Anything by The Ramones, and The Smiths. Always great for the road.

-         Can’t think anymore, too many.

What stuff do you collect besides records? And what’s the most precious thing in your collection?

I use to collect US comics and some toys, but since it’s expensive, I have to choose music collecting: vinyls, CDs, tapes, and music t-shirts. I like to read any kind of magazines and fanzines though, so I kinda collect those stuffs too. I got a Boba Fett action figures and memorabilia collection too. He’s my favorite Star Wars character. The most valuable thing in my collection is probably those limited editions of vinyls that I am lucky to get from the ‘80s and ‘90s, mostly hardcore punk and heavy metal/thrash metal vinyls in 7” format. And of course, Pushead-related vinyls.

You’re a science fiction nerd too, tell me your favorite science fiction movie of all time?

I guess it would be Star Wars sagas, the first 4 Alien movies, a lot of cartoons like Space battleshop Yamato, Captain Harlock, etc. I also like cult/exploitation movies like Psychomania, The Corpsegrinders, Suspiria, Frightmare, Vampyros Lesbos, Eugenie: The Story Of Her Into Perversion, The Gre Gore Girls, etc.