The Nuisance Drilled senile contingent
A set of interview questioned by Fairul of 'Grind Your Ass!' zine. Answers by Zaki. Read on!
01- Finally, after long waiting, the CDEP was finally revealed. I must say, congratulation for the releasing of that CDEP. How was your feeling when the CDEP is out now? How was the feedback from the listeners so far?
Hi, here’s Zaki answering your questions on behalf of Nuisance Drilled senile contingent. First of all, thanks for this interview and thanks for congratulate us, we appreciate it. It’s very rare for us to get an interview nowadays unlike those past few years. Yes, those were the days; it was the days of even bands without any single material will be getting at least 2 or 3 interviews in the mailbox waiting to be answered. Those were also the days of reading and writing/editing zines is a must for almost everyone. It seems all gone to ashes, thus it’s rare to really communicate with zine editors in this era.
Anyway, please don’t get me wrong. Yes, I do have contributed directly to some of the zines nowadays like Innerview and Punk, Ping, Ponk. But what I do really mean by saying “it’s rare to really communicate with zine editors in this era”, because it’s nearly no point in having communication with the same persons/editors again and again. Not that I said I don’t like the idea of having contact with the ones that I have now, it’s just it would be good if we have lots of them instead of the same people that we have already acknowledged. And the fact that I’m bored to death realizing the ones that doing zines nowadays are the same people in the old days (most of it the same persons with new zines though) is a whole lot more sickening truth.
Heck, some of the kids asked me whether I’ll continue doing my zines or going to make the new one. Yes, I’ve made myself the new one… it’s called ‘Ember’; the poem & prose zine. It has been released last year in November 2008. But fuck you all! Instead of asking me to make zine why don’t you make your own? Lazy muthafukka! I’ll make mine whenever I want and I’m not gonna release it in order to please others especially YOU the ones who asked me that silly question.
Where the hell those youngest ones? Fuck no, I don’t know where they are. But, during the old days, we have a lot of zine editors to communicate with and the promotion given by these zines in term of spreading the news, views and even rumours (haha) are overwhelming and engaging. We literally don’t really need the zines from abroad or the glossy mainstream magazines to promote what we have produced simply because we have a lot of our own media; locally made, popularly known by its dull features, chaotic mixtures between cut & paste and computerized layout etc. Even though those zines look amateurish (at this point, it doesn’t really matter for all I care), but it helps a lot for the growth of the local scene in general. Those were the days that I’ve missed a lot concerning to the scene that kept growing in balance of which zines and bands evolving approximately in the same quantity and quality.
Added to that, most of them really have something to say of their own and the ‘ethical conduct’ was somehow a terrifying idiom to almost kids; which I think is good, where everybody involved in the scene not only for the music, not taking things easy, not take it for granted or not for whatever fame that comes out of it. Thus from that kind of atmosphere kids will learn and try to be at least the ‘sensible’ scenesters. Okay, by saying ‘scenesters’, I didn’t mean the confused kids with bob hairdo, white leather belt, having X’s scribbled on their hands but drinking beer at hipsters’ party, those annoying poses that usually uploaded in MySpace etc. Hopefully, you know what I really mean.
Thanks heaps to the anarcho/crust punk scene back in the late 1990’s, I owe that period of time so much as lots of politically correct ideas came out and it keeps stimulating the mind of every kids in the scene. Not to mention the ‘action speaks louder than words’ chant; lots of action/activism being made aligned with the ideas and ethically conduct sort of thing that has been always said and heard at that time. I don’t care even if it’s said to be pretentious and self righteous, but whether we like it or not, this movement has changed the whole landscape of the local scene since then. Yes, that was the early years of political/critical thoughts in the local scene. The years of searching for direction of our own sensible vision… or at least a ‘rational’ and ‘reasonable’ identity for each individual involved. Anybody welcomed to deny this fact, but for me it’s the whole truth. I missed those days and actually would rather not to be involved in the scene that we have currently, but this whole phenomenon and its essence is what made me stay, which is without doubt I can say it’s always in my sensitivity and I can’t forget it just like that, even though I’m obviously not as active as before. In fact, this scene helped me to understand life a lot, to look beyond ‘normal’ people see in life and to be what I am today.
All in all, from my observation the whole things seem to be different abroad, I mean globally; I still see there are records/tapes/cds trading going on massively. To my surprise most of the e-mails that we have got are actually coming from outside Malaysia. They’re evidently still into trading, collaboration and things that related, which is quite different here in term of local context, only few people made effort to contact us or at least having discussion etc. Perhaps it’s just us the boring fucktards that made local kids uninterested to contact us. It is probably like that. Okay, let us make our own assumption, nobody cares right? But is there still left somebody reading zine? Or is somebody really read this interview anyway?
Okay, okay, let’s do a little experimentation here. If you any kids out there really read this interview, I demand you to send us an e-mail with only “FUCK YOU” as the ‘Subject:’ and the content would be anything; it depends on you. We want to see how many kids really care about the existence of Nuisance Drilled as well as this Grind Your Ass! zine, if you don’t mind. Send it to us as soon as you have finished reading this interview.
The feedback from listeners so far is mostly the same: most of it said they satisfied with the whole production be it the sounds, layout/design, lyrics, music as well as the artworks. Nah, I don’t know how to summarize those feedbacks exactly, but to cut it short most of the feedback made it feels like our effort has been rewarded. Anyway, down here are some of the ‘notable’ and self-explanatory reviews collected:
“Sludgy & doomy in intent but tempered by solid death metal rocking bits plus throat-shrieks of the thrashcore parentage.” - ricecooker.kerbau.com
“...sludgecore with rocking guitar solos and vocals screaming as if he's seeing ghosts or maybe suffering unbearable pain.” - nervhousrecords.blogspot.com
“…awesome packaging, arts, lyrics and music…” - pissartrecords.com
"…sounds really cool… [it] is pretty unique!" - Olly Pearson (Moss)
To be frank, I’m not sure about the feeling of the other members, but most of them as far as I’m concern are actually shocked that I’ve finally managed to put it out thru my own label (Dogma Artistic Guerrilla) with the help of a good friend, Talib Joe (Revulsion Records). The thought of this CDEP will never be released seems to be well implanted in their brain. Well, tough luck brothers. Haha. As for myself, I have mixed up feeling towards the release of this CDEP which is a mixture of happy, excited, curious, and sad. But, most of the time I feel numb, as if nothing happens. I can’t really recall the feeling when it’s first release. But to be exact, surely I have this sort of excitement because after nearly 10 years of existence we’ve finally released our debut CDEP! Haha. All in the sudden most of the erased memories are coming back, it’s getting clearer as times elapsed; especially the moment when this band first started jamming together and the changing members that kept come and go each year of which the worthwhile ones had been mentioned in the CDEP sleeve itself. I value these people who took part and played their role in the band since the salad days of its existence. Once again, if you wonder who they are, you may check their names which had been handsomely printed in the lyrics sleeve of the CDEP.
02- All the tracks were made from various years (2003, 2004 and 2005) and have been recorded in 2006 and in only in 2009 you guys manage to release it. Why does it take many years to record and release it? Can you tell us, what had happens during all those years?
A lot of things that happened could be the possible answers for this. The idea in the first place was trying to get another label instead of only mine to release this shit. This is honestly in order to reduce a burden in terms of financial budget and the other reason why I want it to be a collaborative work to release this CDEP is because I want this release at least holds a memory that can make me remember of any close friends of mine. But it’s not going to be up to 10 (or more) labels releasing it. That’s so ‘collaborative work’ in the truest form, isn’t it? Hehe. It’s just not my target though. For me, another 1 or 2 labels would be nice. So, it happens that this helpful friend, Talib (of Revulsion Records) being the one who are very lucky (is it Talib?) to be involved in.
There were actually 4 local labels have convinced me to collaborate, but they pulled back the agreement each time whenever I was about to release it. Lots of reason had been spilled. Yet, after several months they managed to release stuffs from overseas bands. Which I think is great, hmm… really great! Basically, financial is their main reason to back off whereas (as being mentioned earlier) the irony part is some of them managed to release the other band’s materials especially bands from outside Malaysia. I don’t really care if these labels were helping to release stuffs from wherever part of this world, but to think that we actually having a lot of local bands who are desperately need some help to get their stuff being released, so this is supposed to be something wrong is happening. Yes, this also speaks for our band. At the moment we call for help, none of the labels taking it seriously. So the CDEP being delayed again and again.
It perhaps we were merely bad luck or maybe we were just not in the right path in having the easiest way to be accomplished. I really don’t know what have got into us that time, it seems everything was hard and difficult to achieve. Not that I said financial is the main obstacle for the purpose but yeah, we can’t deny it was one of the significant matters for the four of us since most of the band members were jobless at that time and those who have job only getting paid monthly with the small amount of salary, thus to gather money ourselves for the purpose could be somewhat pain in the ass. We were literally unorganized party that not more or less could only think to live for today, not to live for tomorrow. So, in having a release was somehow not a must for us even though we have a lot of unrecorded materials that are waiting to be released.
Well, some people have to work hard to get something, but some people don’t. So, in my opinion it could be the best to explain everything. To think about it, one day (approximately 6 months before the CDEP being released) I said to myself, “Nah, fuck it! I have to do this on my own”. Just about in the right time, Talib came, approached and asked me about doing a collaboration to release the CDEP. Without asking him much, I agreed and there it goes, we have the CDEP released in April 1st, 2009, exactly two months ago while I’m answering this interview (June 7th, 2009). Nevertheless the delay is by coincidence gave us the result that I can consider as satisfying, because I had a very lengthy time to concentrate on certain thing as in the layout, artworks, sounds production and such.
During the process before it has been released, I have got this unhelpful buzz from some kids asked about why we’re taking so long to release the CDEP, without them asking me either we need help to release this shit or not. So much with the ‘cooperation not competition’ and ‘unity is our strength’ minded, eh? Without any doubt, I’ve 99.9% evidently experienced the phrase ‘Do It Yourself’ to the deepest bone. I feel very lucky to be involved in this much-loved scene apparently. Heh. I think I should cite here that this CDEP will not be existed if it’s not because of Leila Khalid, Talib, Atie, MicWrecka and the other key individuals who are really partake directly to ease up the burden. I owe you guys so much!
03- When the CDEP was out, I was thought that Nuisance Drilled will sounded gloomy with lots of drones and doom but I was totally wrong when Nuisance Drilled actually doing something different. I never imagine of sludgecore with screaming thrashcore like vocals. For me it was something original. Maybe it is because you guys has been influenced by the old bands that you're in outside of Nuisance Drilled, am I right? Tell us about the song writing process. Why you choose 6 Jahanam film samples for every track in the CDEP?
We actually have another 6 songs that are still left unrecorded and unfortunately not included in the CDEP, but I doubt whether the rest of us still remember those songs until today. It’s all being made since the first formative year (2000) by the old members and the musical genre was oddly different from nowadays, we started the as the hc/grind band or widely known as powerviolence. We developed the sound as the years passed by until we collectively agreed to adapt ‘proto’ sludge/doom into our music; it was in the early 2001. During that time we heavily into Corrupted, Grief, Isis (old stuffs!), Hawg Jaw, Man Is The Bastard, His Hero Is Gone, Noothgrush, Bongzilla, Eyehategod, Neurosis, Dystopia, Iron Monkey, Christdriver, Burning Witch and the likes.
In 2002/03 onwards, we changed again our musical direction and started to diversify the range of what we could reach from the full operating instruments and vocals approach. By seeing new faces took on duty, we started to adapt a lil’ bit of progressive/hc/stoner rock/metal riffs and such. Influences like Brainoil, Electric Wizard, Fleshpress, Meatjack, Damad, Bud Junkies, Earthride, Saint Vitus, Kylesa, Church of Misery, Goatsnake, Boris, Sleep, Converge, Mastodon, Kyuss, Catharsis, Baroness, Cathedral, Black Sabbath, Thorr’s Hammer, Melvins etc are those we listened to.
Drone? Haha, although we respect Earth, Sunn O))), Khanate, Moss and Khlyst (to name a few) a lot for their extreme creativity and naturally disturbing reverb guitars buzz (with enormous number of gadgets and amplifiers) atmosphere, we never thought of imitating their stuffs. Personally, I enjoy that sort of stuffs a lot but I think it’s not a wise thing to do to take theirs as our musical direction. In addition, I doubt the other members would like to play this kind of stuff because to play on certain direction alone would be a selfish thing to do as each of us has a different background and preference in terms of musical taste. The best thing is we try to create it with our own way (that collects each of these backgrounds/preferences) to be our own direction without abandon the very basic of intend that we want to achieve. Thus by combining the characteristic of doom/sludge genre and powerviolence as the reminiscence of origin that we were before now is seemingly a sane solution.
This is also the answer for the kids who asked why we called our sound as ‘Sludge Violence’; it’s simply amalgamation of Sludge + Powerviolence. It’s intentionally coined by me in order to put Nuisance Drilled in its own altar, trying not to be a sheep following the herd. Sound a little bit pretentious isn’t it? Yeah, but we like it. Haha. It’s also our main purpose when we were starting the band; in the early year 2000, most of the bands in the local scene like to play old/new school hardcore, crust, punk rock, thrash and grindcore. It seems all are favoured the tendency of fast driven music or something that’s commonly accepted. So to overcome my boredom towards this sort of uniformity which is can be considered mundane and cliché, I gathered some friends to form this band as the first step to break the norm by brought in new landscape for the local scene.
Even though we start the band under the powerviolence tag, but only a few of us realized that I’ve injected the sludgecore mood in every song. Therefore in having concept like that at the time, of course we had been always being asked by others about what the heck are we actually playing. When given ‘a mixture of powerviolence and sludgecore’ as the answer, we often caught up in a talk (hence the lengthy explanation) after gigs regarding the genre we delivered. During performance is the most hilarious one because most of the attendees only stood up and looking at each other grinning as if wondering about the music we played or simply hate our guts. Haha. The good old days… I find it’s always amusing.
And thanks a lot for the ‘something original’ praise; we owe you one for that. We neither intend to be original nor intend to sound like any of our influences. If you said so, it means all is coincidence by itself; we never plan of ‘something original’ when writing the songs for this CDEP. We’re glad if someone finds it that way.
Nothing is interesting about the song writing process. It’s just the usual procedure like the other bands did. At the first stage of making a song, Apizz as the guitarist came up with the several riffs that he could think of whenever we were practicing or had a meet up. After that we started to blend the entire sound of our instrument and then construct the whole structure to make it as a complete song. Normally we took 2 to 3 months or could be more than that to finalize each song until we’re all satisfied. About the lyrics, I’ve prepared most of it before the songs have been finalized (as it was actually from a collection of poems that I have in the past), but I still modify here and there a little bit to make sure it was aligned with the overall composition.
The ‘6 Jahanam’ film samples are actually a metaphor of a small group of people (hence the hero, Tantari played by P. Ramlee and his sidekick, Damburi played by Yusof Latiff) who are fighting for justice (to seek revenge of the wife/sister, Masmera’s tragic death; played by Noor Azizah). ‘6 Jahanam’ bandits portray the every single of crime and mischievous (hence the ruthless and greedy characteristics) behaviour of which endorsed by the capitalistic system that we are dealing at this present time. It is very much self explanatory why I choose it to be the samples right? Yes, to create such atmosphere aforementioned to the whole songs in the CDEP is one of the accurate reasons obviously.
04- Why does the title changed from "In memory of our late fear that gave us wings" to "All is well euphoric ending"? I personally prefer the first title... And that title was end up being a lyric to one of your song. Isn't it a quote from the late H.P. Lovecraft? Zaki, you're a big fans of H.P. Lovecraft, right? So, what makes you interested with his works? How much his writings have influenced you and Nuisance Drilled?
Quote? Oh okay, the “In memory of…” as far as I’m concern is not from Lovecraft, it’s actually the phrase inspired by a Swedish grindcore band, Sayyadina from their 1st full length album title “Fear Gave Us Wings”. I’ve just added a little bit of words to make it as our own. Haha. What a rip off! Do check out their 2nd full length album “Mourning the Unknown” released circa 2007. Fuckin’ ace! The second one “All is well…” is made up by myself. It was merely a reflection of my thought towards the process in releasing the CDEP and the theme of the overall concept is about anti suicide of which represent my critical condition during that time. It’s quite metaphorical in terms of the effort and struggle that I’ve put in to make it happens. In addition, it also has the objective to clear the cloud about the misconception that’s circulating the sludge/doom genre as a whole. Further explanation on the artwork will be explained in the next question. Thank you.
Why it has changed? It’s literally for the conceptual purpose. But in the deep thoughts, both of the titles are just bringing slightly the same connotation, if you know what I mean. Both of it in conclusion tends to suggest ‘the happiness’ or ‘happy ending’ culmination: In symbolic expression, wings = to fly, freedom, excel etc. Euphoric = joyful, great happiness, pleasure etc.
Yup, I’m a fan of Lovecraft. I’ve been exposed (circa 1996) to Lovecraft works via the Swiss artist, HR Giger of which his artworks often touched things about Necronomicon, Cthulhu myth and the likes. After months discovering Giger, I began to dig Lovecraft even more by watching movies and reading books/articles that related to his works. I like his works because most of it beyond logical and it made me think for myself that imagination has no boundaries of which needs no limitation in order to create something that can be considered as groundbreaking, innovative and somewhat revolutionary. Lovecraft is one of my personal favourites alone and it’s not associated to Nuisance Drilled as a whole. Therefore none of the content in the CDEP carries the shade of Lovecraft thoughts. About the influence of Lovecraft towards my individual works, you may find my sketches/artworks often feature some creatures that resemblance the hobbyhorse of the man has created in his literatures. Hence the dreadful and bizarre looking creature in HR Giger artworks too, you’ll know what I mean.
Oh, I almost forgot one thing; however, there are kids out there still wondering and eagerly would like to know therefore asked me about the exact tumult/outburst of some kind gibberish lines that I howl for ‘Hope’ (of which only provided with the phrase that’s originally planned to be the CDEP’s title), down here is the full blown lyrics before being distorted. Haha! It is initially a poem that is later included in ‘Ember’.
In memory of our late fear that gave us wings
long gone, been forgotten
history of the past few years
left unsaid, never been told
gave me pain, concealed agony
the ashes of yesterday
buried all these giving
it was without meaning
bleed inside out
run, run from this filthy life
awaiting gold, no regret
away, away from this mundane
shooting the grasping stars
lament of future, seeking perfection
the generous one would be its failure
strip naked all the dignities
they never knew what has been shattered.
05- Let's talk about the artwork for the CDEP. The artwork for the front cover is a picture of a naked man slit his own wrist (it's quite brutal and disturbing) and looks like he's almost dead. I believe that Nuisance Drilled was not promoting suicide but the artwork might misunderstood by some people. Zaki, since you're the one who made the the artwork, care to explain it to the readers out there?
I’ve already explained this topic thru Dogma Artistic Guerrilla blog site (dogmaartisticguerrilla.blogspot.com), so most of the words stated here are taken from there. Okay, about the cover artwork. It’s about the ‘slightly’ gruesome of slits wrist and serious hemorrhage of the image. Since the first released we’ve received exactly the same question from some friends that asked why the artwork is like that… or are we promoting suicidal act or something?
To answer the question, it’s absolutely not. We’re neither promoting suicidal act nor supporting such thing like that. We are not, will not and never were. Based upon the universal misconception of promoting suicide that surrounds the sludge/doom realm is actually utter bullshit. Sludge/doom (or whatever shits that you want to call it) is/was never about giving up life and never about committing suicide or things that related. You can read by your own about that misconception at this url: http://www.doom-metal.com/faq.html#14 or simply read all the FAQ that’s also mentioned there. So, now you won’t be misleading to the oblivion.
But why should we put the artwork if we’re not promoting suicide? It would be the same like those D-beaters. They hate war as much as we detest suicide. But they still put the pictures of war victims to adorn their records’ cover; dead bodies everywhere, nuclear bombing, mutilated body parts, skeletons/skulls etc of which I believe they want us to know the impact of after war and to remind us how bad the war is. So, it’s the same goes to our artwork: We hate/detest suicide, so we show you the end result; the brutal truth and impact of it. To take our life by our own hands is not a wise thing to do; it is an act of losers. No matter how bad life’s treating us, we have to bear in our mind that life should go on and everything is gonna be alright someday. Yes, things couldn’t change in a blink of our eyes, so be it, deal with it and rock the hell out of what life can offer us. Struggling is a never ending treatment that one should experience, until the right time will come upon us, so we could (perhaps) rest in peace and in proper way.
Okay, about your exact question of why the man is naked and viciously dripping his own blood? The answer could be this: The naked man is to portray desperate situation of nothingness and emptiness (but tried to achieve/struggle upon something) that could be best described by this quote; “…I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat”. It is a quotation from Winston Churchill's speech on becoming prime minister of the United Kingdom in 1940. To look upon his memoirs, it is obviously that I’m not into his overall ideas and acts, but this noteworthy line is truly something therefore inspirational.
If you want more deliberate explanation upon this matter, I don’t have any further explanation though. But I do think this poem down here could explain more. Read carefully, okay.
Catharsis
i have normal suicidal tendencies
that pain which keeps me alive
this room of claustrophobic force
fan spinning, audio murmuring
light of the bulb, ticking clock
outside the windows, clanking noises
machinery boasted down the road
no sign of nature, those songbirds
seemingly unheard, extinction might be
feeling of burning inside, i drew smiling lips
punish me please, so i could stand up and rise above
damn to them who silence
praise the beheaded and blindfolded fools
give me your hands, i want to kiss it goodbye
no more mr. nice guy, no more mr. wise guy
we’re polluted, all corrupted
these cathartic razors, won’t kill those pains.
This poem which entitled "Catharsis”, I wrote in my room somewhere located at Taman Bukit Serdang around November 2006 and already had been posted in my previous blog (zaxxx.tblog.com) on November, 29th 2006, then in my current blog (zachvanalley.blogspot.com) on January 22nd, 2007 and afterward being one of the poems in ‘Ember’. This is clearly not about approaching commit suicide or killing ourselves. This is just a manifestation of a reflection when someone faced upon hard times. Let’s just read the last sentence: "These cathartic razors... won't kill those pains", it's true enough that we’re not promoting any harmful suicidal acts. And it's also merely said that we don't believe commit suicide is the answer for any difficulties or depressions. It just won’t solve anything in return.
So, by providing such explanation, thus I’m not responsible if someone killed him/herself after purchasing the CDEP. You’ve been reminded.
06- How was the idea to release the CDEP through Revulsion Records come? Tell us about the deal with Revulsion Records. And how about Dogma Artistic Guerrilla? Tell us more about that label too.
I’ve explained some of the things you asked here at the previous question number 2. So I think it’s not appropriate for me to repeat it again. Dogma Artistic Guerrilla is a label that I made with my wife, Leila Khalid concentrating on stuffs or projects related to arts, music and literature. It was a tiny distro approximately back in 2002 and now in 2009 it turns out to be a label as the Nuisance Drilled CDEP has been released. Perhaps more releases will come out from us soon. But nothing can be guaranteed so far, thus I suggest you not to wait for any possibilities that might be.
07- With the coming of bands like Fall To Their Death, Pakatan Haram Jadah and the comeback of Modar and not to forget the existence of Nuisance Drilled too, I can see that kids are more and more can accepting the coming of sludge/doom genre in the local DIY scene. Would you agree with me and what are your view point regarding to this matter? Your general view on doom/sludge/drone music and philosophy.
Okay, I agree. Kudos to all of them and to the kids who love this kind of genre; nobody can really tell either this is purely passion or merely temporary fad. If this continues to grow, we can at least have another option that keeps the scene loaded with a range of choices and varied point of views. My view upon doom/sludge/drone music is actually the same with the other music as well that’s not more than a tool for us to utilize/exploit in order to deliver our messages. The approach could be different as this doom/sludge/drone music could be a little bit heavier, slower, tranquil (read: disturbing, at times) and even at some point, groovy in its own manner comparing to the other genres. But all in all these are just music that we could adjust/create it to be our own; alternatively we can make it to be on our own direction, until at the certain stage, the mould is no longer important unless to inspire and being the catalyst for the next new invention or discovery.
Nothing is sacred and nothing is really special, it’s just the style that’s different from one another. It’s just like we’re having Realism, Expressionism, Cubism, Minimalism, Futurism, Surrealism, Dadaism etc (and the list goes on) for the visual arts, so it could be the same thing happens to this aural arts as well. No matter what, be it Punk Rock, Hardcore, Crust, D-beat, Thrash, Grind, Sludge, Doom, Drone, Industrial, Shoegaze (what a name!), Metal or even Noise etc, it is all about individual preference and taste. Therefore, from my opinion it’s nothing so philosophical about that anyway.
08- So, what are the next plan for Nuisance Drilled? Are you guys already starting composing/writing new songs now? How about playing gigs; will you guys playing more gigs in the future because I would love to see Nuisance Drilled on stage? Any plan to release Nuisance Drilled on vinyl format? Anyway, thanks for answering my questions. Anything to add to close this interview?
Next plan? I’m not sure; perhaps with the new formation we could release something in the nearest future. Unfortunately, no new songs being composed so far and I couldn’t really tell the exact future of Nuisance Drilled though. It’s hard to gather all the band members at a time nowadays since we live far from each other. As we get older, responsibility is somewhat a must to be fulfilled unlike those days in the past; we have a lot of ‘free’ time to spend together. Apart of that, 3 of us are playing with Sarjan Hassan except me; they seem to be busy with shows/gigs/projects here and there etc. Besides Sarjan Hassan, most of the band members are playing with the other promising bands as well (again, except me… at this moment I only have Nuisance Drilled). I do understand that the other bands are their first priority, therefore I couldn’t complain much.
About gigs; I always would like to play gigs as much as I can, but none of the local organizers invite us to play their show. Yes, it’s indeed a wise resolution to organize gigs of our own, but we have purposely decided not going to organize it ourselves because we’re currently in the state of enjoying our sightseeing from our own ivory tower laughing and wondering why these local organizers are so busy with handling/organizing the gigs/tours for overseas bands rather than inviting those bands/individuals in their own neglected backyard of which commonly (or perhaps by faking) they called as friends on a daily basis. It’s just saddened, because as far as I can remember while back in those days when we were quite active organizing numerous series of gigs (and occasionally helping out the gigs organized by some friends), there were bands/individuals (regardless with/out any release) had been invited to play in our gigs, but today when most of the bands/individuals are now have its own thing and currently organizing their gigs, we have been left out and forgotten. To look back at the catchphrase of ‘mutual understanding’, ‘sharing is caring’, ‘togetherness’ and ‘supporting our local scene’; I think it’s just a big fat joke. If this sort of situation occurs continuously, the catchphrase will always be a catchphrase and it will never be transformed into reality.
Truthfully, we owe our late friend, Muhamad Syukree Hussain for the chances he gave us to play in his series of gigs. Believe it or not, he’d always invited us in every gig he organized but to think that we still didn’t have any release out at that time, so we only decided to play some of the gigs. Thanks heaps, brother. May you rest in peace forever and you’ll always be remembered. It is awkward to play gigs without releasing any materials though. But the irony is so far (by the time I’m answering this interview: June 7th, 2009) we never played any gigs since the CDEP has been surfaced. Haha. Nevermind. I think the whole situation is best summarized by this quote from Acai of Dull Entertainment Programme (which written in the band’s blog site: dullentertainmentprogramme.blogspot.com):
"The point of having a band is to release materials, not for playing shows and then disband after three months. Playing shows is secondary, your material comes first."
Thanks bro, for the words of wisdom. Dull Entertainment Programme will always be remembered too. I have your CD and t-shirt though. Hope that I’ll get 100 times profit more than the original price by putting it in eBay 10 years from now. We’ll share it 50/50, if you don’t mind. Haha.
Also thanks to you Fairul for this interview as this is the first interview (yes, you have been blessed for this) that we’ve gotten after the CDEP being released. And as far as I remember this is the second interview we have received from you to be appeared in your zine. The first one was on January 7th, 2006. It means you’ve been blessed by us two times already. Haha. Just kidding, pal.
Vinyl? For me any formats would be fine of which it isn’t really a big deal. The most important thing is the effectiveness in delivering messages (and arts) is what really counts for certain target and aim. The content is the most essential element for any releases that we should look into in the first place instead of the cover/format etc. But I never thought at all of having a piece of wax for the format of any Nuisance Drilled releases from the early beginning. I would prefer CD and cassette more than the other formats. I can’t see any significance of possessing vinyl in Malaysia at the first place because to find a vinyl turntable here could be a little bit difficult. I’ve asked around about the price of this record player either the new or the used one (whereas I could only find it once in a blue moon), on which I’ve found being sold in an extremely ridiculous price. To maintain this record player also a hassle; lots of thing should be done to make sure the condition is sustained. As I always listen to music while I’m driving compared to the other situation that might not let me to do so, I’d think in my case the CD or cassette is a whole lot more convenient than the other formats. Furthermore, why in the world we have to keep something that’s bulky (hence the storage problem) while we can have something smaller and it can carry the same (or perhaps more) capacity of files? Vinyl lovers out there, only you know the answer for this.
To close this interview, I’d just wish happy living a life and thanks a bunch for anyone who read my long-winded answers until the end. Also thanks to you Fairul for the opportunity to be appeared once again in your zine. Best of luck to you and good luck with your zine, brother. I’m looking forward to read it soon. For the readers out there, if you haven’t got our CDEP, you can get it thru me or Revulsion Records. Otherwise please listen to ‘Stress Builds Character’ by Dystopia right after finished reading this interview to get you in the right mood. Haha. Thank you and cheers!
