Interview by Carol Wright | Photos Courtesy of Reality Club
Reality Club, an indie-rock band hailing from Jakarta, Indonesia received major buzz after coming out with their LP Reality Club Presents… The band chatted with NYOTA about making tweaks to songs on tour, their advice for aspiring musicians, and creating unique merch.
Take our readers back to the beginning. How did Reality Club come to be?
Our old bassist, Mayo, actually brought all of us together. We didn’t know each other at all before, like we weren’t originally buddies or anything like that. Mayo first brought in Fathia and Era. Over time, Mayo (who originally formed the group) got too busy with work and was replaced by our current bassist Nugi. But yeah, now we’re definitely buddies and friends who hang out, jam out, and all that good stuff!
Are people not as tapped into the Jakarta music scene as you think they should be?
Well, perhaps on a global scale just looking at statistics. Not just Jakarta, but the Southeast Asian music scene is still kind of niche. But our message is to not sleep on Southeast Asian acts! We’re telling you, from getting to know musicians across the region, they are just as good and sometimes even better than any other region. But speaking for Jakarta, I think you can find anything you want in Jakarta and you’ll find our musicians usually nail it in whatever genre they’re doing.
On YouTube you have a series called “Stage Journal.” Has this been a fun way for you all to have your own visual diary to look back on, while at the same time giving fans an inside glimpse into tour life?
Yes! Thank you for noticing. Usually with doing these shows, tours, and festivals, everything can get hectic and before we know it everything is over in a flash. Doing these stage journals are not just for everyone to see what it’s like backstage, but for us to also revisit our shows.
While on tour did you change any arrangements of your songs to give special moments to the crowd?
We did a few tweaks here and there to spice things up. We rarely do rehearsals due to our packed tour schedule so what’s interesting is that we did some of the tweaks on the go, sometimes elevating a single idea into a thing we would do together. But so far we seldom feel the need to make a special live arrangement of a song and turn it into another thing of its own. There are a few exceptions to this but we always go back to the source material. Aside from practical reasons, we feel that if we deviate too much from the original there might be a chance of diminishing the audience’s enjoyment of the song.
You recently unveiled a collaboration with Denyut. How did that collaboration come to be? Are you continuously looking for innovative ways to connect with your fans and gain new ones?
We actually love merch! I mean we’re coming from a background of being fanboys/fangirls of musicians we listen to and we love to buy artist merch. On top of that, unique merch is always something we’re interested in. So it was only natural that when we became musicians we wanted a wide variety of merch because it is a way to connect with our fans, gain awareness, and put us on the radar of new people too! We used to do everything on our own during our indie days but thankfully nowadays we have a lovely merch team working on finding collaborations for us.
What advice do you have for aspiring musicians?
Get out there, spread your music, find the right people, seize the moment, and be a decent person. Easier said than done but hopefully it’s all worth it in the end. And of course don’t quit your daydream. Don’t give up on your dreams because they may just come true.