KILLED BY BUTTERFLY

PHOTOGRAPHY BY ERWIN "EWINK" JONASO
WEBSITE: www.myspace.com/killed
COUNTRY: Indonesia STYLE: Rock / Metal / Thrash

HOW WERE YOU FIRST “INTRODUCED” TO HEAVY MUSIC, AND HOW DID THE BAND START?

RID: remembered my self as a soft kid back then, I listen to MJ, Duran Duran a lot. And the first rock stuff that I ever heard was Queen. And when I’m at junior high I remember the first metal stuff I listen to was Metallica, you know I asked my older brother to teach me ‘Seek and Destroy’ guitar intro and he was like…’no way man you can’t start learning guitar with that kinda stuff…learn the basic stuff first you idiot!’ And after Napalm Death “Scum” hit me…I listen to heavier stuff…

The band started as a side project actually, it was our guitarist (Vic) and our first vocalist (Hary) project. Vic was in a ska band back then, and me and Rom have our own band too, a punk band. After we play a lot together…and we kinda get more serious on this…and here we are…

ROM: I grew up with the Beatles, the Carpenters, Kiss, etc. Then fell in love to the “Master of Puppets”, but "...and Justice for All" still the bomb! Classic album!

YOUR SOUND DRIFTS BETWEEN VARIOUS GENRES OF HEAVY MUSIC; WHAT WOULD YOU SAY IS THE BIGGEST “DRIVING FORCE” BEHIND YOUR SOUND?

RID: Oldskull Metal, crossover, Punk and Hardcore stuff I think…I can’t tell a certain band, because I listened a lot of random stuff back then, Kreator, DRI, A.M.Q.A., The Misfits, Necrodeath, Napalm Death, Sepultura and stuff like that..It’s pretty random actually; I just can’t name one...

ROM: Hmm, kinda hard question to answer, hehe.. Well we like the old stuff like Metallica, Anthrax, Megadeth, Misfits etc, we also like the new stuff like 18 Visions, and He is Legend, Thrice, so I think we just like to blend their sound into our music haha

HOW LONG HAS THE “SANITY / INSANITY ALBUM BEEN AVAILABLE AND ARE YOU PLANNING A NEW RELEASE ANY TIME SOON?

RID: It was released in 2009, and yes we plan to make another one.

ROM: It’s a year and a month, and yeah, we’ve got plans, but still not sure start to make and E.P or another L.P, it all depends to our creativity process…

READING THE TRACK LIST FOR “SANITY / INSANITY” SOME OF THE SONG TITLES SEEM TO COME FROM A VERY “DARK” PLACE, WHAT SUBJECTS DO YOU COVER THE MOST WITH YOUR MUSIC?

RID: Real life subject actually, and it’s all about losing family member, losing a friend, about religion, and stuff. A lot of people judging us as an emo stuff (ha, whatever) but what can I say, this girl, Beth Gibbon (Portishead) influenced me a lot.

ROM: The subject would be Life in general, well we kinda like what you said “dark place” pretty cool! haha, for instance, we more prefer to write a song from Vader rather than Skywalker point of view :P

MOST OF YOUR SONGS ARE NOT VERY LONG, WHY HAS THE BAND TAKEN THIS APPROACH WITH ITS SONG WRITING?

RID: All I can say is, we keep it simple, we avoid repeating riff more than twice, but we don’t want our song became complicated like technical stuff, because no, we’re not that technical.

ROM: Hmm, basically we’ve got Punk Rock element in our music, as you can hear in every song of our music we’ve got the 3 chords punk, and we think it’s pretty cool, straight, melodic, yet harsh!

WHO WOULD YOU SAY ARE THE BIGGEST SONG WRITERS IN THE BAND?

RID: I can’t answer this one…for me, if you go as a band, you go together as one. As you can see on our credit, it’s written all songs by Killed by Butterfly. So there’s absolutely no ego shit on that kinda stuff.

ROM: Everyone in this band got chances to spit it out his theory. So if someone said “hey I’ve got these cool chords for new song” then the rest of us will finish each song, one by one, together…

I SEE YOU LIST FOUR BAND MEMBERS ON MYSPACE BUT ONLY THREE ON FACEBOOK, IS THE BAND PLANNING ANY LINE UP CHANGES?

RID: Vic leaves the band to study in Australia. No, I guess we’re good... We use additional musician to fill the job, so Rom can play guitar like he always wanted ahaha

ROM: Really? Each member got Facebook account; I think there’s a misunderstanding : P

A BAND WOULD OBVIOUSLY BE NOTHING WITHOUT ITS GEAR. WHAT INSTRUMENTS AND GEAR DO YOU CURRENTLY USE TO GET THE BEST RESULTS?

RID: Musical instrument it’s kinda expensive stuff back here. I previously use Gibson SG guitar, now I use LTD guitar, but I’m planning to buy another SG. I don’t have our own amps yet. So for every gig we ask the best amps we can get (usually Mesa Boogie or Marshall) it’s all in our riders…

ROM: Right now, I’m using Washburn les paul model (wp-80) with EMG pickups 81 (for bridge), Ernie ball strings and Marshall JCM 2000 Dsl 100 Head (plan to replace with Peavey 5150 or 6505 Head) and Ade the drummer using Yamaha Drums, Zildjian Cymbals and Zildjian Travis Barker Signature Sticks.

TALKING ABOUT GEAR. I SEE THE GAME GEARS OF WAR (XBOX360) MENTIONED ON YOUR FACEBOOK PAGE. WOULD YOU GUYS CONSIDER YOURSELVES TO BE “BIG” GAMERS AND IF SO WHAT WOULD YOU SAY ARE SOME OF YOUR FAVOURITE GAMES?

RID: It’s my and Rom favorite game actually, we use to go to our friend’s house to play it every weekend for 2 almost years, but we don’t do that anymore, now we play it online from home. I miss the togetherness actually, when you can shout and scream to each other…laughing, it’s better than hearing it from a headset. As for my favorites, hmm I’m a shooting freak… So Gears is my all time favorite, along with Call of Duty 4, Rainbow Six Vegas 2. I can’t wait for new Gears Dark Corner update…

ROM: Well my fave games would be, Gears of War, Call of Duty, Tony Hawk, Pro Evolution Soccer, Bully & Grand Theft Auto (Rockstar games represent!)

I MENTION YOUR FACEBOOK AND MYSPACE PROFILES A LOT IN THIS INTERVIEW BUT IT IS UNFORTUNATELY THE BIGGEST SOURCE OF INFORMATION I HAVE ABOUT THE BAND. DO YOU THINK IT IS A GOOD OR BAD THING THAT BANDS IN GENERAL HAVE BECOME SO DEPENDANT ON THE INTERNET TO PROMOTE THEMSELVES?

RID: I didn’t see the bad things in it, you see almost everyone use the internet now right? It’s a matter of using the best thing you can use for the moment... I mean, if we only can use carrier pigeon to post your letter like the Chinese people use it back in the day, I’m sure a lot of band also use it right now too ahahah

ROM: Well, we agreed, coz these days every unsigned band really need a good e-promotion, even just a small e-promotion thru Internet, and it’s okay if a band dependant to it.

THERE IS OBVIOUSLY NO BETTER WAY TO PROMOTE A BAND THAN TO PLAY LIVE, ARE YOU PLANNING TO PLAY MANY SHOWS IN THE UPCOMING MONTHS?

RID: We’re planning to play this big event called Java Rockin’ Land 2009 , rumors say that there’s a lot of big band like Mew, reunion MR BIG, Third Eye Blind. It’s a random rock show actually, hope it turns up well.

ROM: Yeah, we haven’t got any chance to make our own tour in our country, sponsorship and money are the biggest problem, but we gonna dig it, hopefully someone or some company would support us haha

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE THE MUSIC SCENE WHERE YOU LIVE AND WHAT EXCITES AND SCARES YOU THE MOST ABOUT WHAT IS CURRENTLY HAPPENING IN YOUR SCENE?

RID: The scene is good... But a lot of people tend to copy all the aspect of whatever they idolizing, and it ended up make them like hypocrite prick. A lot of people here don’t absorb what only good for them, but all of them instead if you know what I mean.

ROM: Yeah the scene are pretty awesome, but there are idiots who try to separate the scene by mocking some band or somebody, and we think that sucks, just respect others like you respect yourself and it’s gonna be mega awesome things for the scene.

ANY COMMENTS OR PEOPLE YOU WOULD LIKE TO THANK?

RID: I want to thank Peter, from Peter Says Denim...you Neil, for this opportunity, to all my band mates, family, friends, whoever who read this interview this far…thanks

ROM: Family, friends, Myspace, Facebook and you of course thank you so much Neil for this witty interview! Cheers!