OH CHENTAKU

PHOTOGRAPHY BY SHERMEN MUKHTAR
WEBSITE: www.myspace.com/ohchentaku
COUNTRY: Malaysia STYLE: Punk

WHAT ASPECT OF WRITING MUSIC DO YOU ENJOY THE MOST AND IS IT ALWAYS EXITING TO SEE HOW A SONG “DEVELOPS” FROM START TO FINISH?

The best thing about song-writings is arranging the flow of the song itself; we have no interest towards simplifying a song just to make it done quickly, for instance, intro to verse and ending with a floppy and tedious choruses. We do fancy of non-repeating rhymes, although using the same progression of chords, but the style of thrumming is developing from one to another. Best example of reference perhaps, we could say, a band from US called Taking Back Sunday, where they used the same chords progression but modifying the song from lyrical view or drumming tempos.

We obviously appreciate the efforts, every time when we could came up with ideas that would turn melodies into a song. Ensuring the bridge part won’t have any close progression with the choruses or verses, and completing a song with a climax finishing, where there should be a sing-along fraction or stiff breakdown or something similar.

DO MOST OF YOUR SONGS ALWAYS COME OUT THE WAY YOU ORIGINALLY WANTED THEM TO OR DOES EACH MEMBER’S INPUT USUALLY GIVE A BETTER END RESULT THAN JUST ONE PERSON’S?

Most of the time, the band would sit together in a studio to re-arrange the song, making it completely durable although the band is a three-piece. Each members contributed in each songs composed based on different perspective of music-making, for instance, Myo listens to singer/songwriters a lot, Naem would rather listen to Jazz and Blues while Adib is really interested in Screamo, happy hardcore and all those heavy stuff.

Imagine the arrangement of songs would be at the end of the day? Somehow we’re not saying that we’re that special, but we are happy with what we’ve achieved so far, and it took great efforts, sweat and tears to finally reach phases that we have set in the first place. We’re so not done yet, because we’re craving for more and more of unique song-writings, comprising good melodies and good lyrical song words.

IF MY GOOGLE SEARCH WAS CORRECT YOUR BAND NAME “OH CHENTAKU” TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH MEANS “OH MY LOVE”, DO MOST OF YOUR LYRICS REVOLVE AROUND THE THEMES OF LOVE AND RELATIONSHIPS?

Ideas came from experiences. Not love story entirely.

YOUR DEBUT ALBUM WAS RELEASED RECENTLY AFTER YOUR DEBUT EP SOLD OUT. SORRY IF I SOUND CONFUSED BUT IF “SUITCASE, A SCARF AND THE DEPARTURE” IS YOUR DEBUT ALBUM HOW DOES “OFF-BROADWAY TWILIGHTS” FIT INTO THE PICTURE?

The band based in Malaysia and released three different releases. First was the 7 songs EP titled Heartbreak Ridge Was Never This Arrogant, then it was the official Europe release titled Off-Broadway Twilights which was entirely recorded and mixed in Zurich, Switzerland and just to be sold in Europe. Then only the debut album came after a yearlong hiatus due to personal obligations. Somehow there is a trend of releasing the releases principally and according to different market; for instance Asia market and Europe market shares different perspective of looking into music.

We’ve noticed this after we completed our band tour to Amsterdam, Manchester, London, Dublin, Zurich, Lugano, Sorenberg and Luzern in Europe. Therefore we decided to release different releases to suit the listeners. Just another special releases, which can’t be found in our country itself, only in Europe and as far that we’re concerned, they were sold out.

HOW MUCH DID THE BAND “IMPROVE” IN THE TIME BETWEEN YOUR EP AND YOUR DEBUT ALBUM IN YOUR OPINION, AND WHAT DID YOU TRY NEW MUSICALLY WHILE RECORDING “SUITCASE, A SCARF AND THE DEPARTURE”?

We took 2 years to complete writing the 10 songs in the debut album. First we write almost like 20 to 25 songs, and then we narrowed the list down into 8 best songs that should be in the debut album. The other 3 songs written was 1 the intro, 1 of it is the outro of the debut album, and the last one is a special single written in our own mother tongue to tackle the local listeners and radio station which only plays our mother tongue based songs.

People in the other region might gets really confused, but this is how it is in Malaysia, the musician has to write in their own mother tongue to tackle the market, we rather found it challenging since we’ve been writing English songs ever since. But the outcome was great and we’re extremely happy about it.

DO YOU GUYS STILL USE THE SAME GEAR SINCE DAY ONE AND IF NOT WHAT DO YOU CURRENTLY USE?

Still the same old gears, no use of spending unnecessarily.

HAVING TOURED IN EUROPE, WOULD YOU SAY MUSIC TRULY HAS NO “BORDERS” AND THAT IF YOUR MUSIC IS GOOD YOU CAN HAVE AMAZING SHOWS ANYWHERE?

Music crosses borders, and amazingly in Europe, the listeners were more appreciative, and really enjoyed originality of a performer. There’s no classification of good music and bad music, it always depending on the listeners judging’s, different people has different preferences, stage performance and flexibility is one bonus point in a band.

A band should be able to be very flexible and be able to read the crowds. Our point is, sometimes, a song might be very popular in Amsterdam, but the band can’t expect a same result if they play that particular song in Tokyo or California.

HOW MUCH DO YOU TRY TO PERFORM LIVE AT THIS MOMENT IN TIME AND HOW MANY SHOWS ARE YOU PLANNING TO PLAY TOWARDS THE END OF THE YEAR?

The band has been playing numerous of shows in and outside of the country, and still planning to hit some more stages until the end of the year, preferably a local tour and to neighbouring countries in Japan and Australia. However, the band is not as active as before since the players are currently busy with daily jobs and considering shows that we really can make it.

Years before, we used to play 3 shows in a day and that was constantly continuing for the whole weekends, more likely; 12 to 15 shows a month just for the sake of performing joyfulness and promoting the band to new listeners, promising fans. But now, more likely, 3 to 4 shows in a month, because we need to focus on work too.

HOW DO YOU GUYS USUALLY ORGANISE SHOWS THESE DAYS, AND IS IT USUALLY AS EASY AS PHONING A FEW OTHER BANDS AND ASKING THEM IF THEY ARE INTERESTED IN PLAYING, OR IS GETTING A VENUE USUALLY THE TRICKY PART?

Malaysia is one easy country to organize a show, from a carrying capacity of 50 to 50,000 people. In any day, there could be 3 big concerts in one place nearby to each other on the same day, same time but obviously different crowds. Getting bands is not a hassle, the main problem is getting good band line-ups, one show at a time, therefore the organizer should book a date, the most accessible venue since we have hundreds of venues, and reasonable entrance fees. A lot of consideration has to be made before even think about uploading the gig poster on Myspace. That is just not happening.

WHAT HAS BEEN THE MOST “INTERESTING” LIVE EXPERIENCE YOU HAVE EVER HAD?

Broke the guitars twice after a couple swings, a crazy body surfing from the rooftop of our stage to a huge stage speakers and then to the crowds, a girl came and gave a bouquet of sunflowers, each band members kicking and boxing happily with each other during a show, answering calls from our mobile phone while singing, funny music video shoot, but the best thing of all was, tearing the stage apart with crowds taking over the mics.

IF YOU LOOK AT THE PRICES OF GEAR ONE GETS THE IDEA THAT MUSIC IS UNFORTUNATELY A VERY EXPENSIVE “HOBBY” TO HAVE. BESIDES COSTS, WHAT ELSE DO YOU THINK USUALLY PERSUADES PEOPLE NOT TO CHOOSE A CAREER IN MUSIC AND WHAT CAN BE DONE TO CHANGE THAT IN YOUR OPINION?

Other than costs, what could actually de-motivate people from choosing music as careers are the possibilities of maintaining the name and the fans in a long-term, which is obviously not many musician could do that until they are finally dead, then only they will get so famous and sold out their late albums.

There is nothing could be done to this case, because people come and go, and a life of a musician is just like a bicycle wheel, sometimes when you paddled so hard, you will be right up, on the top of the wheel, however, sometimes, even when you have paddled so hard, sweating and fell off couple of times, you still at the bottom, life is going round and round. Everybody just have to accept it and face the reality. For us, we appreciate both good and bad times when we were still in a band, which all became memories and history to tell.

THE BAND HAS HAD OVER 293000 VIEWS ON MYPACE; IN WHAT WAYS DO YOU THINK THE BAND HAS BEEN SUCCESSFUL IN BUILDING ITSELF A GOOD FAN BASE, AND LOOKING BACK AT THE BAND’S CAREER SO FAR ARE THERE ANY THINGS YOU WISH YOU COULD HAVE DONE DIFFERENTLY?

We never want to change the clock or turn the time backward, what we went through was the best thing that should happened to us, we can never be more thankful than this. In our point of view, perhaps the listeners really enjoy the music we’ve written, the energetic stage performance and because we are down to earth and very humble to everyone, from bands to fans, medias and we never show the eagerness of enjoying the famous life when we were with our childhood friends. Basically, we have never become selfish, snob or hypocrite. We are just like any other ordinary people, because we enjoyed being ourselves.

ANY COMMENTS; THINGS FANS SHOULD LOOK OUT FOR OR PEOPLE YOU WOULD LIKE TO THANK?

Stay true and thanks to Neil for the interview, Shak our producer, girlfriends and friends, die hard fans for the outstanding undying supports from scratch to stretch. Cheers!