Friday, September 28, 2007

Young And Dangerous interview (Malaysia hardcore punk)

ok, first question my friend, what is your name? and what do you do in the band?

hey. thanks francis. i'm Timmy and i do vocals for Young And Dangerous. the others in the band are xAdx on guitar, Kerk on drums and Kuchai on bass. we've been around since november of 2004 and we got some EPs, a split, and full length out. many upcoming releases too!

now, how did the band start? and how did you guys meet?

i actually had a band with Kerk called GAMPANG. we played thrashy violence. after a while, our band progress drastically slowed down because our guitarist stayed 5 hours away from town. after that, Kerk and I became very eager to play in another band. so we started Young And Dangerous.

i met xAdx in early 2004 through the internet. after i found out Ad played guitar, we decided to ask him to play for us. before kuchai came, we had Azam as our original bassist. he left us in middle 2006 when we were recording for our full length cd. eventually, we asked Kuchai to replace Azam.

i noticed some of you are edge, is Young And Dangerous an all sXe band? how long have you been edge?

nope. YAD is not a straight-edge band. only xAdx and I are sxe. Kerk used to be edge, but he isn't now. i claimed edge in early 2000.

what kind of music does your band play? and who are your influences?

haha. in the early days of YAD, we played straight thrashcore. heavily influenced by What Happens Next?, Lifes Halt, Vitamin X, Betercore, Rambo. before recording our material for the full length , we decided to add some other influences like punk rock, rock n roll, and youthcrew to it. now, we're more like a japanese hardcore band. kind of like Razors Edge, Jellyroll Rockheads, and Tomorrow.

as for lyrics and live shows, what do you usually sing about? and do you talk about issues like politics or others at shows in between songs?

yeah. we explain a lot about our lyrics at our shows because we still believe in spreading messages. our lyrics deal with sociopolitical issues in malaysian society. how crazy things get when we play small shows, how we love touring, messageboard punks, backstabber assholes, corrupt politicians, etc.

what's the hardcore/punk scene in malaysia like? how's the spirit of DIY there?

err.. its hard to say. many hardcore bands down here claim to be independent. i don't really know about them because i don't usually hang out with them. maybe they have different ideas regarding DIY/independent things. others still believe in the DIY method though. sometimes we do end up playing together, but for YAD, we still believe in the DIY ideals.

last question, do you have any upcoming releases you want to promote? and do you have plans of touring the other asian countries any time soon?

a split 7" with Santa Cruz from France, a split tape with Format Masa Depan from Malaysia. the Southeast Asia detonation release by 625 records. maybe 2nd full length by the end of 2008. we hope we can tour Indonesia in 2008 too. that's all.

thanks timmy, and to the rest of Young And Dangerous, keep cranking out the awesome because we fucking love it.

No comments: