Old interview

Stolen from Nizang's Ayam masak tiga rasa website, it was published in MOSH #4(It's #9 actually haha thanks nizang!, my bad-khabir). It's our very first interview, it were done in september 2007 if i'm not mistaken. enjoi;

They’re one of the nice and selambe bands to come out in 2006. Already released two CDs under their own armpits. We present to you THE MINDLESS SHOW from Shah Alam.

So, you guys were from Disgruntled. Why forming a new band? I think the music-wise is not that much difference with Disgruntled?

Hi there Mr Nizang, this is Khabir on behalf of Themindlessshow, well this is the first official interview for us yeah! Okeh now to your first question. Yup, all three of us were from Disgruntled and we’re still in it. Well, I must agree with some of the fact that actually there aren’t much different between both bands content wise, but in detail you might find lots of differences between Disgruntled and TMS especially the music lah, where there’s lots of pop, riang, short tunes in TMS while Disgruntled were more aggressive, serious ass punk rock hahah. Anyway the main reason why we form it, is because last two year, one of Disgruntled's member (Qusy) was studying in Perth, while Lalox (Disgruntled's bassist) had difficulties to jam with us most of the time, so we're kind of bored plus we have lots of things that we have in our mind to be shared with everybody. So me, Shah and Larn were eager to start something new and that's the story of how it all began, plus sometimes when we need to jam or play in any gig if there were only three of us therefore we go for TMS.

You guys released your recording DIYly, without much promotion I think. How’s the selling? What do you expect from this method (selling DIYly?).

Doing it ourselves is the best option that we have, especially when you’re playing short shitty mindless musick, it’s fun, nobody telling you what you should do, it’s all on your own, the cost, productions, recordings, selling, promotion etc, it’s a valuable experience and struggles ever, I believe. Anyway, who the fuck gonna sign us under their label? Sony? BMG? EMI? Epitaph? Hah hah hah we’ll make their business go bankrupt lah wei. About expectation of selling DIYly: We don’t expect much, we just try to spread and share our ideas with anybody who’re interested, communicate, make more friends around the world and play sick music the way we want it.

Multinational companies have been invading our land like mushroom attack. Last year only, seven (7) 7-eleven outlets opened their doors in Kuala Terengganu itself. What do you think about these companies? Dont you think they will destroy the small local business industries such as small kedai runcit?

We have to accept the shitty fact that everything starts to change nowadays, filth of globalization, on line shopping massacre, franchised shop, 24 hours roti canai eg: Hakim..., Evil MNC invasion etc, the rapid changes that we’re looking at now is part of the capitalist shit which people now had and love to bow, obey and hang their very own neck, it’s a silent tragedy. If we’re to talk about the small local industries survival I must say it depends on the way of this so called small local industries doing their business, if they still using bomoh (shaman), black magic, black metal, to compete with those advanced, 24 hours ding donged store + beer+ slurpee+ oven+ free newspaper, it’s gonna be useless. Think again who the heck actually owned those MNC opened in your area? Destroyed or distorted? Don’t you like slurpee? To local small business, don’t be small, be big, you all might be the next MNC invading Amerika yeah! Actually the price of goods in kedai runchit is much cheaper than 7 Eleven, but obviously 7 eleven gained most of their income during night time when all the kedai runcit were closed. If a ‘kedai runcit’ operates 24 hours and maintain the price lower than 7 Eleven I’m sure 7 eleven will be “tapau”ed (lose) badly…agree? Anyway let’s take back what they steal from you!

I saw you guys are active with MySpace thingy. I think its an awesome way of communicating. But there are some kids spending so much time to edit their page rather than doing some other useful things. What do you think about it?

Hahha I saw you there too and you’re dammmn cute dude (in fact this interview were passed through Myspace.com too haha and yeah!)Yup it has revolutionized the way of communicating awesomely, but one thing for sure the value of having a real paper and big fat parcel is the thing that we shouldn’t forget, it’s more awesome to touch, smell (sniff sniff) and bite stuffs and letters. It’s up to them or anybody to utilize the service, decorate, being artsy fartsy, it’s their own freaking money what…but one thing for sure; promoting racism, facism, sexism, prejudice through the service are totally ultimate filthy shit.

You seemed to mix between Malay language and English. What’s the purpose of doing so? I think it’s hard for the outside people to understand the malay songs since you guys don’t put explanation?

We hope to promote a two-way communication between the listener, and us. We want people to communicate with us by writing or asking us “hey what the fuck is this man?”, “what do you mean by this?”,” what do you mean by that?”, so that we can learn and have a win- win situation. We want to really communicate with other people like what we are doing right now and share the ideas, debates and come out with something constructive, we can always learn more and more. We hope next time we can mix other language like Japanese, Mandarin, Tamil, Cantonese, Arabic in our songs. We adore the creativity of bands like Petrograd, NAO etc. It shows that there’s no limitation in creativity especially in punk music, you’re free to write in anyway you wanted it. Why choose Dead Chrétien to make split with, I think the sound quality is not that good compared to the recording from you guys? Well we don’t mind at all, DC (not dashboard confessional…) is one hell of drunk and friendly punk rockers. They have added extra alcohol for this split and tadaaa! There you have pure honest, nasty drunk sounding punk rockers from Canada. To us, it was an honor to collaborate with anybody who has interest in what we’re doing and we encourage everybody out there to contact and collaborate with us, we don’t care how you might sound but please again no shitty racism, fascism, sexism etc. Let’s promote more and more international DIY HC punk networking and collaborations!

How’s the punk rock scene at your hometown now? Is there any chance for it to shine and be active again like how it invaded late 1990s kids? Or is it been destroyed totally by the MTV. MTV=virus. Do you agree?

For me the scene is always shining regardless the time and place. If we’re talking about trendy shit and stuff it is a long and infinite not so funny stuff to discuss. It’s just a part of the process of learning; in a person’s life there are various and multiple paths to be chosen. They can always choose wherever they want to go and to think and decide. To us as long as we realize about manipulated rationality and dare to care about the shit happening around us that will be good enough. MTV may be bankrupt someday but it seems that they’re going strong each days, it’s a big damn mission to actually stop their freaking business, but look at a positive side there are still bands in it which indirectly promote the HC punk scene, the main important thing here is “we” who do know about those virus shit should be active to produce more and more stuff, write more zines, wear more patches, silkscreen more t shirts, produce more video clips etc so we can build up our comrades hahah, we should be active spreading our own “virus”. Let’s just do it all out!!

I can say you guys give political views on your lyrics. DIY punk/hardcore kids seemed to share their music/message only with their circle friends. What do you think? Can revolution be achieved only with punk/hardcore kids? Dont we need the larger society with us?

We write whatever we have in our mind and need to share with others, we don’t care; it might be a lame joke, environment, love, and war whatever, it’s all politic. About your views on sharing messages, I’m not sure the scale of how other people (in this case other DIY HC Punk kids) sharing their views with other, do they really share within the circle of their friend? Out of the circle? Or they don’t share anything at all, it’s up to individual to share whatever they need to share, with whom they want to share or to achieve whatever they want to achieve, doesn’t matter who you are, if you’re determined to achieve whatever you really want to see in your life you’ll surely do it all out. We’re always part of the society or a.k.a tools within a big evil nasty machine, be the defected part so the whole machine will be ruined too. It’s obvious that if you want to change the whole world or a country there’s only two options, 1. Be a President (esp. American prez) 2. Everybody goes radical.

What do you think about kids selling DIY stuffs at shops? Is it not DIY anymore? How about DIY bands which expose their bands using some music magazines?

I don’t know where on earth we can actually refer about these matters. To us, the main thing is to be rational, and it’s not big deal to sell your stuff anywhere, what the freaking difference? As long as the price is the same/fair, cover the cost of productions, so there should be no big deal. Agree? About having band on magazines etc, it’s really up to the band to do whatever they like to do, who cares??… Just remember that, it’s their vision of having their band, it’s their adventure, and we don’t know what will happen at the end of it, in the future who knows what will happen??...

So, what do you guys do for a living? I think you have one song about work stress or something? Is the pay enough for living around Klang Valley?

Larn and I are now working, while shah is studying. He will finish his diploma this year. Yeah we have a song about stress and that song is called “hmmmmmmmhmmm”, from our latest ‘Apekebangang’ ep, it’s a one shot song to express or to throw out some angst from our mind about working, about the crazy system and about ignorance. About pay here…hmm it’s ok lah, enough to support our solo living hahah.

Do you have any questions or suggestions for me? Do you have anything to add before we end this interview?

Thanks Nizang and it’s nice knowing you dude, you actually know what you should do dude and we wish you all the best, to the new editor of this zine good luck, thousands apologies for any bad words written in this interview, thanks for interviewing us and we’re totally happy to see people working on with zine, hope to see more and more zine soon, it’s gonna be dammnn good. To readers, hope to see you guys soon and feel free to give us a shout and comments idea or etc. Peace take care. DIY HC Punk Aliveeeee.

Contact us at:
Khabir
No. 2 Jalan Putra Bahagia 8/1E,
Putra Heights,
47650 Subang Jaya
Selangor Darul Ehsan,
Malaysia.

biteyourass@hotmail.com
www.myspace.com/themindlessshow
http://www.myspace.com/themindlessshow