What brought you to music?
We started because of our college studies, where we were doing a broadcasting course and learning about producing for radio. In one of the courses, we had to produce a background song to be used for a radio jingle. Even though the jingle was meant to be short; we ended up writing a long instrumental. Then we kind of just carried on from there, because we wanted to and because the music scene in our hometown of Bandung is very diverse. It inspired us to show what we could do, even though we don’t have any basic skills in playing musical instruments.

What else apart from music are you working on?
Other than being a musician, we have our full-time day jobs. I work as journalist for one of the magazines in Bandung and Nobie is a producer at a radio station.

What is the Indonesian music scene like?
It has expanded, yet the music industry still sees things the same way. In their heads, it’s always about business, so they tend to focus on just one genre. So the record labels and the media always play up one type of music until the market is very saturated.

What about the electronic scene?
It is definitely experiencing a significant shift. At first, electronic music was identified with DJs and house music, but in the early 2000s many pop electronic musicians added a different set of colors and vibes into the electronic scene. This becomes energy for us and other electronic musicians, to be braver about presenting our talent to the world. Most electro musicians, at the beginning, play in their bedroom, so they need to become brave enough to bring their material to the stage.

We heard that Indonesian punk fans were banned, as it shocked conservative Muslims. What effect does government intervention have on music in Indonesia?
The view of the government is very shallow, especially about punk culture. They can’t differentiate between culture and religion. This has been a problem for a long time.

What do you think of it?
Punk culture has been rooted in our country for years; however the government only has a negative view of it. They identify it with violence and resistance against the establishment. Whereas that was the original slogan, punk culture has developed into something that is more positive.

And have you guys ever experienced similar problems?
For the electronic scene, there’s no direct intervention; however as musicians there’s always the possibility that we could be blocked. In our country, all the music scenes and genres have the same vision and mission: there’s a solidarity to help each other when the government acts unfairly. We did experience some scary problems though from religious groups when we released our album Let’s Die Together in 2012

Which is your best gig? Why?
So many, especially during our Asian Tour on 2011, but China is one of the best and most memorable experiences. We didn’t expect this to happen and we’re genuinely surprised by the way audiences have responded in the different countries. They already know about us and our music before coming to see us. It makes us very proud.