This interview was published on Innerview #2. If you guys dig zine reading, then you guys should grab theirs. Cool contents, great graphic.What more we can ask? Lets fire up zine reading again.
Hi, how are you guys doing? As a starter, a brief introduction about SleepyJeremy and what have you guys been doing lately?
Hi there. It’s really good to know that somewhere here in Malaysia there are still people who still have faith in doing and distributing fanzine. Well, I guess doing a zine is not the “In” thing nowadays. It’s even harder to find the people who actually read it, don’t you think? So, kudos to you guys. I’m Izhan here on behalf of the band and I’ll be glad to answer as much as I can all your queries. It’s important to note here that these answers were from my own perspective and does not reflect the others.
SleepyJeremy started somewhere around 2002 at Kolej Yayasan Terengganu, Kuala Terengganu. We went to the same college where Sedang was my senior and the rest of the bands were my junior. Thanks to Mr. Shahrul, my Marketing Lecturer, he was the one who put us together. A band to represent the college was badly needed back then for a show in Uitm Dungun and he finds Sedang who went and called me. Mr. Shahrul also roped in Ujay who actually knows someone also from the college who can play the drums. So, a “bidan terjun” band was formed with Sedang being the main vocalist, Ujay and I play the guitars, Sekut handles the bass and Iddin hits the sticks. Its quite fun although we barely knew each others. Sort of. Ujay at that time played with JellyBelly while Iddin with E.K.E. Both bands were quite active in the Terengganu’s scene so it was quite helpful. Anyway, we play Shizuka’s Redline 95 and it really been a great night for all of us. So, I think why stops the bonds. I’ve seen enough chemistry between us that the day after I went to Ujay and Sedang and a real band have been formed. The original line up those days were Sedang on vocals, Ujay on drums, Sekut on bass and both Mamat and me on guitars. The band’s moniker however didn’t come until later. We used a few bizarre choices of names I myself couldn’t remember and we did played a few jamm sessions using those names. Later while rehearsing in the infamous Kuyie’s MOM Studio, Sedang suddenly jumping out from nowhere and shouting the name SleepyJeremy. And I don’t really know how, that was the name that we still use till now.
Currently, after a few lineup changes, the band now were made up of Sedang – vocals, Ujay – drums and me on guitars and a few friends who helps during shows and recording sessions. Usually Yazit of the Pushpapura lend us his bass skills and sometimes Kinto also joins in as the guitar player. A quite brief introduction I guess.
Tell us more about your "Lifetime Valentine" EP. (Where was it recorded, how was it recorded, live or track by track, the cost and how many have been sold so far?)
“Lifetime Valentine” EP was a long delayed project of the band. We have planned to move our asses into the studio to have some decent recorded material since as long as 2004 but thanks to our hardship to allocate the time, it was never been materialize until 2007. The 4 songs we recorded were actually composed mostly around 2002 – 2004 and all four songs have already find their way to light through various production by our friends. The first track, Love On The Way Out was already out through a free cd sample by PlanetLove Rechords in 2005 with a much less impressive audio quality. The second track, Mist Afternoon which was one of the earlier stuff that we wrote back in 2002 and have been featured in Bollok Wok 2, a compilation for Terengganu’s bands released by the now defunct Ronin Distro and Nizang’s Nervous Rechords. The third track, Katakan Padaku was actually a song we wrote in English entitled Perfect Deceiver. We changed the lyrics but retain the melodies and manage to put it onto Bollok Wok 3 released by Nervous Rechords together with a bunch of other cool independent labels. While the last track, Beware of Your Heart was already out through “Tribute To The Pilgrims” cd which comes free with The Coalition Zines.
Anyway, most of the songs were ill recorded and definitely deserve a better recoding. So, we thought that this might be the best time to really go and find a decent studio to record these songs.
Yusri of 50 K Promises introduces us to Ejai, the owner cum sound engineer of Prosound Studio and we thanked him for that. Ejai (He was the drummer for Indrani) have done some real good stuff before and we pretty like how his past projects sounds. So we packed our things and headed to Bangi. Ejai is just a brilliant guy, I really like how he handles our songs. I always have. His whole sense of composition is really dense and I like that. He has a very different compositional approach so it is sort of like filling the hole in the band. I enjoy his approach in recording the material we have and for some reason he enjoys hearing our lame songs. All songs were recorded track by track and the whole process took us a couple of long days. The cost? Nearly 1K but I guess that money was worthily spent.
The original plan was to pre release these four songs first as a teaser before we all get together and record maybe another 5 or 6 more songs and release a full fledge album. We have in about 20 songs altogether waiting to be recorded. But Ejai now is in Australia so I guess the plan had to be on hold yet again. Anyway, we press a couple hundred of Lifetime Valentine E.P all being distributed for free through our friends and associates. The response was quite healthy I must say.
I'm impressed with the intro for "Love On The Way Out". It reminds me of the band "Hot Water Music".(Not saying that you guys are copying them). Are you guys into all this emo-rock music /bands. What are the bands that influenced your music?
The only Hot Water Music’s song I ever listen is “Elektra” from the “Don’t Forget To Breath” compilation which ironically the first emo stuff I ever listen to. I do listen and inspired by a lot of emo bands. But not limited to just that. So, safe bet to say is that we are sitting on the fence between the standard driving sounds of punk rock and less spicy mainstream alternative rockers such as Saturnine.
When we write songs, the whole idea was to relate as much as we can to our daily lives. Love On The Way Out for instance is a piece I wrote when I’m actually in verge of a breakup with my girlfriend. The emotions, the hopes and the frustrations were written all over it. So, it would be natural for anyone to put the tag “emo” on us by looking to the lyrics. The way it happened was because I’m quite feel awkward playing or singing about fictitious things. Even if the things are metaphorical, which occasionally it is on this record, I just wanted to be straight and honest about a lot of stuff. For Mist Afternoon, lyrically it is still quite ambiguous and I think that's purposefully done so that people can identify with it in their own way. It can't be so direct that you're spelling it out for them, they really need to get something out of it themselves. And I found a lot of these with emo bands.
By the way, we listen a lot to Jimmy Eat World, Brandtson, Marchtwelve, Plain Sunset, Mineral, The Get Up Kids, Cursive; just to name a few. Tell me, how can you ever resist the poetic lyrics by Mineral or The Get Up Kids? We just can’t.
During the recording session of the Lifetime Valentine, particularly we looked up to Jimmy Eat World because there very colourful, almost poetic writers, but they're also very direct. They won't use a big word if they don't have to and I like that. At the same time though i've been a big fan of Padi for years and there's a cleverness that comes with Piyu's lyrics.
By listening to your song and reading your lyrics, my personal opinion is that you are a radio-friendly kinda band. Any intention of going major? (If not, why?)
In a way yes, I do think the same and I definitely think that most of the listeners would agree as well. But what the heck, the band never experience the fruit of it. Our songs had never been aired as far as I know. And our songs are way too long for radio stations to spin it. Although Katakan Padaku did became a theme song for “Radio Ga Ga”, a telemovie aired on TV1 not a long time ago, we actually never had that chance listening our tunes on air. Some of our friends did send the cds to various radio station but I guess it just fall into deaf ears. Some Punk kids will say SleepyJeremy’s Lifetime Valentine is so mainstream, but, really if you think about it it’s not at all. If you play it for someone who only listens to the radio they’d be like `What is this weird stuff?’.
Radio friendly or not, was never an issue to us. We just playing what we like and writing what’s related to our ups and downs. At the end of the day, what’s really matter is how we enjoys every minutes of it.
On going major, we didn’t take it seriously yet. Self control is something that never should be out of your hand. We think that everyone should see the whole package and make the right choices. If it means you’re getting better, then why not. For the time being, we are not yet there. In the near future who knows?
Your rendition of "Beware of your Heart" from The Pilgrims is also commendable. It's cool that you guys really did it the SleepyJeremy way. Which is better, to cover a song by playing it chord by chord or do it your own style? (Why?)
I’m glad that you guys like it. It’s really up to the band to decide what’s best for them. For some, when doing covers, it is really important to maintain the originality of the songs. But to others and in this case, us, we have tried to really make it into SleepyJeremy mould. For us, the Pilgrims is a band we respect and love very much. We all grow up with Perfumes Gardens and Away From The Number cassettes in our stereo. And I think I need to clarify that our version of the song didn’t in any way mean that the original version is not that good. We just look into it in a different perspective. What it would be like if we add a few licks here and there? What would the song be like when we add these chords and those chords? It’s more like looking into something from a different angle. Should we play it at a faster tempo? Or it would be better slower? These kinds of questions would always pop up in our minds. At the end of the day, we all sit around together and have a listen to it saying “yeahh, that’s cool man”. We all like it and there you have it.
I can assure you how intriguing it would feel to wait and see what would the Pilgrims say when they hear our version. I don’t know if they ever listen to it yet, but one thing for sure, Joe Kidd has put something nice to say about it on the ricecooker blog. By the way, the melodies are still there if you dig deep enough. And the original chords were also there. I did think of doing some other covers. Iris from Spiral Kinetic Circus would be cool. Or perhaps Liquid Love by the Saturnine? What do you think?
Can we attract listeners if we sing in Malay rather than English? Your opinion?
I personally believe that music is a wonderful gift to mankind. It doesn’t really matter if you sings in Tagalog or in Tamil or whatsoever, a good song is a good song and can always attract listeners. It would helps a lot by delivering your material in essence which everyone can chew. Just look at Hujan. Compare it with The Couples who were into the scene much earlier. Although both music style is similar, you can see how language can be the decisive factor. For me, it just the matter of taste. But don’t let the language be your barrier. Music is universal. Definitely.
When was your last show? Is it hard nowadays to get a chance to play for gigs? (If its hard, why is it in your opinion?)
The last would be a jamm session early this year at 60’s Studio, Kuala Ibai, Terengganu. We just finished playing 2 songs before the friends in blue uniform raided the venue and eventually put the session to the end. Go figure that. The truth is, we didn’t play as much as we hope so I would say it is hard to get that chance. I guess there are a whole lot of bands out there but too little rooms for them to show what they’ve got on stage. What we get was the same bands over and over again.
For SleepyJeremy, playing live is not what we really think about. Besides, every one now live far apart. I’m in Besut, Terengganu, Ujay and Sedang in KL, Yazit and Kinto in Klang. I guess it would be better for us to focus on producing good releases.
Future plans for SleepyJeremy?
Right now everyone were busy with their own life. I myself just got married a couple of months ago, so I can’t really see what’s in the future have in store for us. I still writing some new tunes and hopefully we could squeeze some of our time to get together and starts polishing the material we have. I guess time will tell. For the time being, enjoy your Lifetime Valentine dosage. : )
Thanks for answering all these questions. Anything you want to add before we wrap this up?
Thousand thanks to the whole Innerview crew who kind enough to interview us. This is the second interview we have done and the first one was like ages ago. Keep on the good work. It’s a good thing to see when you know the scene is still alive and kicking. To all readers out there, have faith in our scene. Bands, zines, organizers, Free Food Volunteers all need your supports. So keep it going. Anyone out there who is interested in having our e.p, please do send a self address enveloped with RM1 stamp to the addres below. Cheer guys.
Last advice, the best thing to do when you feel anger is to grab a pen and not a boxing glove.
Photo owned by Nizam Zakaria
