Taylor Swift is wrong because five is better than one.
We are proud to announce that Dead Eyes Glow is handpicked by us to be the first ever band to be interviewed by - Post A Gig -
Some of the reasons on why we got them are
- They ROCK!!!
- They're one of the finest band in Malaysia
- They're proud to be from the East Coast!!!
- They know what they're doing
- DEG is here to stay
*this interview is done through email because - Post A Gig - is lack of resources and manpower to provide a better interview... but it's all in our long term plans....
Interview Questions
Post A Gig : So who plays what instrument? Introduce yourselves.
Hello Post A Gig and to all Post A Gig blog readers. First of all, we would love to express our highest appreciation
for making this interview possible for us. Anyway, we are Dead Eyes Glow, a metal/hardcore band from Kuala
Terengganu, Terengganu Darul Iman. Our full line-up as following:
Zack as a Vocals
Apit as a Guitarist
Naza G as a Guitarist
Naxa K as Bassist
Aren as Drummer
Post A Gig : Dead Eyes Glow, how did you guys come out with that name? Any stories behind it? What was the other options that got rejected?
The rough idea of the band’s name came from Aren himself after the five of us cracked our heads to find a symbolic name that reflects our daily life as a small community in the small town across the east of peninsular Malaysia, which no one really knows what the real situation is over here. We are just living in the state that is blessed by a black gold deep inside our oceans and believe us, it’s a curse and more people become a victim. Every day is tough for us and our mind keeps denying the untrue statements or promises as we can see widely and feel by ourselves, how much it takes to live in the state called Terengganu Darul Iman. Those facts will never disappear from our sight, they might blindfold our eyes but it’s still shine with glory! And together, we are going to erect this broken hopes and lies as our stiffeners to survive!
Anyway, sorry guys, it’s all the way back in 2006 and we couldn’t recall the other options for our band name.LOL!
Post A Gig : What kind of music do you describe DEG? Who are your influences?
Volla! This is a tricky question. As we started the band, we are always looking forward to create something different that contains fresh/unique arrangements in order to add some variation for Malaysian music generally. This would cost us a great patience, and survival is mostly the issue for us, in a way of Malaysian people’s acceptation to our existence. We have built our beliefs and efforts everyday for years, with hopes that people can accept us and thank God that our band finally makes a breakthrough, and Malaysians verified us as a metal/hardcore band. The genre can be named by any terms nowadays, and we personally think that the metal/hardcore/progressive is the best for Dead Eyes Glow. We can elaborate that our music is the collision between death metal and technical hardcore, which is influenced by progressive chromatic approach, heavy riffing, sick blast beats, hard growling/high pitch screams/pig squeal and our genuine emotion pouring are totally being the main character of our music.
We did adored lots of HC/Metal bands from outside our region that had inspired us in writing our shit , mostly the bands from United Kingdom. The narrowed down bands list are as following: Architects, The Eyes Of A Traitor, Devil Sold His Soul, Your city Is Forgotten, Azriel, Bleed from Within, old-BMTH and so on.
Post A Gig : When did you form your band? How long have you all known each other? How did you meet? What inspired you to make music together?
DEAD EYES GLOW was found in mid 2006 (666) by five hardcore passionate friends, who would love to act out their greatest passion in their lives, the loud and heavy music. It was all began when Aren came back to his hometown, Kuala Terengganu and decided to form a new metal/hardcore band with his brother, Apit. The search of the new line-ups (Naza G,Munk,Naem) didn’t take a lot of time since we are all hanging out at the same place and they also shared the same interest in music. In December 2008, Zack joined the band as a vocalist, concurrent with line up reinforcement purposes. However, Naem and Munk had officially left the band due to their personal matters in the early of 2009 meanwhile Naxa K have been with the band ever since to take up the bassist position. Frankly, we are all good friends even before the band actually started, mostly because of the Kuala Terengganu skateboarding and Undersea music activities. Come on, our town population is just like 100 peoples and we all meet almost every day, back in old days! LOL! Just kidding btw.
Post A Gig : Do you have a record label at the moment? If yes, please do describe more. If no, is DEG looking for one?
We are currently struggling with our DIY labels, Historic Records, which is a small label and funded by
ourselves entirely. If there any labels that interested with us, off course we will take a serious
consideration with their offer.
Post A Gig : Do you remember how many gigs you guys played? Which are your top 3 gigs? Any reasons behind that?
The chances to perform in any shows either locally or internationally are always going to be our golden memories, especially when the high adrenaline started to rush in a good performance, which makes the crowds sing-along with us and enjoying themselves by moshing in circle pit or wall of death. We are so grateful to have that situation during our shows and we share the same feelings with the feedbacks. Up to this interview was written, Dead Eyes Glow already had an opportunity to perform almost 100 shows across Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia. It was a big waste for us when we have to cancel our North Borneo tour on last February 09 due to our technical problems. Hopefully, we can do the Borneo, Thailand and Philippines tour in near future. It’s hard for us to name our top 3 shows, however we randomly choose the performances at our Singapore Tour-BBH5-08, Indonesian Tour December 08-Semarang, Parkway drive Live In KL Feb 09, Ignite Fest 09/10 Terengganu, Penang March 2010 and Fete De La Musique Low Yat Plaza KL June 2010 as the best ones among the rest.
Post A Gig : As a band, how often does DEG practice? Do you ever play any covers? Do you have a set play list? What are your jamming sessions generally like? Do you have a set time each week in which you practice or are the sessions more spontaneous?
The practice session normally depends on personal availability and we are always try to maintain at least once/twice a week for studio practice. Yes, we do have a playlist for each session or a new music composition. We are currently working hard on new songs as a preparation for our second EP, which is making our studio practice more crucial.
Post A Gig : Who writes your songs? What are the main themes or topics for most of your songs?
The music is basically comes from individual of our line ups and translated in one end results by brainstorming our variable ideas and skills in the studio together. We would say the most creative ideas mainly come from Apit. However, this process would take a consideration from five of us and the finished products are the effort from all of us. In the other words, all of Dead Eyes Glow line ups are the backbone of creating the band’s music definition. The same story goes to our lyrics production. We love and appreciate the effort that we had input together. Guess Taylor Swift is wrong because five is better than one. LOL! We believe that we are always involved with Hardcore as there are always a resistance that grows inside our heart due to our surroundings and daily living. For us, Hardcore is not a music genre, it’s a bullet in ourselves and expressed through lyrics.
Post A Gig : Could you briefly describe the music-making process? Do you start with a guitar riff or other ways? Are the songs done at home or the studio?
For our band, the music composition normally starts with the guitars riff at home and follows by a
bass line. Once completed at home, we usually record the rough version in any PC software to give a
‘guide’ to drummer for finding his beats. The drummer has an advantage to come out with break-down
parts in the studio. Final result is always going to be at the studio. For vocals part, we always record
the rough demo in the studio and the vocalist himself will study and create his line at home.
Post A Gig : How has your music evolved since you first began playing music together?
We would say that our music is getting better as the days go by as we are always working to improve
Our own skills, upgrading our equipments and challenge ourselves in order to create a fresh & high quality music.There’s a big difference since our first ever song composed and we have to admit that our first song ever is totally shit and not even featured in our debut album.LOL!
Post A Gig : What has been your biggest challenge as a band? Have you been able to overcome that challenge? If so, how? Did you get any objections from your family or friends?
As per our statement in question no. 3, the most biggest challenge for DEG is to gain acceptance from
the Malaysians undersea society and keeping our existence as a different Metal/Hardcore musics that
contains elements full of fresh/unique arrangements and out of Malaysian current music trend.
Flashback to 2006/2007, there were a lot of struggle for our band or even the Terengganu scene
generally, and we would smile when we recall back the tears/pains in those years. Believe it or not, we
used to drag a very heavy amp to a really fucked up studio at K.Terengganu for every DEG’s studio
practice cause they only provide one guitar amp, traveling all the way to KL for a small show without any
payments, recorded a demo using handycam cause there was no recording studios in our town in the early years of DEG’s existence, watched the crowds only sit in front of our live set, and lot more of nightmares that could break our motivations.
Yes, thanks god. We are so blessed that we can overcome those challenges with our strong-will to fight
and freakin’ happy with the current band movements, thanks to all DEG’s supporters and friends for
accepting us as one of metal/hc band in Malaysia.
Our family and closest friends are our biggest inspiration and their bless is our motivation to keep on
moving forward.
Post A Gig : What's your ultimate direction for your band? Are you seeking fame and fortune? Or both? How do you plan to achieve that?
From the first day DEG was formed, we’ve already put in our mind that we want to tour in United Kingdom and make our album acceptable by UK metal/hc society widely. However, in order to turn our dreams into reality, we must prepare ourselves by improving our capabilities in creating an album that can reach their standard. The quality of our recordings and the music itself also must be upgraded and if this can make us broken citizen here, so just be it! There’s no victory if we are not willing to sacrifice right. We are always working hard for this dreams and we do believe that’s the only way in. We truly hope that DEG can bring us to see the world and tour in every possible places globally .Please do not
misunderstood us, this is totally not our arrogant, it’s our honest and optimistic view.
Well, It’s also not about a fame or even fortune, it’s just about our greatest passions in our life which is
creating metal/hc music. We love music, we love performances & we love communicating!
Post A Gig : Do you have any songs in the Malay language? If no, any plans in the future?
We still don’t have any Malay language song at the moment. It’s a great challenge for hard music like us and maybe we could plan to do it later on.
Post A Gig : If given a chance to change the past, would you choose to play the same music DEG is playing now?
Absolutely not. We have no regret for our music direction and to be honest, we are glad that we make a
choice to be different even though it had cost us a great struggle. Worth everything in the world we
guess.
Post A Gig : Do you have any materials out yet? A demo? Album? If no, are there plans to get it done? If yes, where can your fans get it? Any merchandise?
As this interview is written, we successfully released our debut album on last August 1 2008, entitled
‘In Search of The Glory We Had Lost’ under our own label Historic Records. This album contains with 10
songs and distributed widely in our local market and also the region of Asia, Europe and Unites states.
Get more details of the outlets or distro’s at www.myspace.com/deadeyesglow. Overall, we are really
satisfied with ‘In Search of The Glory We Had Lost’ as our first attempt and the recording sound wise
really blew us away. We have to admit that it’s not a totally perfect work, but it’s was a good first
attempt and we are always trying to improve our capability by days.
Other than that, the new single from us, “Damn The Sinner’ , released on the 9th September 2009
(999), which is can be downloaded for free. Please kindly refer to our Myspace/Facebook for the
download link details. Thanks a lot to Bandshop for the recording quality/sounds that almost reached
our goals. This single also featured in Couplelicious Compilation album, released by Couple Company
from Jakarta, Indonesia on May 2010.
However, we are definitely expecting more in our second album, which is schedule to release by this
Coming October/November 2010 in way of the quality of our music writing/arrangement and off course
the quality of the recording sound. All 10 new songs composition almost had been completely furnished
and we are just waiting for the green light from recording studio, as we speak. We honestly think we
ourselves can’t wait for any more longer for this second album completion, it will be a fresh upgrade
with new musical arrangements and lungs, make us so curious to hear some feedbacks from the
listeners out there. We are planning to release one tracks from it the soonest on all of our internet
platforms, hopefully after Aidilfitri.
At the moment, all of our band merchandise already out of stock, but we are about to launch our new merchandise under our own clothing line, Dethrone Apparels in this few more weeks from now. That would our first attempt and hopefully we can get a supports from you all. Pray for our successful mates! Other than that, we are so grateful to have a clothing endorsement from Elstees Brand & Bloods Revolt, based in Jogjakarta Indonesia and we are currently waiting for their DEG’s collobration t’s to release, by end of August. Please kindly refer to our Myspace/Facebbok for their official links, products details and contacts.
Post A Gig : Did you try to get your materials promoted overseas?
Yes. We are really grateful to have a reviews and supports from several international parties that could lead us to expose at their country such as Planet Loud (London,UK), MetalWorld (Slovakia), World Without War (USA), Mosh Mag (Semarang,Indonesia), Rebel Youth (Jakarta,Indonesia), Gelagat Hitam Radio Show (Solo,Indonesia), Propaganda Machine (Singapore) and etc. Other than that, we are also working closely with Planet Loud, Cease Fire Records, Hatred Records for our debut album distribution outside Malaysia such as UK, USA, Australia, Japan, Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore and so on.
Post A Gig : What can you tell me about your instruments? Why the brand and model? Any dream instruments that you want?
DEG’s current bullets & guns:
Shure Sm-58 Mic, ESP Eclipse 2, LTD Viper 100FM, Boss MT2, Metal Zone, Ibanes Gio Bass, Twin Paddles
DW7000 Series, Snare Tama Hazy 300 & china crash
Believe us, there are lot of dreams equipments that we want to upgrade and we don’t want to waste your space with our fancy high-end wishlist.LOL!
Post A Gig : What do you think of the local music scene? Active/inactive? Needs more support?
Active and kicking! We are so proud to be a part of local music scene as it getting bigger and wider by days now, especially for metal/hardcore music. It still growing without any funds injection from any big company and survive until now. However, we still think that our local scene needs more supports from our own people. We clearly can see that a surrounding our region scene such as Indonesian is in advanced level than our one, but we do believed that Malaysian scene can be way more awesome if we committed to unity, keep supporting each others (bands/kids), practice cooperation than competition, and throw away all negativity in ourselves. Arrogant, ignorance, tribe and double standards would only lead our local scene to death. Spread the love peoples! We love our local scene, may it strongly grows and survive forever!
Post A Gig : Who are your top 5 favourite local bands?
It’s really hard to narrow down our favorite’s because there are a lot of great bands in here, seriously. However, here’s our list that we can think of now:
Incarnation
Massacre Conspiracy
Teaser Opera
A lot like death
Alienis Beautiful
All local bands!
Post A Gig : Any advice for your fans who wants to form a band in Malaysia?
Keep on fighting, never ever give up, and believe in yourself! Wishing you all the best luck in the world mates!
Post A Gig : Anyone you would like to thank for supporting you in your musical journey?
A highest appreciation goes to our beloved family, closest friends and all of our supporters for inspired us and kept
us moving forwards. It’s been four years for us now and still counting. Thanks for believing in us and it’s all means a
world to us. Credit to all Terengganu friends, ECHC family, TMB, KCHC crews, all gig organizers/friends all across
the states, Planet Loud (Uk), Rottw Mag., Revolution Mag., all Malaysian bands,Cease Fire Records, Elstees Brand
clothing (Ina), Hatred Records(Ina), Propaganda Machine (Sg), Homegrown Malaysia, Dethrone Apparels, Kopi
Photography, Barney Photography, Suicidal Clothing, Joorue Shop, Ignite Fest management team/supporters,
Bandshop and all of the people for keep supporting DEG and our beloved local scene. Last but not least, thanks to
Mr.Jason and Post a Gig Blog for making this interview possible for us. We love you and may god bless you all!
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