Nowadays it is easy to get caught up in a soundalike pop-punk tunes, which we definitely have to admit that their catchy choruses and melodic guitar themes are so contagious. Yet ESNANAS' forthcoming self titled debut album, that will be released in December 2003, has an edge among their spiked-hair kin. The album is executively produced by BMG Indonesia.
With female singer, Rachel Vla, ESNANAS sure has additional selling point within the scene. Rachel's voice is said to be a blend of Kay Hanley of Letters to Cleo and Shirley Manson of Garbage. Along with Leo Napitupulu and Yuyud Gabeller on guitars, Brian Azhar on bass, and Kiki Marino on drums, Rachel has somehow said to have found her most suitable team for translating the kind of music she wants to write.
Their sound is pure energy and aggressive, but nothing's too intricate in their tunes. Nevertheless, that doesn't mean that they can't play for real. Beside their catchy tunes and simple melody, this band also offers some interesting arrangements. The rhythm goes straight ahead in one section, but then it falls off to half-timing choruses, or it might wail into bridges, or the other way around. Sure they are offering mostly up-tempo songs with pop punk riff-rock formula, but you can catch your breath a little with a couple of their radio-friendly mid-tempo tunes, and with an acoustic set for easing up your ears on the last track as a coda. I think this band is trying to expand the narrow definition of ‘punk? by blending punk, hardcore, and a little of British pop to put themselves on the music scene.
When it comes to lyrics, which are mostly written by Rachel, ESNANAS is expressing nothing but their honest feelings. There's this serious tune about losing your close-friend's trust, while not knowing where you've possibly had gone wrong. It's very touching,and very real.
As far as influences go? this band, I must say, is heavily influenced by those line of bands in the top punk rock heap, from Blink 182, New Found Glory, The Ataris, and so on. But they say that they admit that, and they wear those influences proudly on their sleeve. Hell yeah, who's truly original anyway under this same sky.
A little flash back in time, this band actually had landed a deal with Sony Music Indonesia in 1999. The label released the band's single, titled 'Kunang-Kunang', in a compilation album titled Indie Ten 2 in 2001, which came to a surprise for its national heavy-rotation in radio and TV stations all over the country. But nothing was taken furthermore seriously.
The band then decided to approach BMG Indonesia by the time they finished their contract with Sony Music in January 2003. They sent 26 demo-songs, along with 3 more new additional songs as a bonus live-tracks to BMG. By the moment the guys at the label saw this band perform for an audition, they certainly knew where this band wants to go and where to put them on the platform. They even let the band takes the responsible in producing the album, while experienced-producer Gumilang Ramadhan is in tow as the band's executive producer. This is something that they can really be proud of.
The band recorded their tracks at deStudio, Jakarta in April 2003. The vocals were tracked at Pendulum studio, Jakarta in May 2003, with some help from a well-known vocal director Irv Nat A.K.A Irvan ME.
Far from the band's worries that the vocal director would completely distract the vocals real vibe from the music, it happened that he was pretty good at handling the job. It is said that he could help Rachel translate the real energy of the tunes, even to a better level. Two thumbs-up for this guy, and lots of thanks from the band.
The band's 12-tracks record is now on a mixing and mastering process, and scheduled to be released in December 2003.
Make sure you come to see this band performing live. They are so energetic and engage their audiences in their boundless energy. Their live performance is the real meaning of their music. Is not just to be listened to, but it's to be seen performed. This band is a must-see-live band!
As final words, certainly their music is not for the weak-minded. Their tunes are morning-anthem, a music that you will play out loud in the morning to wake you up, to help you out from your morning cobweb, and to get ready kicking out the day?
With their radio-friendly tunes, experienced and energetic live performances, and great support from a major label, BMG Music Indonesia, hopefully ESNANAS won't be just another blip on the radar screen. Hopefully they can bring new energy to the already boring music scene in Indonesia; boring because of the so-typical corny music played by these bunch of so-typical bands. Gross!!
It is difficult not to mention that ESNANAS is actually formed in Yogyakarta by, mostly, sophomore students of University of California back in August 1995. They were Dave Marino (guitar), Paul Martin (vocals), John Leys (vocals), Leo Napitupulu (guitar), Kiki Marino (drums), and Anto (bass), banded together to form the embryo of the band. Starting out by playing cover-songs from Rancid, Red Hot Chili Pepper, Shelter, Sublime, Helmet, to Alanis Morissette, the band started to get attentions in the local scene. But, Alanis?Well, why couldn’t they when they also had a female singer, Vanessa Golding, complementing their line-up occasionally.
Though they surely could play, having fun was the main reason for these guys when they play at their gigs. But things were getting more serious when they started to get legions of followers, and got paid for their performances.
“I remember the first time we got paid was a gig out of town. We got paid Rp.150, 000.00, (that’s about US$ 20) and we gave more than a third of the money back to the organizer because we thought it was too much,?Leo recollects. “It was not about the money, and hopefully it will never be.?
Sharing stages with many other local bands, they engaged their audiences with their boundless energy on the stage, and they started to build a reputation as a must-see-live band in town.
But the good-times of fooling around and messing around the stages had to come to an end for some of the guys. They had to fly back home to California to get back and be serious with their studies, and to whatever they left behind there.
So, temporarily, the line-up was broken. For 6 months ESNANAS was gone from the local music scene in Yogyakarta, and people started to think that they have disbanded.
In the mean time, the left-behinds, Leo and Kiki, decided not to call it a day. They auditioned new members, and after several rehearsals they were ready to hit the stage again. This time with a female singer Rachel Vla, Yuyud Gabeller, Leo’s cousin, as his side-ax-man, and Doni J.R., as the bass-player.
This new line up started to write their original songs and cut several demos, and in September 1999 they engaged with Sony Music Indonesia, signing a record deal for a compilation album Indie Ten 2, which would feature the band’s single, titled "Kunang-Kunang".
Though the video got heavy-rotations in national TVs and hit the charts in many radio stations, the compilation album itself was far from success in the market, and nothing was taken furthermore seriously afterwards. Pretty much to say as a breakthrough.
By this time, Doni J.R. had left to pursue different goal, with different band, and each and everyone in the band were doing some other things with some other projects.
But that didn’t mean to hold anything back. The band kept their routines of writing songs, rehearsing, playing, and cutting demos, with a help from an additional bass player, Brian Azhar, and planning strategies to sell their music.
Soon after their contract with Sony Music was officially over in February 2003, the band was ready to do their independent-release in case no deal was cut with any label. By this time Brian has officially join the line-up.
But a new deal followed closely on the heels of their persistent attitude. This time it came from BMG Indonesia. The A & R guy at the label (Shatria ‘Aden?Dharma) gave the band an audition after listening to their self-packaged double-CDs, containing 26 songs. The label agreed to produce the band’s self-titled debut album, and the rest is history.
With their radio-friendly tunes, experienced and energetic live performances, and great support from a major label, BMG Music Indonesia, hopefully ESNANAS won't be just another blip on the radar screen.
CHECK OUT THE UP DATED EVENTS AT http://www.esnanas.info
we are definitely into punk-rock music, but we are trying broaden the narrow specification of 'punk music' by trying to blend other genres into our music, like little bit of British-pop, emo, hardcore, and punk. But all with a sense on pop music.
Try to listen to N.F.G, Simple Plan, Letters to Cleo, Dashboard Confessional, GOB.
dear friends at Soundclick,
We are really glad that we found your website. This is a really cool place to get our songs and music heard by people all over the world.
We will go national (in Indonesia) in December 2003, but I do not think our label would care trying to put us on the international map, at least for the sake of the music to be heard, not for the fame or else. We know that all of our lyrics on our up coming albums are written in 'Bahasa Indonesia'; the label gave us no option on this. But we have got an offer by a local label in Japan to translate our songs into Japanese, and hope to sell our albums there. Well, that would require some paperworks to do between BMG Indonesia and the Jap's label. But that makes us thinks who knows if we've got chance also world-wide. WE certainly having no problem at all writing our materials in English, after all that was what we had been doing before we engaged with BMG Indonesia.
So, that's why we post our songs and our band in your website in the hope that people worldwide would at least ever hear about us. Who knows what will come up next.
Thank you so much for your support.
p.s.: All the lyrics of the songs we posted here are in 'Bahasa Indonesia' (Indonesian Language), but if you need an English translation of the meaning, feel free to contact the band at www.esnanas.info, or email: info@esnanas.info
