Good day! How are you guys doing these days?
Sammy T (ST): We are doing good and glad that we are currently safe. As you may hear, our hometown Los Angeles has been hit by this tragedy related to the wildfire. But honestly other than that we are staying busy promoting our new album and reaching out to festivals, such as doing interviews like this. A lot of things need to be done after the actual release of the new album. We released the self-titled album last November to all the streaming outlets.
Ralph Beam (RB): Big year for REOG we hope.
First of all, please introduce Reog and band members to our readers.
ST: We are REOG, you can pronounce it as "Ree-Ogh". We play heavy metal. REOG has 4 members. Myself, Sammy Tampubolon on lead singing and rhythm, Ralph Beam on bass and backing vocal, Jon Asher on drums and backing vocals and Bay Guitaro on lead guitars. We are all located in Los Angeles, California with the exception of Bay. He lives in Jakarta, Indonesia. For touring and show purposes, we have our friend Billy Sablan helping us out here in the US. It's a bit of an unorthodox way of working but so far it's working out this way.
I would like to know about the formation of the band. How did you guys meet and all? Also, is there any special story behind the band title?
ST: The band started way back in 2005. I was in a funk/rock band back then for a few years, but I wanted to go back to my roots, which is playing heavy music, hard rock/metal. So I decided to start writing songs for a metal project that turned into REOG. The band started with all Indonesian-American members, but over the years the members come and go until this current formation. Ralph has been in the band for almost 10 years, Jon about 5 years. Bay has been with us for about 2 years now. About the name, the REOG name originated in Java, Indonesia. It's a folk Javanese dance that has this Tiger/Peacock creature on the center stage of that dance. We like that mixture. In a way it's like our music, it's heavy, tiger sort of speak, but at the same time very melodic, with melodic singing, the peacock. We try to inject a bit of Indonesia's flavor if you will here and there, in a heavy metal context, which is very much a western music. That's why having Bay Guitaro in Indonesia helps keep that ethnic flavor in some way.
I expect a long reply for this one. Can you please tell us about the concept and lyrical themes of all your previous releases?
ST: In terms of concept, it was pretty simple. We write and play music that we want to hear. Ultimately we almost always start with a cool riff. No riff, no song. That's how I usually look at it. The riff can come up anytime, while we are jamming together in the studio or when any of us are walking down the street or whatnot. We try to capture these riffs in our phone. We collect these riffs and mold them and work them out, stretch it, transform it, whatever we need to do to make it work in a song structure. This riff is the intro, then it goes into this slightly different riff to be the verse, usually that riff will be simpler so that the singing melody takes center stage. Then it goes to another riff, maybe it becomes the chorus because it's the "catchy-est" part. Then we develop the melody lines. Singing melody, guitar melody. The ideas then start to take the shape of a song. The singing melody also has to work with me because I have to sing and play the rhythm guitars. Because if you think about it, it has to work with me also in a live setting. It's different doing it in the studio vs on stage. In the studio everything is controlled, we can redo things if we made mistakes. Live, everything is different. Crowd will be different, energy will be different, adrenaline is flowing. The point I am trying to make is when we write songs we also try to forecast how to play it live. Then at the end, the process is usually what message we want to put in the lyrics of that song. It could be the mood that inspired the lyrics, it could be the mindset when we came up with the melody. Then we jam it in our rehearsal space. We mold each part to work with each other. The drums, the bass, the rhythm guitars, the chugs if you will then the lead guitars.
In terms of lyrical themes, it could be anything, but the main goal for us is to have fun with it. At the end of the day, we are entertainers. We want to entertain. That's being forgotten sometimes, especially by heavy metal bands nowadays. We do write genuine stuff that is going on with our lives, but we try to not be too "heavy". Let the "heaviness" come from the guitars haha.. We miss the fun era of the 80s metal, not everything needs to be a downer. While we like some of the grunge 90s era lyrical topics, we still want you, the audience, to have fun. We want you to forget your problems and tribulation when you come to see our show. That's the ultimate goal for us. We may take a topic that is sort of tongue in cheek if it's about social commentary. We like to talk about how we deal with our day jobs, all of us in the band have day jobs, that's a topic that shows up many times. It's poetry. It's art. We have fun with it. We talk about love, broken hearts, and relationships.
Is there any special reason for choosing your music conception?
ST: We love heavy metal but we still love songs. Meaning songs with melodies that you can hum along to. More and more heavy music evolves into who can be faster, heavier, more technical etc, but gone are the bands that focus on songs. That's why the legacy metal bands are close and dear to our hearts. They are loved because of their songs. The songs are memorable. Songs that make you feel good, lift you up, give you a smile, make you think, but not give you a headache haha.. we love painting pictures with our words but also give you that good feeling. We want you to have a good time while you're listening to our songs. We want you to have a good time when you come to our show, to forget your daily routine.
RB: I think the beauty of heavy metal music from the era we listen to in general is that it is music that makes you feel bigger, not smaller, like you are on top of the world and can do anything. While we appreciate the artistic aspect of some things, not all art needs to dwell exclusively in dark thoughts, hate, self loathing.
How do you guys manage to create music at all? What challenges do you face while writing and recording an album?
ST: We are driven by passion for music. Pure and simple. Bands don't make as much revenue as bands in the past. Everything is available for free. Streaming service unfortunately took the opportunity to make money from it but at the same time allow bands to make the music they truly want to make. There is a lot of bad music that comes with that opportunity too, but there are tons of great ones too. The challenge is how we can produce these songs and justify how much to spend on producing the music while also giving the best quality of music we can put out. Cost of doing these things is the biggest challenge. Gone are the days of labels giving you an advance to record our music, we have to balance it out with what we can afford first. It's all started with us. Don't get me wrong, it's also very liberating, we can do what we want to do. No committee that has to approve anything we do.
RB: We have many more songs we all have been working on and want to share with the world. Like Sammy said, it is always a balance of limited time and resources where very little music see's enough streaming revenue to justify the effort putting it out from a pure financial standpoint. We just love what we do, want to keep bringing original rock music to the world, but hope in the end it can also put a few more fans in the crowd or sell a but or merch along the way.
ST: Adding to that, with the technology available nowadays, we can track and record ourselves. We have no shortage of songs, so the writing part is covered. The recording is one aspect, mixing and mastering are the other aspects. They cost money because it's a special craft. Special skill. With the music we do, there is so much gain on the guitars and the bass and the drums, how to make it all sound clear and cohesive. It's an art to make it all work together. It requires a special skill. Sonically we want the instrumentation and all vocals to be clear, obviously. In the words of Motorhead: We want everything louder than everyone else haha.. So what I am trying to say, our second biggest challenge is how can we get this album to be as clear sonically as possible.
Your debut album, Reog, was released last year. How was the experience working in the studio? Were there any funny or even sad happenings during the studio work?
ST: Well, since we track our parts ourselves in our own homes. The tricky part is to make it all sound cohesive like we are in one room. Yes, we all know the songs so well, but tracking it is different. We all have to look at ourselves critically. We got to notice all of the minute details of what was playing. I guess that's the challenge of self recorded bands nowadays, how do you manage to be critical to your own playing. This may not be funny or sad, but interesting nonetheless. We have this song called "Against The World". It's actually one of the more hard rock songs on the album. It's mid tempo and the parts are not too hard to play BUT the groove is hardest to get for some reason. There are so many details in that song that we didn't really notice before. We had to record that song SEVERAL times to finally get it right. I thought that's interesting.
RB: It is always a challenge when you are not in the room with the other guys to communicate what you want to do with the recordings. Also me and Jon usually take a slightly improvisational approach to the rhythms, although the parts are worked out, we usually give ourselves space playing live to explore the parts. Since Jon initially worked by himself to work out some new ideas during his recording, there definitely were some places he surprised me while tracking my parts. Bass in this type of music to me is always finding something that contextually makes sense with both drums and rhythm guitar while still leaving some space to incorporate your own ideas.
Can you shed some light on your past as musicians?
ST: Ralph Beam, our bass player was from Philadelphia based metal band Mistress before joining us, Jon plays with a couple of Tribute bands here in LA. I played in a funk-rock band called Verhaal, before that I was in an Oklahoma based metal band called Terraform. Bay was in plenty of bands in Indonesia. So yea, we are all seasoned players that join forces in this thing called REOG.
Tell us about your favorite bands from whom you gain inspiration. Do you have any favorite artists/bands that have emerged from the metal/rock scene?
ST: I love the late 80s, early 90s stuff. Some of the Big 4s: Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax. I am a huge fan of Ozzy Osbourne. His solo stuff and Sabbath of course. I also love Whitesnake, Motley Crue. Nineties Sepultura is also big for me, Carcass' later stuff. Pantera. I can't NOT mention Pantera. Thin Lizzy is also an influence. Iron Maiden and Judas Priest. We love the "hair metal" stuff: Skid Row, Poison and Warrant are big in my book. So we get all of that, put in the "metal food processor", hit "blend" and you get REOG coming out of the chute.
RB: My taste tends to go more 70's to mid 80's, plus a lot of stuff outside of Rock. I think we all have similar but different taste in music, that really comes together with this lineup to create our own own sound despite more I guess "retro" leanings.
How is the heavy metal scene going in LA?
RB: LA is really one of the few places or maybe only place in the US with an active classic metal or glam metal scene, a lot of that owing to its legacy from the 80's. Some venues like the Whiskey on Sunset Strip still provide roughly the same format as back then, even with many of the same bands from the scene back then still enjoying a good following in LA. On the local scene, there are probably many original bands with a good look and sound that with a little support could make the next step. Only thing is support is hard to come by and venues tend to prefer guaranteed revenues of cover bands or presale arrangements. Presale requirements have been going up especially since 2020, and many small venues inside and just outside the city have more and more been adopting the format, it can cost $750-$1000 to play a small club or $300-500 even to play basically a bar. Even with a following, bands are just not ticketmaster with that kind of direct to fan ticket sales outreach and rarely recoup this or make substantial money over this. So this often limits the bands that can play to those with good day jobs or I guess trust fund babies haha, no real forum for the kids coming up trying to make it. And kind of disheartening when touring should be a main source of income given that streaming revenues are so low. That said though, there are good bands that believe in themselves that see this as a marketing cost if you will toward larger goals, so you can go check out the openers for many "legacy" acts and probably find one or many bands you could get into on any given night, just might have to get there at 6PM and stick around the entire night maybe through some questionable acts haha.
But yeah, despite the quality of bands, LA has mostly failed to build any kind coherent "scene" the way other types of rock like punk or goth have, so it is something we try to work on to bring something people can feel excited about. So basically, a lot of good stuff out there, just us and others are working on better forums and outreach.
Tell us if you have played abroad.
ST: We have. We toured South East Asia last year. Indonesia to be specific. I guess because our name originated in Indonesia, they really wanted to know about us. It was an amazing tour. We made a couple of music videos while we were there. We have had some preliminary discussions with some people in Europe hoping to bring REOG there. If anyone likes what we do and wants to work with us then let's talk. I think for some reason the kind of metal that we are playing resonates more outside the US. We are not complaining, we are ready to travel and play in your country!
Are you working on any music videos, whether it be a video clip or a lyric video?
ST: Currently we are promoting the album with the two videos we did on that tour we talked about earlier. The video for "Daily Grind" was taped in Yogyakarta. There is this full size replica of The Stonehenge out there, it was wild. Full size. We made a video there on location. We feature some local dancers there. The video of "Island of The Gods" was filmed on location in Bali. The song is about the island of Bali, so it was fitting. Check them out. Here are the links: Daily Grind - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1vICRLHXWU. Island of The Gods - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3YJXdKvHxY
Rapid-fire section. Just for fun. So just chill and type the first thought that comes to your mind when you hear:
Routine - ST: Strength. RB: Try to break
Journey - ST: Not the destination. RB: The wheel in the sky...
Paradise - ST: Bali. RB: City
Doubt - ST: Throw away. RB: No
Awakening - ST: Mind. RB: Guru
Thanks a lot for your time! It's really nice to know more about you. Would you like to say anything to your fans and our readers?
ST: Check us out. It's fun, positive, heavy, melodic metal music that you might enjoy. Search "REOGmusic" on all social media sites or you can go to this link too: www.linktr.ee/REOGmusic. Thank you so much for these fun questions. Cheers!