KubuAnjink is another band you have probably never heard of before. But I guess you already know Indokult is not about how popular some band/artist is …therefore, it’s time for a hard grunge. Ready? Here we go!
Hello and thanks for your time to do this interview! How are you all doing these days? I hope all is well with you over there!
Hello my brother, how are we? KubuAnjink doing well and I hope you are also doing well there!
Kubu Anjink – what can you tell us about the band? When have you formed the band and what’s the meaning of the band name?
Our band is from Tuban, East Java, Indonesia. KubuAnjink was founded in 2010. [The term] KubuAnjink is a term for dissidents who are always in opposition wherever we are, especially with our government’s policy of not defending the people.
You are quite an obscure band, there is not much information to be found about KubuAnjink online. Is it by design or accident? Do you care about being on social media?
Our band is just a localscene band that uses DIY (do it your self) principles, so we don’t really care about popularity because for us, going up on stage to voice our concerns honestly and coming down with pride is an achievement that cannot be replaced by anything.
Our Facebook fan page is called “Angkringan Kubu Anjink” and I focus more on Daoestka’s personal account on Facebook. The reason we don’t appear on social media is more because our productive period may have ended and we are more focused on our respective tasks in the family sphere.
For those who don’t know, I’ve found your song on an Indonesian compilation CD “SROM volume 6” and I’ve been quite pleasantly surprised by it as a whole. Very nice selection of Indonesian (and one Malaysian) bands. You are presented there with your song “Kopi Pahit”. Bitter coffee…can you explain the meaning behind that song, please?
The philosophy of this bitter coffee song is actually more of an encouragement for yourself when you are tired of living life. Enjoying bitter coffee makes our spirits blaze and passionate to always be passionate about living it.
Of course bitter coffee is a stimulant for us to scream.
As for your releases, I am aware – although, unfortunately, I haven’t heard it yet – of your EP only. So, are there any more releases of Kubu Anjink, and can you tell us briefly a word or two about your recordings?
We have 1 mini album entitled Fighting Silence, our recording is not that good because we recorded it with simple tools.
Thanks to Youtube I am able to watch some of your live performances… how does an usual gig with your band look like? Do you play often? How many fans usually come to your gig?
KubuAnjink has never done a solo concert because the culture here is that every time there is a live gig, it’s like a shared event containing many bands. Those who watch concerts in our area can be thousands or tens of thousands. We never thought about having fans but from our fanspage data it’s okay, even though we never know for sure how many fans we have, we don’t worry about that either.
Where do you get the inspiration for your songs? What are your lyrics about? I guess you don’t sing about romantic love…or am I wrong? 🙂
Our biggest inspiration is Nirvana, snapcase, Nofx, Silverchair, Korn. For musicians from Indonesia, we like Puppen, it’s a band. Our lyrics are mostly about social criticism and self-encouragement and some are about our anger at the MPs.
For a band like Kubu Anjink, what do you consider the biggest obstacle on your musical journey?
Our biggest obstacle at the moment is time, because it is very difficult for us to get together and play outside the city to play in the music community outside the city.
Obviously, I can’t not include my fave question – in a quest to learn about the Indonesian scene, it’s the most important one – can you introduce your local scene to us? What bands should we keep our eye on? Any good labels/shops from your area you can recommend?
I also don’t understand what local scene you mean and what shop recommendation do you mean – if there is a good shop, it’s Tubanesia.
Finishing this little interview … any final message to the readers of Indokult.com?
Thank you for paying attention to small bands like KubuAnjink and thank you for the time you spent learning about our music culture. Wishing you all health and success.
