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This question goes to Levi. First of all, man, your art is fantastic! Do you like comic books? Have you did some comic art in your life?

Levi: Thanks man! I like comic books but not that much that I follow the stories all of them. So far I only have read Tintin and some Lucky Luke during my elementary years. Actually many times drawing can be so much energy consuming instead of having fun or letting something out especially when you use a black pilot ballpoint to make every single line. I like it but I could kill my eyes to draw the details. Oh..no I haven't done any comics. I have problem with shape consistency. Haha.

Do you both know any bands from Brazil?

Levi: Yeah sure. everyone knows Sepultura, no? are they no longer from Brasil?
Jeff: Bands from Brazil? Yes I do.. First, I have to mention Sepultura, of course! I remember back in the late 80s, in my early teen days, listening to their album "Schizophrenia" on cassette tape, and was blown away by it.. Completely blown away! Also I came across to some other 80s Brazillian bands like Sarcofago and Ratos de Porao.. Then in the 90's, I know there were some quite popular metal bands from Brazil, like Angra, but I haven't actually listened to their music.. Now I rarely listen to heavy metal music, but that doesn't mean I no longer listen to music from Brazillian artists.. I'm a big fan of Amon Tobin.. He's a great experimental musician and one of the most genius Brazillian musicians alive today..

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Do you mind writing music in your native language?

Jeff: I don't actually mind doing that.. The biggest problem is that if you sing the lyrics in Indonesian, you need to have a clear pronunciation that might leave you to stumble or sound silly when doing it fast.. Also most of the time it takes more syllables to explain the exact same thing than doing it in English.. Take this for example: "time has passed" literally means "waktu telah berlalu" in Indonesian.. That sentence alone has more than double the syllables, seven instead of just three if sung in English.. So I prefer to sing in English as it's more compact & efficient in delivering the amount of message..

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On Kekal Wikipedia article, it says Jeff had previously formed a band called Obliteration in 1990. Could you tell me a little bit about this band please? (did you release any demos, show bootleg, etc.?)

Jeff: It was just my start-up, amateurish band.. just for fun, but we took fun seriously.. I didn't have any thought in mind to make a 'career' band that time, because I was still in the first year of high-school.. It was somewhat a metallic-punkish band, and I played drums most of the time.. It sounded really shitty because none of us knew how to play instruments properly, even the vocalist didn't know how to growl.. We never got a chance to play any show with that band, but we almost shared a stage with Leo's band back in 1991 when they still played Metallica & Megadeth covers.. It's good that we didn't end-up play in that gig, otherwise Leo might think we completely sucked and he wouldn't ever consider joining Kekal.. hahaha... We never put out any 'official' demo tape too, but most of our rehearsals were recorded.. Actually some of the songs were released as part of the Kekal early demo compilation CD-R called "Spirits from The Ancient Days".. The songs didn't have proper lyrics, and the music was poorly constructed as well.. They were really really bad, but yes the songs have tremolo riffs and we played blast-beats too, in the wrong way of course.. I quit this band in 1991 because I wanted to learn and play guitar..

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You all were featured on a compilation by THT called "Sounds of Approaching Destruction". There was a band called "Anathoth" there that sounded sort of similar to Kekal. Were either of you involved in that project?

Jeff: I don't quite remember about bands are on that compilation.. THT Prod releases tons of compilation tapes in the late 90s with bands that already did the tape trading with the label, and I think hundreds of bands sounded like Kekal during that era, because Kekal wasn't that 'original' up until 2002.. We played straight forward extreme metal.. I had a side project called Excision, and I think it was on the compilation too, or not, I can't remember.. and later on there was a band called Armageddon Holocaust that I was involved too at some point..

Question for Jeff and Levi; what's the very first metal song/album you listened? and what was your impression? Thanks!

Levi: It's Sceaming for Vengeance (Judas Priest). The impression I'm sure is the same with everyone else, you know the quite moment when the first vocal started or the sound of incredible yet strangely appealing guitar riffs and then you whispered the silent Whoooaa!! it's all about the energy, the rawness, excitement etc. Also I remember what came to mind when I listened to it and any other favourite songs "How can they wrote this great music?!!" ..and then the silent whooaa, again.
Jeff: "2 Minutes to Midnight" by Iron Maiden.. That song was part of the bootleg hard-rock compilation/mixtape I bought in 1984, and I remember that was the only song I like because it was the heaviest and the best on the entire tape.. Other bands I remember being on the same tape were Kiss, Quiet Riot, Krokus, among others I can't recall anymore.. But "2 Minutes to Midnight" just blew me away as a young kid who never heard any real heavy metal music prior to then.. The energy was intense.. Shortly after, I became a fan of the heavier side of metal, I skipped those hard-rock & glam-rock music in the 80s to focus more on discovering the heavier side of heavy metal: Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, Motorhead, you know what I mean.. then later on Metallica, and all those speed & thrash metal bands..

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In an old interview with Swedish fanzine "Devotion," you said 2 songs off your first demo were actually written around 1991-1992. Which ones were they?

Jeff: I think most of the riffs on "Introduce Me to Immortality", and some riffs from "No Master" especially those Black Sabbath kind of riffs and the punkish 'chorus'.. They were part of the songs written for my old band before I joined Kekal.. Keep in mind when I said written, they were just guitar riffs.. The lyrics, vocal lines, additional arrangements, and drum patterns were changed for Kekal around the time these songs were recorded for the demo..
This is funny actually.. Let me explain a bit more here because people have asked me similar thing before, and they just wanted to find out if I already played black metal styled tremolo riffs before black metal was made famous and established as a sub-genre.. The truth is, I would say, I wrote tremolo and punk-styled riffs before I even wrote palm-muted riffs in the metal fashion.. That short chugging riff in the middle of "No master" was added in 1995, because I couldn't play that riff in 1990 as I was still a stupid teenage boy with no knowledge on how to play metal guitar properly.. But I never intended to play black metal in the first place.. It just happened because I already listened to those so-called proto black metal bands like Bathory etc., as well as punk bands since back in the 80s..

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Kekal has covered quite a few other artists and I must say that Kekal's covers are -IMHO- as good if not better than the originals. Could you list all the covers Kekal has recorded just in case I’ve missed any?

These are from what we know: "Locust" (a-ha), "The Skull" (Trouble), "Juices Like Wine" (Celtic Frost), "The Prow" (Voivod), "Dance Macabre" (Cradle of Filth), "Redemption" (Johnny Cash), and the Christmas tune "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen".

What's your view on Grammy Awards?

Jeff: I have no idea.. Haven't watched that event for many years now.. I just knew about that event this year from my Google news feed, they said one winner is called Lorde, I was thinking it was the Finnish GWAR-like rock band Lordi, and thought "what the hell? Lordi?" and turned out that Lorde is a girl singer-songwriter that I didn't even know about.. I'm completely unaware about the today's mainstream music industry..

Just downloaded "Token Discontentment". A great song. How did you come up with the guitar tone? It had some crispiness, almost clean sound, but at the same time thick and beefy low end.

Jeff: Thanks.. I just combined the sounds from 2 separate amps (I used virtual digital amp modelling plugins, not real amps anymore), one with high-gain overdriven amp and the other one just leave it clean (the humbucker pickups on the guitar would help make the clean sound dirtier).. Then EQed each of them accordingly: high-pass on the clean one, and low-pass on the overdriven one, then bus them together into one output, put band-pass & compress it.. You'll get a pretty thick sound on the lower 2 strings without saturating the individual string sounds especially on the higher notes..

Nobody asked Kekal to do a film soundtrack?

Jeff: So far, no.. But I personally would love to do a film soundtrack because I've never done that in my entire life.. Other than that, I'm actually happy if the sounds from Kekal could inspire others in making a film soundtrack..

What audio recording program did you use when you switched to digital from analog, and what program do you use right now? Do you change programs often?

Jeff: When first I tried digital recording using my PC back in 1999, I used Cool Edit Pro (it's been renamed Adobe Audition since 2003) and I used that to record "The Painful Experience" and "1000 Thoughts...", then I switched to Sonar for the main DAW as well as Acid Pro for overall song arrangements.. I've used Sony Acid Pro 7 and Cakewalk Sonar 7 for some years now, because I don't like to change programs.. I'll keep them until they're obsolete.. I don't use Apple computer (not a fan of the brand at all), so Acid Pro and Sonar are some of the most powerful ones for Windows OS right now..

What do you think about today's music and the diference between the music when Kekal began doing music?

Jeff: I've no longer followed much of today's music industry and the music scene since 6 or 7 years ago.. But from the technological view, I mean the music production, I think more musicians practice 'do-it-yourself' when it comes to recording music, and that's a good thing.. Recording music is really cheap right now compared to the analog era in the 90's.. You can have free decent audio workstation software and free effect plugins, and all you need to buy is just a computer and a decent interface to plug instruments and microphones in, then use Google to search for any recording tips & tricks you need on the internet.. When Kekal started doing music in 1995, as a band we're also hardcore do-it-yourself practitioner since the very beginning, so we would rather record music on our own using our equipment and stuff, but there was no cheap digital audio workstation on the market, so you had to settle with the primitive 4-track tape machine as the only recording machine you could afford.. If you wanted to go digital because of the editing convenience, you had to buy stuff like the early 90's ProTools with a really expensive price tag that no start-up musician can afford, and it sounded shitty too.. But things have changed so much now, even I have really good free Android apps that plays synthesizers and I'm using them in my music now.. I mean today is the era where you can actually use your cellphone or tablet as a musical instrument..

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I am releasing a Christmas compilation and would like to use "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" by Kekal. Would you allow this? Or who would I need to contact?

Most of Kekal's released tracks (except from the album "8" and first 3 albums) are now licensed under Creative Commons (Attribution + Non-commercial + No Derivatives), so as long as the compilation isn't meant "for profit" (non-profit/non-commercial), feel free to use any of the existing songs from Kekal, but please don't copyright that song upon releasing the compilation. Keep it under CC BY-NC-ND license. More Info: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/

Which bands do you want to see them live? Which bands do you consider they play better live than in album versions?

Jeff: I would say Portishead.. I haven't seen them live yet on my own, but I've watched some of their live shows on Youtube.. and I have to say they play better live than the album versions, that's because they have a couple more additional musicians on board, and in some cases they would change the arrangement a little bit - to make it fit into the live settings, so it's not completely the same with the album version..

What Kekal album do you have the best memories and why? (2)

Levi: Mine would be Contra Spiritualia Nequitiae (1996 demo). I love the rawness surrounding it. It was recorded in Jeff's room. The room was so small...it only had less than 1m square of free space for walking. So the three of us (Jeff, Harry and I) had to stand in turn when each of us had to take vocal. Oh it was vocal taking session only since we only grouped by Jeff as I recall. So once Jeff had to take vocal, Harry and I had to sit either behind the computer desk or Jeff's bed. And to create the reverb one of us came up with idea using the large bucket placed to cover our head while doing the vocal. Silly? No. It felt revolutionary back then.

What Kekal album do you have the best memories and why?

Jeff: Did you mean the best memories in recording it..? I'd like to say "Beyond The Glimpse of Dreams".. I can recall almost all the moments of the recording sessions.. Not just because it's Kekal's debut album, but because the whole experience was amazing and fun.. I remember it was the first time we recorded an album in a so-called professional studio, and it was all analog, we put everything to tape.. We had to sleep in the studio during the recording session, as we booked the overnight recording shifts because it was cheaper, and all of us had to work or study during the day.. We had a very small budget, we used all the money we received from the sales of our demo tape plus from our own pockets, so the hours were very tight and we had to split the sessions into two, first in April 1997, and the second one in December 1997 after we could save enough money to rent the studio again.. The album has some fresh, almost naive energy, particularly because we recorded the album on a 16-track analog tape, so the limitation of recording tracks made us to focus on the basic energy over the other elements..

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Most influencial Guitar player, Drummer, bass player, singer for Kekal members?

Jeff: Well, Kekal has no band members now, so Levi & I will answer your question not as Kekal members, but we'll answer it anyway as long as your it is still relevant to the music of Kekal, I guess..
For me, personally, the term 'most influential' is something that is impossible to mention, because in many cases there are many many great musicians that I think have already influenced everyone who deals with music, and not limited to only guitarists, bassists, drummers and vocalists.. For example, Robert Moog, Les Paul, or Leon Theremin's works are among the foundations of modern music, so even though we didn't really know their music and their inventions really well, they helped created music into something we know and enjoy today.. So they are already influential even to people who may not know them.. In this case I will just let you know some of my personal favourites: Robert Fripp for guitar, Bill Bruford for drums, and Screamin Jay Hawkins for vocals.. I have no favourite bass player in this case, but I guess Stanley Clarke is among the most important bass players who resonates in me more than anyone else..
Levi: I don't think these guys are influential as if I play the instruments as what most people expect from musician. But I really admire Billy Sheehan, Jesse Pintado and Martin Lopez for the tone and soul they give to the bands they're in. Oh..Blackie Lawless for the vocal. No one should cover his songs, I guess.

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(following the question below) so when will we have the first song to download then?

Jeff: Good question.. It will be early next year, but I can't set the time yet, maybe January, maybe February.. The song is not yet finished by now, I just recorded my vocals the other day, and damn it was hard! Especially if you want everything bit to be perfect.. Levi is working on the album art right now..

On the recent Facebook post https://t.co/QnpINkLT7x you said that for next album, KEKAL will release one song at a time for free download, then another one will be added every month until the album is complete in 2015. I have to say it defies convention! How was this idea coming about & any benefit?

Jeff: Well, this was an old idea of Levi, so I have to give him a credit.. He brought this to me years ago when we were about to release "Audible Minority" as free download.. Basically, when the music is mainly for digital download, and even so it's being made available for free, why don't we release one song at a time, as opposed to a full album at a time.. That's the premise.. That way, listeners will have more time to listen to each and every song more carefully, and they will regard the song with attention as they will have time to digest, rather than if we slam them 10 to 12 songs at a time..
Actually this was somewhat 'proven'.. Take the number of Soundcloud streams on "Autonomy" album as an example.. First songs always have more hits than the later ones, because people are busy, most of us won't be able to listen to an album in its entirety within one moment, especially if the music is new to them and they are not enthusiasts of the band.. Kekal is not a pop-oriented band that put 4 hits and 10 fillers into an album.. The songs are equally strong, and I hope everyone would give an equal amount of time to every one of them.. I think one or two month is more than enough to digest one song, then they can put into the folder with the album title that will be given at the same time the first song is published, then they will be able to download the next song once it's available, & so on & so on.. I'm not afraid that the album will get 'old' by the time it's officially released in 2015.. The interesting thing is, that when the first song gets published, the later songs for the album are probably still in the works.. isn't that cool..?

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There are plans for another concept album in the near future?

Jeff: Not in a foreseeable future.. because since 2007 I write the lyrics first, before even thinking where the music will go.. For a concept album, ideally music should be written first before the lyrics, because it needs to have a line of flow for the songs to be placed consecutively both musically and lyrically.. Right now I don't have time to do like that, I write and recorded music over a period of 1 to 2 years to complete an album, one song at a time..

What a re your tips when beginning a band?

Jeff: My tip is always the same tip I got from some record labels when Kekal was in the early stage, long time ago.. They say something like "your music is good, but being good is not enough, we're looking for originality".. I guess my tip would be "be as original as possible" or "don't just follow the style of one or two established bands"..

What Rush era do you prefere, 70,80, 90 ?

Jeff: I don't put an era in Rush for my preference, I love all 'eras' of them: 70s, 80s or 90s - 00s, but I have my favorite albums of Rush that I can list: "2112", "Hemispheres", "Permanent Waves", "Moving Pictures", "Signals", "Grace Under Pressure".. Not really into their 90's stuff, but "Counterparts" had some impact to me too.. I dig the guitar riffs on that album..

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