As many of you know, Urbanscapes 2014 is this coming weekend. We recently sat down with a few individuals who will be performing or participating in the festival to have our usual borak-borak sessions with them. One of the few people we talked to was John and Isaac of Paperplane Pursuit. Our conversation with them ranged from how they got their band name, their various experience in the music scene, and whether or not they would “Tolong or Saman?” Check it out below.
Maybe you guys can give our readers a short introduction about yourselves?
John: Hello my name is John and I sing.
Isaac: I’m Isaac, and I play the guitars.
I’ve always wanted to ask you guys this question for a long time, but just didn’t have the opportunity to ask you, and I guess you do get asked this question a lot, but I’m really curious to know, why the name Paperplane Pursuit? And how did it come about?
John: I think the reference here is Coldplay. You put both the words together, it doesn’t make any sense and it doesn’t mean anything except just, Coldplay. So we wanted something that when people hear the phrase, the first thing they will think about is us. Another factor we thought about when coming up with a name is if you Google the phrase would it be the first thing that pops up in the search engine. And lastly, Andrew and I have been playing music together since we were kids, and it is our childhood dream to make it in the industry and to make a living just playing music. So we wanted a name that represents chasing that childhood dream. That was how we got the band name.
If I’m not mistaken the band use to go by a different name right? Why the change?
John: Yeah the band used to be called Silent Scream. The main reason why we changed the name was because Silent Scream sounds super angry. When you hear the band name you can picture guys with long curly hair, piercing, tight jeans, that goes on stage and does a huge big kangkang power stance. It just sounds damn angry and morbid. But the band has been around since 2002, and throughout the years our style of music changed, our image change, and everything doesn’t fit with the band name. In fact we were half way recording an EP, and we just decided to change the band name, because the music doesn’t fit the band’s name at all.
But Silent Scream won quite a few awards back then right?
John: I think we were nominated for an AIM award, but we did not win. We won 3 MACP awards though. One of the awards was for best performance for the night. It was a very unusual thing, because the entire finalist for that award has to perform on that night, and they will choose who the winner is. It was a very surreal thing winning that award, because one of the people performing that night was Dato’ Siti Nurhaliza. Against all these big names we won Best Performance, Best Lyrics, and Best Vocals. When we won Best Vocals, it was also against Dato’ Siti Nurhaliza. I honestly think somebody made a mistake for that one. LOL!
Isaac: So you can now tell your kids and grandkids that you beat Dato’ Siti Nurhaliza in a singing contest. LOL!
So how do you guys feel about playing Urbanscapes this year and for the first time too?
John: I’m gonna be very honest with you, I feel it is about time! LOL! But yeah, I see the festival as something to aspire to. It’s one of the premier music festivals, and it tends to attract a good music audience. We do have a lot of music festivals in Malaysia, but there are some fests where the crowd is just there to look-see, there are some who are there to get high or just there to shop. I mean it’s nice, you still get to share your music to people, but there’s nothing that compares to playing to an audience that is there for the music, and that is how Urbanscapes is. I have attended Urbanscapes for many years, and that is what I noticed about the people that go to the festival.
Isaac: I actually played for Urbanscapes 2 years ago, that time I was playing for Darren Ashley. It is the kind of stage and crowd a band would want to play for. I remembered enjoying myself thoroughly after playing the set, and I am definitely looking forward to these years’ Urbanscapes.
So are you guys preparing anything special for your performance in Urbanscapes? Are you guys gonna be wearing anything weird?
John: I already have blue hair, doesn’t get any weirder than that. LOL! Maybe we get Isaac to wear something weird.
Isaac: Maybe. Maybe, ALL of us should get blue hair! HAHA!
When you guys released the song “Beat of Your Love” early this year, it’s undeniable that the song helped propel the popularity of the band. Can you tell us what was that eureka moment that sparked the inspiration for this song?
John: First off, this song is very different; because it is the first time we have ever collaborated, and it was with Darren Ashley. I have always wanted to collaborate with him because he is one of my most favorite musicians and I really look up to him. So when I brought up the idea to him, he said yes and we met at the studio the following week. At first, all I wanted to do was to discuss the timeline of composing the song. “You wanna write the lyrics first? Or come up with a melody first? Let’s come up with a schedule for this production…” that was basically what I was saying. And Darren just went like “Let’s just do something NOW! Just pick up a guitar and start writing now la”. “Oh really? I thought we were just meeting up to talk man?” “Noooo…..What is there to talk about man, let’s just play music!” So we all hopped on the instruments, and started writing. 70% of what you here in the final song were written within 20 minutes of that jam session. That is why I say this song is so different, because we have never written a song that way before. But after that, Darren got really busy, and we got really busy, so the song set on the shelf for almost a year before we sent it out. About 9 months later, we got back in the studio and finished up the song, and then, we got busy again. So we wanted to shoot a music video for the song but we were all so busy. The band’s schedule always clashed with Darren’s schedule. Because of how busy we were, I jokingly just said, “Maybe we should just use puppets for the music video”, and Andrew (Drummer) turned around and said “ That. Is. A. Damn. Good. Idea.” And so we went with it.
Isaac: Now you know the real reason, its coz everyone was too busy to turn up for a shoot! LOL!
But that is how it is right? Being a musician in Malaysia and all.
John: It is, a lot of musician friends would always tell us that it is hard to survive etc etc, but all 3 of us in the band have a very different opinion about that.
Isaac: yeah, they usually tell you it’s hard to juggle a day job and doing music at the same time, and that if you wanna make it big you gotta do music fulltime so that you can fully focus on it.
John: But what we notice in Paperplane Pursuit, is that because we had the stability of our day jobs, we had the privilege to make long term plans and strategies for the band. We are very happy that this year we see a lot of the plans we had for the band come to fruition, but it has been a good two years of us planning and getting things in order at the background, and during that background period there is almost no money coming in. We told ourselves that we were gonna cut back on playing gigs, focus on writing and producing our songs for the album. Usually one of the ways for bands to earn money is to play shows and gigs, but if we keep playing gigs often, and sometimes too often and mostly at free entry gigs, eventually nobody is gonna want to pay to watch us, and we will lose our value. More importantly, a corporate entity, a sponsor, or even an event’s organizer, why should they pay good money for us to come and support their brand, perform at a launch or any event that they do, if there is no value in the band’s name, because people can see us anytime. So it took about 2 years of no income, for us to get to this stage. And we couldn’t have done it without having our day jobs.
So you guys intentionally turn down gigs?
Isaac: Not intentionally don’t take gigs, we are just very selective. When there is a gig that is worth our time, then we will take it. Because most of the time, majority of the gigs don’t pay the performing artist properly. Doesn’t even cover our jamming money, our time taken to write songs, and even our petrol cost to the gig place.
John, you’ve been in the music for about 12 years, and Isaac, you being a musician that gig not only with Paperplane Pursuit, but with other artists and musicians, what would be your advice to our readers who are musicians?
John: To sorta summarize what we’ve been doing this few years, is to be intentional about what you wanna do and have a strategy on how to do it. Einstein said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting a different result. So if you find yourself reaching the same place over and over again, maybe you should think about how to go about things differently.
Isaac: Before I started working I was essentially doing session work. Now I’m playing for 2 bands, but back then I was playing for 5-6 bands (John: Hence the title of “Band Slut” is awarded to him). Some people just enjoy playing music, whether it is originals or other people’s music. But for me I wanted to write music, something which I can call my own. You need to know what you want, specifically. If song writing is something which you are passionate about, then you need to go in that direction. Don’t expect to do it generally, and expect to go somewhere specific. A lot of people make that mistake of saying “I’m doing my art, I’m doing my thing. One day I will get famous. Somebody will discover me.” But they eventually go nowhere, or they feel dissatisfied with their art is because they are not achieving what they REALLY want to do. So find out what your passion is about, don’t just say “I wanna play music”, be very specific about it, find out what you wanna achieve, and formulate a plan for it.
We always ask this question, would you tolong or saman?
John: I will answer honestly; I will ask him to saman.
Isaac: I will also ask him to saman la.
Sure or not?
Isaac: In the first place, I drive a car that isn’t capable of speeding too much, thankfully I haven’t found myself in the situation where I have been asked this question. So yeah.
John: Usually when you ask them to saman they would be lazy to write you one anyways, so that’s why I always just ask for the ticket.
