bleeedrz are a rock n roll band from Indonesia that blends aspects of noise pop and shoegaze.
I caught up with the group to talk about their early musical experiences, how the band formed, some of their favorite bands from Indonesia and the making of their new record “Empat Kali Empat Enam Belas Sempat Tidak Sempat Harap Dibalas”.
CMM : What was the first music that really made an impact on you all as kids and what artists or bands did you enjoy the most?
Ristiani : I was born in a small town of Temanggung in central java, so most of my musical memory are came from indonesian lady rocker era, like Nicky Astria or Nike Ardila. And dangdut!
Triwibowo : I remember as a 5 yo wearing badminton racket as guitar and rocking to tunes from Ikang Fauzi – Preman
Setiawan : Most of my musical taste came from my older brothers cassette collection. So its either G’n’R album or Nirvana stuff.
Sagala : Slank’s first four album.
CMM : When did you all first start playing music together and writing your own songs?
bleeedrz : This project started mid 2024 by Triwibowo and Sagala whom at that time wondered if they could use Indonesian pop songs from the 80s and 90s as sole reference to make indie style of music instead of the same old reference from the western world. And then mashed it up with their local hero band from Yogyakarta “Seek Sick Six” style of music. Seek Sick Six described their music style as Asian Noise Rock. So we’re just following their lead making noisy songs, but with a lot of nice pop melodies and less depresive lyrics 🙂
Sagala brings Ristiani whom he knew from the local blues forum and Triwibowo invited Setiawan from Hewan Guitar Shop to fill in the bass.
We started directly writing our own songs instead of the usual covering other band songs. Later on we did snipets of Indonesian pop songs from the 80s-90s with our own style just for our IG and TikTok feed.
CMM : The band recently released an album called “Empat Kali Empat Enam Belas Sempat Tidak Sempat Harap Dibalas”. What was the writing and recording process for those songs like? Any particular gear and instruments you used during the recording sessions that helped inspire the group?
bleeedrz : Recording was a fun process! We didn’t want this record to be perfect. So all we did just distorted everything, less layering and let everything oscillate until something good came up. We’re searching for that happy accident!
Ristiani is the one who’s having a hard time, because she’s a blues and soul singer. She’s still singing with her pub band playing blues and top 40 songs. For bleeedrz, she changed her singing style, a lot.
Triwibowo’s set up for the guitars is just simple distortion pedals and reverb or delay, no amp, its all direct to the mixing board. The same with Setiawan’s, bass plus distortion and no amp!
Triwibowo and Ristiani penned down lyrics about life as immigrants living in Bantul regency, in the city with the lowest minimum wage standard in Indonesia. There’s a true story of their own and other peoples story in it.
I guess they’re not complaining, just trying to be happy living life with what we have.
CMM : If the band could do a score for any film director who would it be and what would the film be about?
bleeedrz : Since we started this with all Indonesian references, our film director should be either Teguh Karya or Eros Djarot. Its gonna be Indonesian 70s and 80s drama galore about failed marriage and domestic violence.
CMM : What’s the underground music scene like in Indonesia these days? Any other bands you all recommend checking out?
bleeedrz : Now is the best time for Indonesian Music. Genres are dead! Everyone’s blending everything and coming out with the best music.
Lets start from our friends bands here in the city of Jogja, there’s Exhumation who plays death metal, Cloudburst plays super tight chaotic hardcore and Sunlotus plays shoegaze. Those 3 recorded their music at Sagala’s studio (Watchtower Studio). From neighboring town there’s Moiss (Semarang) Tossing Seed (Magelang) and Loon (Salatiga) who plays catchy indiepop tunes.
On West Java area we have our friends Beltigs, Sunbath and Alkateri from Bandung who play indie pop. Bandung already known as a mecca for indie pop music. Still in west java, Bogor are now well known as the city of indie rock in the past 5 years. Swellow, Rrag, Texpack, Starrduc and DetPlagLust are to name a few of the best indie rock act from Bogor.
Our friends from Jakarta there’s Tarrkam (egg punk), GrrrlGang and Glyph Talk
Going east there’s The Caroline’s and Girl And Her Bad Mood from Surabaya and Masuari from Malang
There are plenty of bands left out of this list, especially from outside of Java. But, hey, you’re on the internet, you know what to do 🙂
CMM : What does the band have coming up next?
bleeedrz : Next, we’re gonna treat Ristiani’s original singing style. So i guess theres gonna be blues infused music but in our style of music. Probably we put an ep somewhere aorund november or desember 2026. We dont wanna waste time again like last year, thinking how to sell this music. Now we just like to produce ’em as much as posible and continue doing other stuff in our life.
