Kekal are one of those rare bands that have developed a sound that is entirely unique to them and them alone. You can call them Black Metal, but the truth is, there's so much in their sound that deviates from the established Black Metal style that the term does not adequately describe them. Progressive and electronic elements abounded in 2003's "1000 Thoughts Of Violence" and now we are on the eve of their latest album, "Acidity"...

Jeff - The reason why we used more electronic elements is because we tried to make a very dark album. That doesn't mean "dark" in the sense of horror or gothic stuff, but more like everyday life's darkness. "1000 Thoughts of Violence" is designed to be a dark and also violent album, because the lyrics talk about violence and the dark side of reality. The arrangements and the whole production should make the music to sound real dark and real violent, like when your mind would go when watching all those dead and injured victims at the bombing scene, for example. The fact is, rock music is always made for fun and never used to accompany anything dark. So we threw out so many straight rock/metal elements, we threw out so many energetic riffs, and any kind of riff or rhythm that would make you bang your head or mosh isn't good for the album. We only retained the chaotic and the morbid aspects, and we put many electronic elements like ambient noises and samples, loops, and some analog synthesizers, to enhance the dramatic mood of the songs. Electronic elements, if used properly at the right place, can darken the whole atmosphere of music, because it can create some "second sound" or the "ghostly notes" in between the musical chords played by other instruments. You can see why metal bands can never be as dark as trip-hop and industrial bands.

Jeff - It means "eternal" or "immortal" in Indonesian language.

Jeff - It's the choice of the record label, Fear Dark. The split CD is totally the label's project, so the final decision is theirs. I think the split CD is something to do with a promotional tool to introduce each band to the other band's fans or listeners. Introducing Kekal music to Slechtvalk fans, and Slechtvalk music to Kekal fans.

Jeff - The recording technology is now able to make some hybrid of a real drummer and a machine together. In that case, doing all the drums with a simple drum machine is not a too wise decision, but looking for a good drummer (and moreover, the right drummer for the band) isn't that easy, too. So after 3 albums we decided to do some hybrid drums. It's possible now because of all these trigger/sound-replacement technologies, even though you have 3 or 4 different drummers playing with different drumsets, the sound can be replaced so in the end you have one single drumset. That also happens with Kekal, but we used both real-time human performance and computer programming for the drums.

Jeff - Before the guys from the Fear Dark label e-mailed us in early 2003 and told us that they were interested to make a European tour for us, we thought playing live wasn't really necessary, looking at ourselves that we only have 2 band members with no drummer. That would be a pain in the ass to search for the right additional members only for live shows. And in Indonesia, it's very hard to make a successful tour unless you are a big and famous band, an extreme metal band will never be big enough to have a successful tour and make a living. That alone made us think a little bit pessimistic about the importance of playing live. We have our own day-jobs that take most of our time. But I know the guys from Fear Dark, if they promised something, they won't break it, so we took their words quite seriously and we decided to prepare for playing live. We already played some shows with other bands, so playing live really wasn't a big deal speaking of being nervous or some technical knowledge at the stage. But with Kekal, we just started to play live in 2004, that's after 9 years and releasing 4 albums. So that's a really tough decision.

Jeff - It was great. It was the first time we came to Europe, so it was a really exciting tour. We only did a mini-tour, actually, and played in 3 countries (Holland, Sweden and Germany), so it's not a tight-dates full blown tour. Between dates we still had some opportunity to walk around and enjoy the nature. That's really nice, it's like working and doing a holiday trip at the same time… haha. The bad thing on that tour was the fact that our other guitarist that was supposed to play with us on that tour couldn't get a visa permission just 2 days before we went to Europe. So it was impossible to look for a replacement and even more impossible to cancel it, so we did all the shows with only one guitar player.

Jeff - Not right now. We haven't got any record-label yet to release our new album for the North American market, the main reason the tour would happen. As the tour won't be too successful if people can't buy the CD's more easily over there, right?

Jeff - Not right now. We haven't got any record-label yet to release our new album for the North American market, the main reason the tour would happen, as the tour wouldn't be too successful if people can't buy the CD's more easily over there, right?

Jeff - First thing, we never see or call ourselves as a "Christian band". Actually, I hate that "Christian band" term because it's so full of stereotypes and that term alone would limit our listeners and limit everything including our music. I've heard people say things like "Hey, a Kekal guy believes in God, so he must be a faggot or something"; that's a bunch of crap, you know? But I just don't care about that. Believing in God is not a crime for a metal musician, right? So why should we discriminate to musicians who happen to believe in God, or Satan, or whatever? It's their own choice. Metal is music to me, the rest is I don't care. And for us that's never been a problem playing any cover song as long as we enjoy playing it, if we don't enjoy playing it, that won't be possible and that will not happen. The fact is that we enjoy covering a Cradle Of Filth song that's lots of fun. The second thing, the record label contacted us and asked us whether we're interested or not to join the Cradle Of Filth tribute CD, they paid us a good amount of money for recording a song, and I also know some hundreds of Cradle Of Filth fans also happen to be Kekal fans. Not much, but it's quite a number. I hope we can get some few hundreds more COF fans to become Kekal fans too after the tribute album. That's a very good opportunity, so we said yes.

Jeff - He's fine. He lives and works in Melbourne, Australia, but he did play guitars on our new album, "Acidity".

Jeff - The main reason is because that particular track, the US version's bonus track, is actually an electronic remix of one song from "Embrace The Dead" (the album before "The Painful Experience"), so that track doesn't fit in with "The Painful Experience" general theme. That's why we put it at the back, isolated from the rest of the songs. But the European version of the same album has a different bonus track that's an electronic remix of a song from the same album, so we put it at rack #11 because it's still related to the album.

Jeff - Actually, we haven't gotten signed to any label for a band contract, Kekal is still an independent band that have to pay all the recording costs. We just have licensing deals with Fear Dark as well as other labels, and the licensing contract is for each album. The fact is we are very satisfied with Fear Dark and they also like and believe in our music, so we still work with them and they have already released 3 of our albums and a split CD. We already knew eachother before we got the licensing deal with them, we already been in touch through e-mails since our first or second album. And because they like what we do in music, and we also like what they do in the label business, the deal came up very naturally. They started to release our third album, "The Painful Experience", for the European market. We're more like friends than business partners, but we worked together professionally.

Jeff - It's different in many ways; production approach, songwriting approach, conceptual approach. Almost everything. With "Acidity", it's the first time we have 3 guitarists to play on the album, all play solos, so the general sound and production should be changed a bit, we can't have too many synthesizers and electronic noises and samples, because guitar is now the dominant role and we have to let the guitars do the talking. Also on this album, it is the first time we tried to record in more "live" settings and situations. There is almost no editing for the sound, almost all the instruments that came to the hard disk are prepared already, like the guitar settings, for example. We didn't do much editing to the signals, like change the eq's putting in effects later at the computer, the sound should already be done before. And we recorded most of the guitar parts standing up and used no headphones, almost like playing the music live in front of the audience. In the past, we always recorded guitars while sitting down with headphones attached, looked down to the frets, and concentrated only on detailed aspects, but now we concentrate more to create the right energy and mood.

Jeff - Yes, actually. We are currently in the process of filming a video for "A Dream For A Moment". We do all the video shootings by ourselves, and later on we just send the tapes to our friend that helps in the editing and post-production.

Jeff - Check out our new album, "Acidity", it's supposed to be out at the end of February. You can go to the Fear Dark Website www.fear-dark.com and ask them where to get the album, or tell the distro you usually buy CD's from to stock Kekal CD's there from Fear Dark. Also visit our Website www.kekal.cjb.net and download some mp3's, join the band's forum, buy some merchandise, etc.

Jeff - Thanks, Phil.