29 Years Kekal = 29 Years of Weird.
Message from Jeff, August 2024
“Kekal is a weird band.”
— Metal Storm
Greetings again!
29 years ago this month, August 1995, Kekal began its journey as a one-time project band without thinking that it could last for more than 2 years. The initial aim was to release a demo tape, just for fun, without any long-term plans whatsoever. But shortly after, in 1996, everything unexpectedly turned out to be quite different. Kekal unintentionally evoked some “buzz” in the Southeast Asian metal scene (I don’t need to elaborate why) in a way that left us no other choice but to continue on, making more music. As band interviews kept appearing in the mail from fanzines all over the world, I still remember back then in old interviews, we were always asked about future plans or something like that. We always said “we don’t know”, because we never had any plans other than to keep doing our own creative work in our own pace. We never had fixed-schedules for band practice or meeting, and very rarely played live because we were unable to practice regularly due to other priorities and commitments (jobs, studies, etc.). A little trivia from the past: all 4 of us who recorded our debut album - Harry (original vocalist), Leo, Levi, and I only managed to meet together three times a year in 1997! One when we had a band photo session, and the other two in the studio during recording vocal tracks! The 4 of us didn’t even meet together again to celebrate after the album was released. No release party or anything. The joke was that Kekal can be both very loud and very quiet at the same time.
Basically, Kekal was not normal compared to whatever the “established norms” were for a band back in the 1990s, way before social media and YouTube appeared. We were considered more as a musical statement than a fully-functional band. Although in the mid 2000s the band had its brief period where it “touched” the line that divides mainstream and underground, Kekal has never been popular enough to become noticeable in the mainstream music arena, even in its home country Indonesia. It remains mostly below the surface so to speak. Failing to maintain its fanbase (because of musical explorations that went “way too far”), people may see the band as lacking commitments and ambition to become “bigger”, in other term “a career suicide”. Our partners in record labels and metal music press did see Kekal that way especially in the late 2000s. But somehow it managed to survive with 13 full-length albums in the discography, half of them were also released by record labels in Europe and/or North America. Now in 2024, Kekal has spent a longer time as a member-less band than the years with official members. As most of you have known already, in 2009 the remaining 3 members decided to leave the band but also to continue as non-binding voluntary contributors, working for Kekal instead as Kekal. As for playing live, the last show we had was in the year 2005.
Despite the weirdness and a rather obscure pathway Kekal has taken, if you ever asked me to what degree Kekal has impacted me, I would say Kekal has significantly helped me to discover myself and to become who I am right now as a person. Without any single doubt, I am very grateful of it. Kekal enables and even encourages me to write lyrics honestly from the heart, and not for the gimmick or merely exploring subject matters but keep distant from them. Through writing honest lyrics, most of the time the lyrics would come out from the depths of my sub-conscious. Because of Kekal’s unusual approach in writing the songs due to the band’s circumstances since the very beginning, I mostly wrote the lyrics alone and sometimes in the middle of the night with minimal lighting. This approach actually helps me to channel what’s inside of me, sometimes without understanding it first, because honest expression would bypass ego-mind filtering and defense mechanism. I’m very sure if during the past 25+ years of writing lyrics for Kekal I wrote subject matters that don’t really mean anything to me, even if let’s say the band would sell many albums and be “successful” in terms of the number of fans and record sales, I won’t be able to grow as a person and would miss many important lessons in my own spiritual journey. Only with the seemingly strange journey through writing music and lyrics for Kekal, I have a courage to go within and to face my own inner demons in order to heal myself. After experiencing my awakening journey that began in 2016, I realize it is important and even necessary to go within. There's no other alternative. Going within is the only way to go, because otherwise we're going without. By going without means we're heading to non-destination, like spending years of years and even lifetime after lifetime circling around. This is why looking back from now, I understand that Kekal has always meant to be like this: just enough to exist and become an unlimited platform for artistic expressions, and with just enough number of listeners and supporters to sustain and balance the flow of energy in a healthy way.
As a brief overview of the Kekal’s musical journey, I’d like to share 3 songs that can work as kaleidoscopic snapshots representing the journey of the band exactly 12 years in between each of them: 1998, 2010, and 2022. One is the lyric video of the song “The Ascending Collective” from Kekal’s 13th album “Envisaged” (2022), the second one is the song from debut album “Beyond The Glimpse of Dreams” (1998) called “The Day The Hatred Dies”, and the last one is a music video of the song “Tabula Rasa” from the 2010 album “8”. See the YouTube video thumbnails below.
Ways to Support Kekal
If you want to support Kekal, thank you very much and please do as you see fit. There are numerous ways where you can contribute in supporting Kekal, both financially as well as sharing the music and the name of Kekal either via social-media or other means. Here’s just a few that I can outline:
Buying Merchandise from www.kekal.org/merchandise There are various T-shirt designs as well as hoodies. Check them out! By wearing a Kekal T-shirt, you can help spreading band name around especially if you are in a band and play shows. See the section below for the newest addition to the merchandise list.
Buy digital albums or donate some $ as you download them from our Bandcamp - kekal.bandcamp.com There are 6 albums + 1 best-of compilation where you can download with name-your-price, so you can contribute in supporting Kekal by donating as low as $1 for any of these releases.
Buy the entire Kekal digital discography on Bandcamp. Anniversary Special Offer - By applying this limited-time discount code: 50offallreleases you can get all Kekal digital releases for less than $15 USD. Access from the link above, then select Buy Digital Discography and apply the code before checking out.
Subscribe to Kekal’s YouTube channel, watch the videos there, hit like and share them to your friends or family members if they are into the kind of music.
Share Kekal’s music around, whether it’s Bandcamp links, Spotify links, YouTube videos, or adding Kekal songs on your Instagram posts/stories. If you have someone you know who writes articles or album reviews at webzines/magazines, hosts some netradio, works in record labels or independent record stores, you can recommend Kekal to them.
Sending positive energy either through positive thoughts, best wishes, prayers, or any other means. But please do not send negative energy, because energy flows always go back to the sender! This is universal law: What goes around comes around. What you bless blesses you back, what you damn damns you back. There’s nothing to be envious or hated about Kekal, only music that you may enjoy even if you perceive it it as weird or different.
New Merchandise Now Available
Kekal has some new merchandise items available for “Acidity” album. You can choose between T-Shirt (Next Level 3600 premium ring-spun cotton) and Pullover Hoodie. Feat. artwork of the album’s Re-Issue Edition.
Front: Kekal logo + album artwork. Back: Acidity wordmark.
Bright colors only options. No black color available! Visit link below (click the red button) to see all available colors and to order online.
Printed by TeeSpring (USA). All orders will be fulfilled by them too. Credit Cards and PayPal accepted.
See from the image gallery posted here, or just visit the merchandise page by clicking the button below.
Thank you. You can also read past months’ messages posted on Substack if you haven’t yet. Until next month, bye for now.
Follow Kekal on Facebook / Instagram / YouTube / Bandcamp
New Merchandise Available at www.kekal.org/merchandise