The Beat Bali

There should’ve been, at minimum, 3 bands to explode from Bali: Superman Is Dead, Navicula and Kaimsasikun. The last one had sophisticated skills, cool-and-controlled performance style, and their songs are even ‘poppier’ sounding than the other two bands (meaning it would be easier to penetrate the Indonesian market). They even have the looks. Ian Stevenson, the frontman, is without doubt one of the greatest young musicians that Bali ever produced. He shares what went wrong with his almost-famous group and a bit about his personal life in the post-Kaimsasikun era. I loved your band so much. I think they were one of a very few excellent bands from Bali, who could’ve gone massive nationally. But things seemed to not work out as planned. What happened? When Kaimsasikun was formed in 1999, we basically started out as just friends who liked to get together, learn our favourite songs, and play in the rehearsal studio. Eventually, we decided to start writing originals, and apparently a producer in Jakarta became interested in our music and offered us a contract. Very cliché, but it was really that simple. It all started out as something that we just did for fun. Our first contract was with Pro Sound records, for only one year. Then my mother passed away, and I had to go home to Bali. The other guys followed shortly after. We were all back together in Bali, and we were compelled to keep making music. So a friend offered to help us make an EP album, which was later released independently, titled Solas. Loss of hope, is that the reason why Kaimsasikun ended up disbanding? Kaimsasikun didn’t lose hope, ever. The reason we disbanded was due to the difference of frequencies amongst the members of the band. That lack of spirit and energy amongst us is probably what made us decide to call it quits, and Kaimsasikun was left on hold for 2 years or so. But even though we broke up as a band, we still remained friends and remained in contact. We moved on, I started producing, Sanny and Pandu were also producing, Mark did late night gigs as a drummer at a local cafe. But we knew deep inside that we really missed being together and working as a band, so in November 2011 me and Sanny hung out, and had this urge to call up the other guys. We decided to get together and make some music which we could release for free over the internet. And we did. Project 11 was born, we decided on this name because on every 11th of every month each of us (or sometimes all of us together) upload our new music. We don’t know where this project will go, but to me this project is a place where I can put my musical inspirations, and I am pretty sure the others think the same way. Yeah, we’ll see what the future brings. You built a little studio at your house. Was that […]