Kias Fansuri - Junnnktank Interview

1. Please introduce Kias Fansuri and give a brief history of the band.
-Hello All! We're Kias Fansuri from Malaysia, we started as a band at the end of 2006 and we're Yuhelmy Yusop, Hizwat Mamat (vocalists), Azwari Zainal, Qadzar Azarane (guitarists) , Akhmar Razak (bassist), and our new drummer Syarul Azzrel. In March 2007 we released our demo tape and later re-released in CDr format on Italian label Shove Records in 2008. So far we have done a 4 way split 10" with Pete The Pirate Squid , Narwhal & Teeth Of Mammals , a split 7" with Only For The Sake Of Aching from Germany and various compilations such as Emo Apocalypse , Love.Life , Benefit For Anna and This Is Not A Break Up Compilation. All the songs that we ever recorded are in our new CD entitled 'Dua Tahun Pertama' which means "The First Two Years."

2. Malaysia has been described as a hot bed for DIY punk and there has been a revival of sorts of mid 90s style screamo with influences such as Envy, Saetia, Indian Summer, etc. Kias Fansuri is a name you often hear at the forefront of this revival. First of all, do you agree with this assessment? Where do you think you fit within the Malaysian DIY punk community?
-We are not really aware of this assessment , but to us DIY hc/punk had always been around since the 90's. We are still in our learning and growing process. There's so many things out there yet to be discovered. We do agree that there a lot of revival of mid 90's style screamo nowdays. We must say that they are gettin' better and better each day. However, regarding this assessment, we will leave that to the public to determine.

Well, Our scene is not big but we are constantly growing each day. We must thank the wonderful world of the world wide web that had been our medium to expose ourself to the world. Without it, the whole process would take a much longer time. We do not think of ourselves as the first screamo band here in Malaysia. We consider ourselves lucky because we had the opportunity to take our music to another level other than the domestic level. We would like to thank all of our friends out there for this. For us, we are no different from any other person or band in the Malaysian DIY hc/punk scene. However, we do believe that music is a great medium to send a message that we consider to be important. What we're hoping and currently are doing is trying to make people aware of the issues that are related to their everyday lives. We believe that people need to know or be aware before they can take any action. Without the knowledge, the act is useless. For us, we are just an ordinary screamo band that are trying hard to change ourselves to be better people. Hopefully, by all of us achieving this, there will be a better society in the future.

3. You mentioned how music helps to send messages you consider to be important. I'd like to explore this a bit further; what are some of the things you try to communicate through your music? Do you have specific themes, politics, ethics, etc?
Without a message to deliver I think we are wasting our time and chances to prove. We love to communicate in any way, no matter if it's in music, poetry or anything else. Communication is everything. Kias Fansuri is based on friendship more than ethics itself, but we do have our own personal opinions and ethics such as three of us are Straight Edge kids and we still hang out with non-Straight Edge kids from our places. Mostly our lyrics are more to do with personal experience but we try to bring some politics into our songs, maybe in the future.

4. Do you fear that the message will get lost when you scream the lyrics so no one can understand you? How do you overcome this? Does it come down to passing out lyric sheets and/or explaining the songs beforehand?
We're not a pop band! Could you imagine in a small pack room with two ugly people screaming. I bet no one will understand what we shouting for. That was the fact that we need to accept and that's why we want to put out as many records as we can so people can read the lines and understand what we deliver while we scream. Sometimes we will do explanations between songs but not always; it depends on the situation and who's standing in front of us. We hate repeating ourselves.

5. What's up next for the band? Any final words?
Right now we're busy writing music for the upcoming split LP entitled Connections, it's a 6-Way Split LP under Moment of Collapse Records from Germany with bands from 6 different countries that is ; Suis La Lune (Sweden) , Captain, Your Ship is Sinking (Netherlands) Fire Team Charlie (USA), Isaiah (Belgium) & Adorno (Portugal) and after that we might record for a new EP and a split with Rollergirls from Germany. Thanks a lot to Matt Dixon for the interview and to all the readers, we hope this short interview can give you some clues about us and the Malaysian hardcore scene. Any correspondence can be sent through email to this address - kioskcore@gmail.com till then Kiascore!!

Kias Fansuri Myspace.

Source : http://www.junnnktank.com/