In my incessant wanderings in search of dark, barbaric and deadly sounds, I came across “Morbid Extinction”, the latest devastating ep released by Masakre, a year ago now. They come from Indonesia, a country still strongly characterized by a conservative religious culture, and they are the authors of a bastard hybrid between old-school extreme metal (mainly death) and the savagery of certain crust punk, a lethal mix that leaves no room for anything or anyone. I finally managed to talk with them and so, in the name of merciless death and crust extinction, I leave you to their words and visions of destruction and brutality!
Hi Masakre! Lets start this interview in the most classic way possible: how, when and why was your band born? How did you choose the name Masakre and what did you want to convey with it?
Masakre was born in Jakarta 2016. Before Masakre was born, we were already friends and often met on underground music shows (Uri and Ipul are active organizer DIY metal/punk music in Jakarta). So since our old band is not active anymore, we kept on meeting, talking about some music and end up playing music together. There was no special reason, at that time we wanted to use a band name that didn’t use english words. We searched for many words and finally decided to use MASAKRE because that name was close to the sound of the music we were looking for.
Here in my parts (in Italy) but I think in general in Europe, very little is known about the Indonesian extreme scene (both punk and metal). Would you like to tell us something? Which are the most interesting realities of the Indonesian underground?
Music scenes in Indonesia such as punk or extreme metal have existed since the 80s, but at that time the majority of the bands were only cover bands and it seemed that no one had sold or release a records because of the high cost of recording at that time and then in the 90s many bands began to appear performing their own songs and releasing their album. Right now I think the most interesting fact is Indonesia has a massive fans of metal and punk music even though this country is very conservative in religious culture.
But above all, how difficult is it to play extreme metal or a certain kind of hardcore punk in your parts?
Indonesia is a archipelagic state, many dynamic reactions have arisen in each region. Maybe in this internet era, most people can accept the existence of a music scene like this, but there are still some areas that have a very strong conservative religious culture, so it’s hard to put on a gig for metal and punk music.
What are your relationships with the more politically active hardcore punk scene in your country? Is there one?
Indonesia is a third world country, where economic inequality is stark in contrast and various kinds of oppression often occur. Whether you are in a punk band or not, surely you will always meet people and see solidarity group or social movements like that.
Your new EP Morbid Extinction was absolutely devastating from the first listen. What influenced you the most in writing this record and what themes do you try to address in your songs?
Our biggest influences came from the late 80’s and early 90’s death metal and crust punk records. We threw some Japanese hardcore on the mix to make it more brutal. And for the theme of each of our songs is the social situation around us in Indonesia which is encapsulated in the lyrics and sometimes we turn it into a metaphor.
You define your music death-crust, but during the listening of Morbid Extinction it seemed to me that the old school death metal dimension emerged in a much sharper and more impressive way than the crust and punk soul. Which are the bands that influenced you? And why the choice to play death metal with an attitude so rooted in the punk scene?
We are influenced by the old metal gods like Hellhammer, Blasphemy, Nihilist, Convulse, Bathory and Bolt Thrower. Because we all grew up with metal and punk music and it was interesting for us to combine these death metal and punk elements into Masakre music.
I saw recently that you will be touring with another fantastic band from Southeast Asia, namely Doldrey fresh from the release of Celestial Deconstruction. What are your relationships with the Doldrey guys and other bands from a country like Singapore? How did the idea of going on tour together come about?
We are very familiar with the punk scene in Singapore and we have so many friends there. We first met Doldrey when we toured South East Asia in 2018 and always stayed in contact. The idea first came from Farhan (Doldrey’s drummer), they want to tour Indonesia ‘cause they just released Celestial Deconstruction album and also in the same year we released Morbid Extinction EP on the same label, Pulverised Records. So why don’t we tour together, from that moment we tried to organize everything and luckily the tour was very successful.
Future projects for Masakre?? Or maybe you are already working on a new album?
Right now we are in the process of working on new songs that will be used for our debut album. Hopefully we can record the new songs as soon as possible.
Interview coming to an end, I leave this space all for you my dear Masakre, you can add anything, Hoping to see you soon live here in Italy and why not organize some gigs here with us, I send you a big hug
Thank you very much for the interview! Hopefully one day we can come to play in Italy and Europe. Cheers.