In February we covered MEA, a Jrock band band Indonesia. We have been given the opportunity to speak with them and find out a little more about how visual kei is in their country. You may recognise them as one of the the oversea bands who will be playing at the Cure World Visual Festival. Let’s see what they have to say!

JROCK NEWS meets MEA - Indonesian Jrock band

First off, please introduce yourselves.
Hello everyone! We are MEA visual kei band from Indonesia. Bare is our vocalist, Byu on guitar, Steve on bass and Shen on drums.

MEA is an interesting name, what does it mean?
Bare: MEA is taken from the Japanese pronunciation of “nightmare”. We took the last syllable from “naitomea” (ナイトメア), and used “mea” as our band name.
People have nightmares all the time, the variety of bad dreams is reflected in the different characters and personalities of our members.

How did the members meet and form the band?
Byu: MEA was established in 10 June in 2010 by Bare and myself. We both struggled to build this band when we had to look for the other member to form the band. We finally found Shen at a Japanese festival event when he was still in another band, but we finally got him to join MEA as the drummer on 2011. In 2012, Bare’s friend recommended Steve to join as the bassist.

You will be playing at Cure’s Visual World Festival, tell us more about this!
Shen: We will be playing alongside bands such as A9, Blu-BiLLion, BugLug, CLØWD, DEZERT and DIAURA at this show. This is Biggest visual kei event in Shin-kiba studio coast on 30 April!

The will also be another CURE WORLD VISUAL FESTIVAL SIDE STORY which we will be playing at on 2 May in Ikebukuro Blackhole. We’re also playing on 30 April in Shin-kiba Studio Coast BURN and Shibuya rex on May 3 as well. Please come if you are in Tokyo!

What is visual kei and Jrock scene like in Indonesia? Is it quite big?
Steve: Visual kei quite popular in Indonesia. There are visual kei communities for bands such as A9, the GazettE, DIR EN GREY and more. We know there is a community called Visual kei ID. Some of cosplayer here also cosplay as visual kei band members from Versailles, Mejibray, the GazettE and more!

What is visual kei to you?
Byu: Visual kei is impressive music with which people feel amazed when listen it. Their style is unique, different and courageous.

What was your favorite song to record?
Bare: Our new song Namida no ame. This song will be release on the “Eternity” maxi-single on the limited edition. This song is different from others because of the amount of effort used to arrange this song. If you are curious, please don’t forget to buy our maxi-single.

Are you working on any projects which you can tell us about?
Shen: We will release 2nd maxi-single “Eternity” limited edition on April 30 and this is only available at venues during the Revivalism tour. Another project is one endorsement by Rock District which will be released this month and more details to come soon!

Are there any countries would like to tour?
Shen: Of course! We would like tour in Europe because visual kei is popular there and is a good market. I hope our music could be accepted in Europe. We hope someday we can tour there!

Is there a particular show you would like to play at?
Bare: We would like to play in a big event such as the Summer sonic festival, Stylish wave countdown, Inazuma Rock festival. It is one of our dream to perform there.

Are there any funny stories you could tell us which happened during tours or during recording?
Bare: During Revivalizm tour, when we were on our way to Bandung. We were being nostalgic with Indonesian kids song. We couldn’t stop laughing.

Are there any particular artists; art, music, fashion, film that has inspired you lately?
Byu: We have some inspiration some musician like Motionless in white, Far East Dizain, and the GazettE.

What has been the biggest challenge for you or the group up until now?
Steve: Writing songs for the single, mini-album or album with deadlines. Doing that all that it was the biggest challenge for us.


We would like to thank MEA for speak to JROCK NEWS and wishes them the best of luck with their upcoming maxi-single Eternity coming out April 30.

Eternity

b3f5cbfd-56c8-416e-83ea-0d7fb7178544 CD

  1. Geest
  2. E.D.E.A
  3. 涙の雨
  4. Revivalizm