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| Photo by Bayu Rizki Maulana |
Shock Treatment: Tell me about growing up in Indonesia and how Rock n’ Roll music first found you?
Also, my family isn’t musical. I never got interested in music until I was 12/13, but my sister, Laura (who is 8 years older than me), listened to 90s MTV rock music like Nirvana, Silverchair, Weezer, Incubus, Ozma etc almost everyday back then. I remember she always had a lot of cassettes. Perhaps subconsciously, that moment kinda shaped me into the familiarity of music.
Shock Treatment: What band or musician made you want to start playing guitar?
AN: Muse was the first band that got me into music. I used to have a Nokia N-Gage QD in 2005 which had a music player software inside, there were two Muse songs, “Time is Running Out” and “Sing For Absolution”, so I asked my sister about the band, and her boyfriend (now-husband) borrow me out a CDR of Muse live (time before YouTube become phenomenon), I, who was never interested in guitar before, was blown away by the way Matt Bellamy (singer/guitarist) plays his guitar in unusual way. I never knew a guitar could make such a weird sound at that time.
My sister who always teases me by saying things like “only real men can play guitar”. I felt challenged, so I asked her to teach me the basics. I was an anxious kid, thinking about the future constantly making me sick, I didn't want to go to college like all the kids in general. After I discovered interest in music, I suddenly felt like I knew what I want to do in life: being in a band and rock the hell outta my life.
Skip forward, Muse’s guitar chords and stuff were too hard to figure out, so I moved on to another trio, Green Day, whose songs were easy to play and it was the time I got into so-called “punk”.
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| Photo by Ardita JP |
Shock Treatment: What’s your favorite part about playing music: is it the writing process, the recording or is it playing live in front of a crowd?
AN: I love all parts of playing music. I believe writing, recording and playing live is bound to be one part that cannot be separated in music, even though these three things have their own aesthetic approach. But playing live is my most favourite and challenging part, because hours of practicing can be ruined in a 30-minute set just because you get nervous.
Shock Treatment: How did The Battlebeats start and what were your influences when you were starting that project?
AN: This is gonna be a long story. So, before I started The Battlebeats in 2019, I was super into One Man Army. In 2013/2014, I saw Jack Dalrymple (OMA’s singer/guitarist) posted Teengenerate’s “Get Me Back” YouTube link on Facebook. I decided to take a listen and was so blown away when the intro hits, it feels like going back to the first time I discovered music, congrats to me, I just got a new obsession: Teengenerate. I tried to look for info about them throughout the internet, just to discover the band no longer exists. There are things that make me curious, like what kind of genre they play because it sounds different than a general punk band I used to listen to. So I googled it up, and “garage rock” came out. As you can guess, I suddenly want to abandon all my prior project and play garage rock, but I realize I can’t just get only one references from Teengenerate so I dived down into this whole universe of garage punk, only to discover Ty Segall on the top of the list, his music was quite different than Teengenerate, but I really enjoy his debut 2008 S/T album so much, so I tried to gather more info by reading and watching Ty’s interview to look for his influences, and in one interview with Nardwuar, there are three bands mentioned, The Gories, Oblivians, and Thee Headcoats (the holy trinity of third wave garage rock, he said). I listen to Gories and Oblivians who have the same band format: two guitars and 1 drums. Quite an unusual format for me who was into general punk. (By the way, I skipped The Headcoats because Billy Childish had too many records, so I don’t know which record I should listen to first. Lol. Sorry!!!). In between the process of discovering garage rock, I discovered King Khan & BBQ Show, Reatards, Persuaders etc. This whole garage rock thing was a little bit overwhelming to me at first because these bands play different styles and still belong in the same garage scene but one thing I know most is that this band has a “rock & roll” side in them that most of modern punk lacks.
I wanted so much to play this music but I don’t know where to start because I was inspired by almost every bit of these bands I mentioned. After 6 or more years learning garage rock music on the internet, I guess I was overthinking of a concept, not making anything real until I learn about Bad Times (a supergroup consisting of Eric Oblivian, Jay Reatard, King Louie) that they wrote and recorded in one day, with no concept or whatsoever. The story motivated me enough to book a studio, with no song in hand. 6 days prior to the recording session, I wrote 6 new songs. The result was mixing every part of garage punk I love, the straight-forwardness of Teengenerate in Gories/Oblivians format, and recording everything all by myself, the same way Jay Reatard did. For a band name, I randomly send a message to Fifi of Teengenerate via instagram asking for a band name, hoping for some blessing (lol!) and he gave me “Battle Beat” then I played with the word a little bit, so I got “Battlebeats” with “The”, like most 60s garage bands.
Skip forward to six years later, Battlebeats have put out two LPs, five EPs, one live album, and one singles compilation. Most of them are released by my favorite record label in Europe & US that also puts out some of my favourite bands. I never thought I’d be staying for that long because I was thinking of disbanding it after I put out the first EP in 2019. So yeah, Thanks to Teengenerate for saving my shitty life. I’m fortunate enough to say thank you to Fink directly during the Battlebeats 2024 Japan Tour. We play the same bill with Angel Face, Firestarter and Jet Boys. My rock & roll dream comes true.
The Battlebeats Live At 幡ヶ谷 Club Heavy Sick, Tokyo [5/5/2024]
Shock Treatment: A little bit ago, you decided to pause The Battlebeats and you started Andresa One Man Band. What led to this decision? AN: One day, I was writing new songs for Battlebeats, but it ended up sounding like my previous one. I keep using the same chord and singing about the same thing over and over. So I feel like I can’t go on with the project without changing direction or style. I hate it when my favorite bands do this, so I decided to stop this project and move on to the next project: Andresa One Man Band. Not only for the sake of the versatility of playing live, I can play whatever I want, and gigging without having to waste my time teaching anyone anything. It’s also challenging to play guitar, sing and drums at the same time. I think I need these kinds of challenges so my brains don't get screwed up as I get older. Ha ha.
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| Photo by Bayu Rizki Maulana |
Shock Treatment: Tell me about Junglestomp Records?
AN: Me, and my wife, Ardita, want to have our own business for fun. Since I’ve been in music for a long time, we chose something that relates to music, forming our own record label, Junglestomp Records, inspired by Eric Oblivian’s Goner Records & Jay Reatard’s Shattered Records. We want to put out new local R&R bands in Indonesia. It was all the concept until I discovered a band called Tank Kiss from Depok, Indonesia. I know the band exists because they covered Battlebeats “I’m Just A Piece Of Shit” a couple years ago on Instagram. I listened to their songs online, I believe they have the potential and what these guys did is what I wished I did in my 20s. Last year, I called and asked them to record more songs so I can put them out on my label, while giving them some direction which bands they should listen to and get reference from and they totally nailed it. After Andresa One Man Band’s debut EP, we will put out Tank Kiss as our next release.
Shock Treatment: I once heard that writing Rock n’ Roll songs can be therapeutic? Have you found this to be true in your life?
AN: Naturally, early on, I’m always attracted to sad-vibes music. Then I learned that the human body can’t differentiate between what is real or not, in this case, you’re feeling sad because of listening to a sad song, or the same way like when you’re talking bad about yourself, the body doesn’t know, all they know that you’re feeling that way, and it’s going to affect your body and soul unconsciously anyway and I won't let that happen to me, so I stopped listening to sad-vibes songs. But things are totally different with rock & roll music, it gives my life more positive vibes. Even if some of them had angry / sad lyrics to it, it doesn’t really matter because the vibes itself got me going and made me feel unstoppable.
Shock Treatment: What’s one of the best pieces of advice someone gave you that you still follow to this day?
AN: There’s a saying in Sundanese that my late-mother, Suryati used to say and it’s been my life motto ever since: “Tong ngarawu ku siku”, translated as “don’t grab (too much) with your elbows”, or “don’t get too greedy”, same meaning as “Grasp all, lose all” in English. I believe to be a decent human being is to be grateful with all that you have and don’t take others. Hoping the higher power will guide our path to a better life.
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| Photo by Ardita JP |
Shock Treatment: What lies ahead for the rest of 2026 for you?
AN: Write more music as Andresa One Man Band, and go on tour and look for new local rock & roll talents for Junglestomp Records.
Shock Treatment: Where can people go to follow you, listen to your music, and buy your records?
AN: I’m quite active on the social media especially on:
Instagram: instagram.com./andresanugraha
Facebook at facebook.com/andresanugraha
Stream Andresa One Man Band’s Nothing But R’N’R here:
https://junglestomprecords.bandcamp.com/album/nothing-but-rnr
Also listen to my other musical projects here:
Andresa Nugraha: andresa.bandcamp.com
The Battlebeats: thebattlebeats.bandcamp.com
The Favourite Ones: thefavouriteones.bandcamp.com
My website: www.andresanugraha.com
Junglestomp Records:
www.junglestomp.com
junglestomprecords.bandcamp.com
