The Tiger Jams initiative, aimed to support the local music scene, brought to the forefront Malaysia’s finest emerging artists by giving them the opportunity at a bigger stage and a shot at music fame through a once-in-a-lifetime collaboration with a mystery international act, which excitingly, later turned out to be Scottish synthpop trio Chvrches.
Three of Malaysia’s best emerging artists – Donamarie, Rozella and Son of a Policeman – were then unveiled, and Kota Kinabalu’s electronic artist Rozella came out top as the band was handpicked by Chvrches to have their track “Home To You”, which was written in guidance of electropop prince Darren Ashley, remixed.
Together with the top three artists and several Asian acts like The Sam Willows, and ToNick, Chvrches – comprising Iain Cook, Martin Doherty and Lauren Mayberry – were flown to Kuala Lumpur to headline Tiger Jams Centerstage, showcasing the music from these artists, acts as well as the work of Tiger Jams local visual artists Donald Abraham, Kenji Chai and Flex.
During their visit to Kuala Lumpur, we managed to reunite with Chvrches once again after speaking to them in 2014 and talked to the band regarding the Tiger Jams initiative, their second studio album Every Open Eye, and about teaming up with Paramore’s frontwoman Hayley Williams for the thunderous track “Bury It”.
Q: How do you feel to be a part of Tiger Jams?
A: It’s an interesting initiative and it’s cool to be a part of. It’s not something we’ve ever been involved with before – the idea of working with new talent to bring them forward. When the offer came through and we looked at it, it sounded like a lot of fun, so here we are.
Q: You’ve already heard the music from the top three Tiger Jams finalists. What are your thoughts on their work and that small chunk of the Malaysian music scene you’ve listened to?
A: It certainly seems very vibrant with interesting sounds and various influences we’re not necessarily used to hearing. It’s great to hear that kind of melded with some Western influences and other stuff. I’m surprised by how varied it sounded. It wasn’t just one type of music; it was all over the place in an interesting way.
Q: How do the three finalists vary from one another in terms of sounds?
A: We get to travel a lot but we don’t normally get to learn that much about the places we’re going, so it’s fun for us to hear some music that came from there and see how different it all was. None of the finalists were the same and we’re excited about the show as well. I think it would be a nice mixture of music.
Q: Let’s talk about your remix of Rozella’s track “Home To You”.
A: I think when it comes to remixing, our prime intention is to take the piece of music as far away from the original as possible. My first go-to with that was to rip out all of the production and chop the vocals, slow it down about 35%. Then, rewrite another song using that vocals. That way, the lyrics jump out at me and I tried to rebuild the whole production around this one piece of melody and lyric. Later, I handed it over to Ian who added some interesting stuff to it.
Q: How did the whole process go down? We understand that you guys haven’t met Rozella in person.
A: We met through Skype and although we didn’t meet prior to remixing “Home To You”, it was easy enough. We were able to communicate using web cameras and we were writing on the road. It’s something we’re used to at this point; sometimes we have to put together different pieces of music for jobs and there will be a deadline. We have to fit that into our working schedule, so we do these things online.
Q: Bangkok has its own installation of Tiger Jams and you guys are heading there after this to do something similar. How different would you say the music is compared to Kuala Lumpur’s?
A: I don’t think it was completely different, but all of the entries were dissimilar in each place anyway. I wouldn’t say we were looking for a specific sound, but when people ask us, about the Glasgow sounds or Scottish sounds for instance, it’s difficult to say because there are many kinds of bounce that come from it. It’s interesting to see that it’s like that everywhere and I think it’s going to be a nice weekend because it’s about promoting new music and undiscovered artists.
Q: What have you done differently with Every Open Eye?
A: We played a bunch of shows in between the time we made The Bones of What You Believe and Every Open Eye, so we had that live experience to learn from. It also gave us a degree of perspective between making the two albums.
What we wanted to to was to strip things back and make the production as well as the arrangements as economical as possible. There was a lot less in the mix. That way, we intended for the vocals and melody to be more upfront than they were on the first record. As a result, I think it’s a more direct and concise album than the first one and it’s been fun playing live.
Q: Can you tell us about your collaboration with Hayley Williams for “Bury It”?
A: It was fun! She had previously messaged us saying that she really liked “Bury It” and we thought it might be fun to invite her to perform with us as a one-off, and she accepted. We played it together that one night in Nashville and it seemed to be a hit on the Internet, so it steamrolled from there.
There was never the original intention to record it, but people started to get really excited every time it was talked about online, then eventually, someone came up with the idea of her recording it and I’m glad she did. I think she really brought something unique, as you might expect from such a talented artist.
Stay abreast with Chvrches’ music and tour via the band’s official website or Facebook page. Alternatively, learn more about the Tiger Jams initiative here.
