This year has been a busy one for Speaker First. The Indonesian rock band finished up the last leg of their Anthem tour in early March. Then went out again in the US, hitting up every major city on the west coast. They spent the spring in Los Angeles at Musexpo. An event they say is “for musicians to showcase their talent and ability to the key persons for worldwide music industry such as A&R, booking agents and other stakeholders in the music business.”

Now they’re looking forward to another year filled with more music, shows, and life as they prepare to keep on rocking it. They were nice enough to talk to us about life in Indonesia as they know it and how that continues to play into their music.

Kendra: Was there one brother who was more into music first, or did you both show an interest in the arts early on?

Speaker First: For the sake of fairness, our parents encouraged both of us when it came to music. Being identical twins everything will always be the same. So in the end, we were always in this together.

Kendra: You’ve noted that your style was sort of bred from not being too into the local music scene. What is the music scene typically filled with in Indonesia?

Speaker First: The music scene in Indonesia is huge. There are lots of bands like us actually. In the mainstream scene, they’re always being under the radar though. It’s a long way to the top if you wanna rock n’ roll here.

Kendra: Are there a lot of American artists heard there? Because you guys had a sound that reminded me of Stone Temple Pilots back in the day.

Speaker First: American artists have always made a huge impact here. From the early hair rockers of the ’80s, the grunge and Seattle sound of the ’90s, hip metal and new metal, the garage revival thing of ’00s, everything you can name of, they will always be heard here. In fact, some of them were the ones that encouraged us to make our band in the first place.

Kendra: Rock and roll aside, are you guys influenced at all by all the greenery of West Java?

Speaker First: West Java, especially Bandung as our hometown, plays a great role in our music. The scene here really shaped our music because of the unforgiving people when you’re sucked. They have high standards and expectations in good music.