Critically, the critics love what they’ve achieved. Dewa’s music has also taken them places.

For instance, in June last year, the band embarked on an American tour where they performed at Boston, Houston, San Francisco and Seattle.

That makes the group one of the few, if not the only, Indonesian bands to have achieved such a feat. That’s how important the Surabaya band is.

Despite all the accolades, there’s one thing the band has yet to achieve – make their presence felt in Malaysia.

Strangely, Dewa is nothing close in popularity compared to Indonesian bands like Padi, Gigi, Sheila on 7 or even Peterpan.

And these are bands whose members were barely in their teens when Dewa first started!

Why is that so? Let’s do a bit of checking.

Dewa made its debut in Malaysia in 2000 when its fifth album, Bintang Lima was released here by Pony Canyon Music. The album went on to sell more than 20,000 copies.

In Jan 2001, the band came down to Kuala Lumpur for a short promotion, where it performed to a full house at Hard Rock Café.

In March 2003, the band held its first full concert here at Stadium Malawati in Shah Alam but sadly, drew only 1,000 people.

“Until today, I don’t really know whether the poor turnout was due to the lack of promotion or because we don’t really have a following here. Maybe, it’s the latter,” commented Ahmad Dhani, the brains behind the band’s engaging music, recently.

“Our music may be popular among musicians here but not with music lovers in general.

“We don’t think we have established ourselves in Malaysia,” he added.

Well, it’s not hard for anyone to notice that.

Unlike other popular Indonesian bands, there hasn’t been much promotion for Dewa and its music here.

How to have a following when airplay is almost non-existent? And when locating Dewa’s albums in record stores here is almost impossible?

Nodding in agreement, Dhani said it was something that had bugged them for quite a while.

“It’s true that Sheila on 7 and the others do feel all our albums have not been well promoted here. We feel that our label, Aquarius Musikindo is not taking us seriously,” said a disappointed Dhani.

We don’t blame him for feeling that way.

After what they’ve done for the label – selling over six million copies and winning award after award – the band surely deserves to be taken more seriously.

Dewa was dubbed as Indonesia’s version of Queen and Ahmad Dhani is regarded as a musical genius.

There’s so much in Dewa’s music to enjoy and learn from.



THE STORY OF DEWA…

SO FAR



THE year was 1986. Rock music in Indonesia then was only regarded as music for the plebes.

One of the thousands of rock enthusiasts who wanted to change that perception was a 14-year old Surabaya kid, Dhani Ahmad Prasetyo.

The first step he took was to form a band with three other friends, Erwin Prasetya (bass), Wawan Juniarso (drums) and Andra Junaidi (guitars). Using the first letter of each member’s name, they called themselves Dewa.

Even from their early days, Dewa’s music has always been different compared to other bands in Surabaya at that time.

While most of the bands looked up to Judas Priest and Iron Maiden, Dewa were more influenced by Toto and Casiopea. As they progressed, their music broadened to other genres, jazz especially.

Chick Corea as well as Indonesian jazz bands like Krakatau and Karimata were their inspirations.

The change of musical direction didn’t go down well with Wawan. In 1988, he quit the band to join Outsider, one of whose members, Ari Lasso, would become Dewa’s vocalist.

After Wawan left, the band decided to rename themselves Down Beat, a name taken from an American jazz magazine.

They established themselves as one of the up and coming jazz bands and were set to take the Indonesian music scene by storm.

Then they came across a band called Slank who were doing what Dhani had always dreamt of – popularise rock music among the masses.

The band then changed its name to Dewa 19 and its musical direction to rock. Happy that his friends were rocking again, Wawan rejoined the band, bringing Ari Lasso with him.

As jazz musicians playing rock music, the band created a new sound that combined the hooks of pop with the edge of rock and technicalities of jazz.

With Rp10 million (RM4,000) given to them by a friend, the band went to Jakarta to record their debut album.

Despite being an album with fresh new sounds, the band couldn’t find a label brave enough to sign them. Except for Jan Djuhana’s Team Records.

When the album was finally released in 1992, it took everyone by surprise when it went on to sell more than 300,000 copies.

Suddenly, Dewa was the hottest rock band in Indonesia.

Throughout the next five years, Dewa released one album after another – Format Masa Depan (1994), Terbaik Terbaik (1995) and Pandawa Lima (1997) – that saw the band transforming from being the hottest rock act into a musical institution.

It was not sweetness all the way though. While working on their fifth album, Bintang Lima, the band went through a testing time when Ari Lasso and Erwin confessed that they were plagued by drug addiction.

The recording of Bintang Lima had to be postponed as Erwin checked himself into rehab. But when he was released, the band had to deal with another crisis – Ari disappeared without trace.

Not wanting to further delay the recording process, the band decided to move on and look for a new singer as well as a permanent drummer (the band never found Wawan’s replacement when he left while recording Format Masa Depan).

With a new vocalist, Elfonda ‘Once’ Mekel and a new drummer, Tyo Nugros, the band headed back into the studio to resume work on Bintang Lima.

When it was finally released in 2000, Bintang Lima turned out to be the band’s most mature and successful album to date (it has sold more than 1,706,403 copies so far). It was also a personal triumph for Once as he effortlessly silenced the detractors who first said he was not going to be as good as Ari Lasso.

Now more stable as a unit, Dewa delivered another great album in Cintailah Cinta in 2002. Powered by songs like Arjuna, Mistikus Cinta and Kosong, it went on to sell more than one million copies.

Despite all the success, it couldn’t stop Erwin from quitting the band in the same year. He was replaced by Yuke Sampurna, the former bassist of a band called the Groove.

With this new lineup, the band released its seventh studio album, Laskar Cinta, last December.



* Catch Dewa live in concert this Saturday, May 28 at KL Tower. Tickets are priced at RM50 and if you’re a member of Klik Kamdar, you can get your ticket for only RM45 (limited to two tickets per person). Concert starts at 8pm with opening performances by Gerhana Skacinta and Kluk Kluk Adventure.

Prior to the concert, Kamdar is also organising a carnival at KL Tower starting from 11.30am. There will be fashion