Pacai

My journey was not planned.. Exposed to the arts during my primary school years; was chosen to participate in a traditional dance group (Zapin/Inang) and sing in the school choir. I can still remember “Lompat si katak lompat…”
Started playing the guitar when I was 14, Shahrul (Ekamatra) taught me the D chord. After a few months of fooling around with the ‘D’, I was offered to play bass with Sharul and Eddie(Slam). Without thinking twice, I said “yes!”.
It was for our school “talent time” concert and I had to learn 25 songs within a month. We rehearsed a lot but I had to rehearse more on my own. On the day of the concert, I had blisters on all my bass playing fingers – for those of you who aren’t musically savvy, it’s four fingers on the left hand and two fingers on the right. Which fingers, you go figure!
Anyway, back to the school concert, the show had go on, so with the help of Handy Plast™, a stack of chord charts and my fellow band members giving me the ‘look’ whenever I hit the wrong note, I made it through the gig.
Wrote my first song – “Mimpi Fantasi” a few months after, which did not matter much to me at the time. It was just so cool to be in a band and it was a big ball of FUN and of course, not forgetting the girls.. girls.. girls… who thought we were cool too!
From there we started to play wedding gigs and entered a “Battle of the Bands” competition, the first ever we competed in and won! Little did we know, part of the prize was a recording contract. Moved to Kuala Lumpur with my band ‘Diamond Head’ on my birthday in ’85. I took it as a good sign, and the rest, as they say was history!
Recording sessions would start at 8 pm and finished at 6 am. Without much to spend, we had to bring “biskut kering” (plain biscuits) and “kopi-O” (black coffee) to the studio. After four months of hard labour, the album came out but we had to change the band’s name to EKAMATRA as local Malay bands were not allowed to have English names.
The album went platinum in three months and six months after that we hit triple platinum. I had my fair share of being a "Rock Star" and all that.. but then the band broke up two years later.
EKA, a speed metal band was formed soon after. The music was fast, in fact it was too fast, I don’t think I can still play those smokin’ licks without a month of intensive practice. After we released ‘KELAHIRAN’, reality kicked in. We were told the market was not ready for “your kind of music”… and inevitably, the band broke up.
I joined RAP in ‘93, the best bunch of artistic and passionate people I’ve ever worked with. My first session with them was ‘Orak Arek’ composed by Amir Yusoff and sung by the legendary Zainal Abidin. It was gigging with him that I got my first taste of performing in Japan.
That was when I had the opportunity to learn from great musicians such as ERWIN GUTAWA ,RANDY BENSEN, STEVE THORNTON, ALMAND SABAL LECCO, ZAHID AHMAD, NATHAN EAST, NORMAN ABDUL RAHMAN, JENNY CHIN and of course MAC CHEW and many more. Those days, I never asked, maybe because I was “shy” or just plain scared or rather in awe of these legendary individuals. I watched and listened. Mind you, I listened! Looking back, I wouldn’t have it any other way…
I met Afdlin Shauki in RAP. I was assigned to be his music director /producer and our friendship grew from strength to strength. Today, it seems nothing can separate us… but that’s another story …. (Harith Iskander Musa©)
Throughout my journey, I’ve been blessed with great friends who share the same passion for the ARTS. I hope to make a difference in the music scene so that everybody can share whatever good that comes with it. I am not a music hero or trying to be one. I just want to make good music for those who would listen.
This is not about me. It's about the music. It's about the work that was put into making the music. It's about making the work speak for itself.....
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