Indiefonica.com

Freedom Of Choice

Published on Sunday, 31 July 2011 23:27 Written by Banu Ardi

We’re not much of musical experts, however the first impression that we get from listening to Freedom Of Choice (F.O.C) , still a relatively new band, is a collection of different musical ideas that combines a diverse material that blends jazz, blues, funk, and rock’n’roll, into one free-flowing composition that’s worth listening to. Maybe stoney and spacey are the right words here, so open your ears, open your mind, Sit on your rocking chair, smoke that pipe, and tune in to F.O.C.

Indiefonica: Hey guys, tell us something about the band? How did you start the band?

Dimas: Initially I and Angga wanted to produce electronic music, but later I asked Brendley and Gerinov to fill more sounds, so we thought why not make a proper band while at it, Audy joined our band after that.

Indiefonica: Your music doesn’t sound like electronic music; you decided not to make electronic music?

Dimas: We had elements (in our music-ed.) that we sequenced in our earlier music, but as we evolve and also because of our band’s format it’s possible for us to be able play more freely and we could make electronic music with disco-like tempo, so basically we can play more freely.

Indiefonica: What’s the creative process behind your music making?

Angga: From getting stoned! Initially we usually jam together though.

Dimas: Well, basically we just get-together and start jamming, a few of us are jazz fans, the other ones like electro music and such and we start hitting it off and start jamming and then each start bringing in some materials and we put all the pieces together to create the songs.

Indiefonica: When you are writing your music, what are the things that influenced you the most?

Angga: Reality in life maybe, yes? I think there’s a perceived “limitations”, in a sense that I should play music in a particular way if I want people to listen to my music. Well I think I don’t have to, we can be ourselves, at the end of the day this is what I want to do with F.O.C, so why not.

Brendley: Me… I’m more inclined to the mood I’m in, if I’m in a fun mood then it’ll be a fun song, when I’m sad, it’ll be a sad song, the songs I write are emotionally influenced by my mood, but materially it’s influenced by music from the 40’s to  the 80’s.

Gerinov: Mostly from the music I listen to.

Dimas: Probably not much different from Brendley, I’m influenced by my mood and I express it (through music –ed.). Quite often when we jam we can’t express what we’re feeling through words… but maybe it’s more than that it’s my life experiences too that I pour out through the music.

Audy: Life experiences, mostly about woman trouble (lol)


Indiefonica: Heaps of people are now downloading free music on the internet, whatever music it is you can just download it for free from the internet through a lot of files haring website. As musicians, what do you think of this?

Brendley: Free download is okay. It’s a choice, and you can’t blame them. Sometimes some people just want to listen to only one song from a whole album. But some want buy CDs for their personal collection even though they only like one song. But in my opinion free download is acceptable.

Indiefonica: What was the most memorable thing that has ever happened to your band?

Dimas: Oh yeah, when we did a gig in "A Tribute To Jimi Hendrix", we were playing "Sunshine Of Your Love"…

Brendley: And the power suddenly went out, because of that only the drums was still audible...hahah… then I gave the mic to the crowd there and they just kept singing but the mic was dead anyway because there was no power so I was just being stupid, all of a sudden the power went back on again when Angga gave the sign to us to get into the refrain, so it was all like being planned before but we didn’t.

Dimas: Yeah and the crowd kept singing, I told Gerinov it happened once before in same venue but it was a Reggae band and plenty of sing-a-long by the crowd, but we’re supposed to be an instrumental band but they carried on with the singing during the power outage so we play the song without stopping with only the drums and the vocal from the crowd.

Indiefonica: What is your opinion about the government’s campaign against drug abuse, what do you guys think drugs are for?

Angga: It’s just a tool, a shortcut to reach the state that you want, the “feel” that you want. As long as it does not hurt anybody or yourself, then why not?

Dimas: Well I think drugs cure people who are ill.

Indiefonica: Why did you name the band Freedom of Choice?

Dimas: It implies that you’re free to choose, free to choose whatever music you want, whatever you like. Some say our (musical –ed.) genre is not clear, we got funk, blues…so yeah we want no limitations as to what kind of genre we play.

Angga: We play any musical variety if we can.

Dimas: Initially we only played electronic music, but after Brendley and Gerinov joined they added elements of funk, psychedelic… and so we just let the music free to go where it wants.

Indiefonica: What’s your plan for the future?

Angga: We’re planning on producing an EP or an album in the near future.

The Band:

Dimas (Bass) Angga (Drums) Brendley (Guitar) Gerinov (Sax/Synth) Audy (Guitar)

Track List:

Click here to download

Video:

More Info:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/FOC-Freedom-Of-Choice/176583349070213

http://www.myspace.com/freedomofchoicemusic

(Funk) (Jazz) (Blues) (Experimental) (Psychedelic)