Kekal have been active since 1995, originally from Jakarta, Indonesia, and have spent three decades refusing to settle into one fixed version of extreme music. Jeff Arwadi describes Kekal as an institution more than a normal band: fully independent, self-produced, and built around its own way of working.
That independence is part of the story behind Acidity. First released in 2005, the album came after 1000 Thoughts Of Violence and pushed Kekal further into progressive, experimental and avant-garde metal. It also captured a very specific moment in the band’s life, when the members could still play together, jam together and record with the kind of energy that came from being in the same room.
Twenty years later, Acidity has returned in an updated edition, with remastered audio, completely new artwork, and two cover songs: Voivod’s “The Prow” and Celtic Frost’s “Juices Like Wine”. For Arwadi, the new edition was a chance to correct the visual side of the album while preserving the character of the original recording.
In this interview, Arwadi talks about Acidity, Kekal’s first European tour, recording without over-editing, the influence of Voivod and Celtic Frost, and how Kekal has continued since 2009 without official members.
“I consider Acidity a unique album, comparable to a kaleidoscope or a mosaic in a musical sense.”
Acidity is coming back twenty years after its original release. When you listen to that album now, what still feels close to the original idea of Kekal, and what feels like it belongs to a very different time in your life?
I consider Acidity a unique album, comparable to a kaleidoscope or a mosaic in a musical sense. It was originally made to represent the first ten years of the band back in 2005. So, alongside the newly written songs at that time, other songs were also picked from the archive of our personal songs, demoed from as early as 1996 to 2001.
I consider myself a singer-songwriter type of musician, so in the past I would write and demo or record my own songs. Some of these songs could not really fit into an extreme metal music body, so they were not used in Kekal’s earlier work. But when we decided to do the Acidity album, we had already been known as an experimentally inclined, progressive or avant-garde band from the previous two albums, so that was the time I decided to bring some of my older songs and rearrange them into the Kekal framework.
Musically, Acidity made or pushed Kekal to expand itself into new territories the band had yet to explore, so it was an exciting and diverse album. It is still very much Kekal, and it sounds very authentic in the sense that the music itself was made from the heart, from the inside out. Many reviewers said that the music is uniquely Kekal, and they could not compare it to other bands for similarities.
The original idea of Kekal is that, as a band, we always refuse to compromise. Looking back, the main difference between Acidity and our more recent albums is that the band members at that time were still able to play together and jam. There are certain aspects of music that can only be achieved through jamming. So yes, you can say this album belongs to a different time in the band just because of how it was constructed.
“the original album cover artwork of Acidity was actually one of the weakest artworks of Kekal.”
The updated edition has remastered audio and completely new artwork. What did you want to correct, preserve or reframe without turning the record into something else?
I have to admit, the original album cover artwork of Acidity was actually one of the weakest artworks of Kekal, as it does not quite represent the music. Our bass player at that time, Levi, who later on would provide the illustration or photography for the band’s album artworks, had not yet supplied any illustration work for Kekal.
At the same time, I was quite adamant about maintaining the strict do-it-yourself attitude of Kekal, without paying more attention to the artistic and visual concept of the album. The record label in Europe who worked with us at that time, Fear Dark, actually offered us artwork from Kris Verwimp for this album, because they had worked with him for a number of other bands in the label’s roster, but we declined because we wanted the album to have the same artwork as the Indonesian version, which had already been printed and scheduled for release.
The need was to provide an eye-catching album cover for the Indonesian market, because the album was distributed at mainstream retail record stores, and I did not want to give the impression of Kekal being just another typical extreme metal band by having typical album artwork. I wanted to give an enigmatic impression to anyone who had not yet heard our music.
Remember, the album was originally released in 2005, so it was before YouTube and the rest of the online digital platforms, even before MySpace became a short hit. A significant number of potential listeners would buy an album without hearing the music beforehand, so they would just pick almost randomly from the shelves by looking at the artwork.
The updated edition was mostly done to correct the artwork side of it, to make it more representative of the music. The audio also got a refresh from the remastering, using a more up-to-date M/S, or mid-side, digital treatment and toning down the loudness and compression a bit to give it some breathing space.
I think the album has achieved its objective right now, and it is still enjoyable and relevant even after 20 years. I encourage anyone to download the album. It is set as name-your-price on Bandcamp. For record collectors, there is also a limited-edition cassette tape format being released this month, May 2026, by Indonesian label Edelweiss Records.
“we were the first Indonesian band to tour Europe.”
Acidity followed 1000 Thoughts Of Violence, the album that pushed Kekal further into progressive, avant-garde and experimental metal. How did “Acidity” expand that path in its own way?
Everything started from the European tour back in early 2004. Something quite unprecedented happened only about a week before we were supposed to fly to Europe to start the tour. Our other guitarist, Leo, could not get the visa, so he was unable to join us. Kekal’s music typically requires two guitarists playing different roles at the same time. When we found out he could not join, I had to rearrange the guitar parts and also the overall approach so that it could be played by one guitar only, with bass covering some of the parts needed.
So we decided to play it raw and focus more on the energy, like punk music, as opposed to recreating all the details presented in the album, because it was impossible to do that with only one guitar. But it turned out pretty well. The audience could feel the raw energy.
That tour was an important milestone for us because, at that time, we were the first Indonesian band to tour Europe. It also helped Kekal become more visible in Indonesia, with major radio stations starting to play our songs and coverage from local mainstream magazines as well.
That was the first time we produced our first single, “A Dream For A Moment”, backed by a music video to promote the then upcoming album Acidity in early 2005, which would be sent to local Indonesian radio stations, although only a handful ended up picking it because the song exceeded the five-minute limit.
Acidity was the album where we had already secured everything: a label in Europe with relatively good distribution and decent promotion, and also a major distribution package in Indonesia, even if only for a one-year period. It was the time we thought about taking risks in expanding the musical side of it.
So, when we began to record Acidity in 2004 after finishing the tour, it was decided that we would do the recording more in a live setting to capture all the raw energy. We recorded all the rhythm guitars while standing up, without using any headphones, and also without editing or punch-ins. If we made tiny mistakes, we would leave them unedited.
“listeners can jump around and imagine it as something like a heavier version of Van Halen, minus the Van Halen musical skills.”
1000 Thoughts Of Violence achieved its own objectives and, up to this date, it is still the most popular Kekal album. But compared to Acidity, that album feels a bit clinical and mechanical, the traits most commonly found in extreme metal. Acidity has more of an organic and spontaneous rock feel to it, where listeners can jump around and imagine it as something like a heavier version of Van Halen, minus the Van Halen musical skills.
In Acidity, I began to work my guitar solos in a much more spontaneous and improvised way. I would do three improvised takes, and then just take the most interesting parts from the three and arrange them into one whole solo section. You can achieve much better results that way than by preparing them beforehand and then playing them over and over again during recording just because you miss some notes. That can drain your raw energy.
Thanks to the method used in recording Acidity, right now I feel comfortable exploring the unknown through spontaneous improvisations. But in order to explore the unknown, I needed to be completely free from anything that would hinder me, including thoughts of what the music should sound like in the first place.
You do not need to have a preconceived idea of everything. You can just be in the present moment, almost like a child playing with something out of pure curiosity and letting his imagination run wild. It is the same thing when you play around with a guitar, for example. You can just do whatever you wish with it while it is recording. You may create the most interesting chord progression or riff, or whatever, without knowing it beforehand.
The updated edition includes covers of Voivod’s “The Prow” and Celtic Frost’s “Juices Like Wine”. What did those two bands give you as a listener and musician, and why did these songs make sense beside Acidity?
We grew up listening to 80s bands. Both Voivod and Celtic Frost were among the most unique examples compared to all the speed and thrash metal bands that were around in the 1980s. They started from similar early extreme metal roots, but their music then expanded even beyond what was considered the norm in metal music toward the later period of the 80s.
They were way ahead of their time, being avant-garde before the term avant-garde metal was widely used. So it was nice to play covers of their songs, because in Acidity, we felt that we were also expanding beyond the norms of metal in the mid-2000s.
As a musician, I have huge respect for bands that are willing to explore music beyond their genre’s comfort zone and fans’ expectations. I still remember when my teenage self listened to Voivod’s “Angel Rat” and Celtic Frost’s “Cold Lake” on cassette. I was thinking to myself, “Wow, what a bold statement”. It was their boldness that inspired me to be bold in making music.
Kekal has existed since 2009 without official members, with former members contributing in a more open way. How has that changed your idea of what a band can be, especially after thirteen full-length albums and three decades of work?
The memberless band route was taken because we were no longer able to work music the way we normally did, because I moved to Canada back in 2006. So it was not because we wanted to be cool and different. It was the only way to go forward.
Because of my relocation to Canada, it was impossible for the band, then three members, to continue unless we decided on three possible options. First, I would move the band to Canada, leaving the rest of the members out and rebanding Kekal as a Canadian band. I did not want to do that. The second option was that I would quit, and the rest of the members would continue with Kekal as an Indonesian band. They did not want to do that. The third option was to disband completely, but our listeners did not want that. They wanted to see Kekal continue making new music and releasing albums, even without playing live shows any longer.
So, we decided to leave the band in 2009 and that way, Kekal would remain formally as an Indonesian band. After that, we went on as no-strings-attached contributors, working “for Kekal” instead of “as Kekal”, completely on a voluntary basis, with no schedules and no deadlines. Other musicians can even jump in as well because it is an open contribution.
Once the material is released under Kekal, no one can claim ownership in terms of copyright, so you can see that most Kekal albums are now licensed under Creative Commons and are not copyright-controlled.
Kekal is completely independent. The band will never get signed by a record label because there is no legal ground for that. I am talking about a full band signing, not physical album licensing to smaller independent labels, which we always do.
Everything from recording and production to album covers, artwork, music videos, photography, website, promotional material, etc., you name it, is completely do-it-yourself, done by contributors with no money involved. All the funds the band gets from album and merchandise sales are recycled into album promotion, ads, web hosting and maintenance, etc.
Right now, out of 13 full-length albums, we have released six of them without the presence of official band members. To me, personally, Kekal is more like a canvas that already has its own basic characters, like thickness, textures, colour, etc. But without the artistic input from the painters, it would remain a blank canvas that is meaningless. It is the responsibility of the artists who can work on that canvas to make it into a beautiful painting.
To be honest, from three decades of working with and for Kekal, I have found myself very comfortable with this Kekal canvas, to the point that working on another type or brand of canvas would be awkward. This is the main reason I no longer want to be involved in any other music project, and dedicate myself 100% to Kekal.
Buy/Stream Acidity on Bandcamp.
