Everyone Loves The Underdog: Big Duck's Triumphant Return to Baybeats 2021 and Creating Their Own Safe Space

Tell us about your upcoming collaboration with Baybeats!

Isaac: This year, Baybeats is working with independent promoters and organisers that they feel are pushing the scene forward. There are four days of Baybeats, and each day will feature acts curated by four different independent promoters at the Annexe stage. We’re programming the stage on the last day of Baybeats, and we’re quite excited. Our programming is called Big Duck Energy Kaleidoscopes. It’s about the celebration of diverse music that exists on the fringes of different genres of music. During the pandemic, there were a lot of interesting projects - even if there was no live music and people were struggling, people were still able to thrive creatively you know? We’re very grateful for this opportunity, and to programme the stage for Baybeats, yeah.

How does it feel to come back to the festival that sparked off Naybeats? And then now with Big Duck Energy?

Isaac: It’s hilarious man. Two years ago, we were disturbing them almost every day - spoofing their posts on Instagram. I remember we went to different bars where our friends bartended and put up the Naybeats 2019 poster. We just kept going everywhere to promote our stupid show. And people within the Baybeats circle were unhappy about it.

Chester: Like, “why are they doing this?”

Isaac: Yeah I remember someone saying that he wanted to beat me up or something. But at the end of the day, people could see the good work we did. It was nothing mean-spirited.

Chester: Nothing facetious I guess.

Isaac: Yeah, nothing was mean spirited. It was a joke. Music is inherently absurd. You can’t take it super seriously because it’s just sound going into people’s ears, even if you’re singing about your emotions. Doig Naybeats and being able to come back full circle where people understood why we did what we did, and to actually be able to programme an actual Baybeats show, it’s a bit unreal and very funny.

What sort of experience are you hoping to create for your audience?

Chester: The audience is limited to 50 people.

Isaac: Yeah we’re doing a live show for 50 people, and then there’s a livestream. So it’s very different because our curation philosophy is to pack as many people as possible into a small space - just to have a big party and everyone’s drunk. Yeah, you can’t do that now. So it’s more of curating something similar to a house show, which is a show with more of a vibey experience.

Chester: Cheesy word sia.

Isaac: Yeah but there’s a lot more thought goes into the visual element of it, to create an energy for the space itself rather than have energy coming from the audience. So things like the lighting, the performers all help in creating an atmosphere for a house show, and also making sure it looks good on camera. We’re working with a set designer whom we really respect called Rice who’s worked on music videos and stuff. We’re also working with our graphic designer, Laurent, who’s helping us with the a more focused, grungy aesthetic.

Chester: Yeah and because collaterals are directly from us, we’re very self-reliant.

Isaac: Ya la, we’re going to try as much as possible to create a very unique experience. We don’t want our show to be just another part of Baybeats. We want people to feel like they’re being transported into another world. I can’t wait for you guys to see the set design, it’s super dope.

Chester, as someone who’s had a lot of experience in the scene, what does it mean to collaborate with Baybeats this time?

Chester: I wouldn’t say I have a lot of experience… not at the the forefront-

Isaac: He’s been part of the scene for the past 15 years. So he’s seen pitfalls and some of the more toxic things that happen within the scene and these are things we’re trying to avoid.

Chester: Yes.

Isaac: So I mean, we can talk about it. Don’t say names lor.

Chester: Yeah, but my goodness, is it safe to say these things?

Isaac: Last time everyone played for free, it’s true what.

Chester: Yeah okay. In the past you used to have to pay in order to play a show. And with our shows, we try not to make that happen.

How did Isaac manage to convince you to come on board with him for Big Duck?

Chester: That’s a short story. He was like, “Eh bro. You never make it to Baybeats ah. First round only right, you never made it past that?”

Isaac: Yeah, yeah. I asked Chester specifically because of his experience.

Chester: I’ve done gigs before, and I also work audio and backline. So for our first gig, we got the venue to hold it two days after Isaac asked me to join him. We even made artist passes- like a spoof (of Baybeats) because we wanted to remember this entire thing. We were pseudo-proper, but not really-

Isaac: Chester really went above and beyond. I don’t even think of these things. He even made a wristband, and lanyards? He spent hours putting passes into the lanyards, one by one, for SHINY.

So what made you decide to continue doing shows after Naybeats?

Chester: Cause it’s damn fun. And we’re actually, how should we say this. We’re not losing money.

Isaac: We’re making money. Which is important. If we lose money, we can’t keep doing this. For the longest time, my perception of running underground shows is that you’ll definitely make a loss. But when we did Naybeats, we made a profit. It wasn’t a lot, but it was enough to breakeven. And it was such a big deal for me.

Chester: We paid the artists.

Isaac: And ourselves, and then we carried the rest forward for the next shows. So yeah, it’s fun. And two it’s like, I guess like, there were shows I wanted to see that were not happening you know? Shows that were happening that we felt could be better.

You guys mentioned that there were a lot of unhealthy things within the scene. So how are you guys trying to do things differently with Big Duck?

Isaac: First and foremost, our shows are always a safe space, and you respect everybody there. So it doesn’t matter what your political views are, doesn’t matter what your sexuality is, or your race or religion, whatever. You just come for a show and forget about that. You have a good time, you get drunk if you want to.

Chester: Yeah, spill a beer.

Isaac: I mean, you spill the bill then you clean it. Also the topic of sexual harassment is very important too. We take a very hard stance against that because in certain scene, it’s an open secret that people get a free pass to do these things at shows, or people are not comfortable talking about predators at shows. So for us, we’re very strict when it comes to safety. We make sure there are no predators at our shows, no sexual abuse, no harassment of any form at our shows. And of course, the culture of always paying our bands regardless or not if we profit or not.

Chester: So technically, no one loses.

Isaac: I mean, this is just very important. Even if artists say they’d be willing to play for free because they love us, we’ll insist to pay them because we want to start making this part of the culture. In Singapore, we feel like you can get away with not paying artists because the perception of an artist’s value isn’t very high. As independent organisers, we want to make it a point that even in the underground scene, artists are respected so when they go forward to other shows, they’ll know they have to get paid.

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Punk Will Never Die: Frontman of Singapore's First Punk Band 'Opposition Party' on Being Different, and Staying That Way

Opposition Party was one of the pioneering punk bands in Singapore, so what does punk means to you?

Back then I didn't want to conform to what the norm of Singapore society was, which was a lot more stifling than it is now. Now, while Singapore is still very strict and the environment is still very restrictive, it’s already much better than it was in the 80s. Now if I tattoo my whole face and walk around, people might just stare at me. But back then, even if you had one tattoo on your finger, you’d be identified as a gangster because the consensus at that time was that only people in gangs had tattoos.

So to be punk was just to kick back against conformity, against society and all its norms. I felt that I didn’t belong, I didn’t fit into the rest of society so I wanted to look different. A tiny tattoo, spiking up my hair, wearing shirts with holes, torn jeans, boots, maybe a jacket with too many patches - that gave me my own identity and it was how I showed myself to the rest of Singapore. Being punk was about expressing how I felt about society back then, and how I didn’t want to be part of it.

That’s basically how punk started everywhere. It’s how it started in the U.K - they just didn’t want to be part of the larger, conforming society.

Now punk is part of normal society, it’s so different now. What was weird back then, you can just buy from H&M now.

What was the music scene like back then? Especially since punk didn’t exist before your band in Singapore.

Myself, I didn’t idolise any punk bands. That’s another part of being punk, you do not idolise the punk band - you go out there and be your own punk band. So I made my own music and it was very difficult especially when there weren’t any other punk bands that I knew of. Back then, the music scene was made up of leftover bands from the 70s because I think rock music was kind of banned or heavily restricted in the 70s, and the music scene basically died out. In the 80s, whatever was leftover were cover bands playing in pubs and lounges. So it was difficult for us because our gigs would get stopped halfway because the police would come and shut us down. I’ve played shows where the venue owners would cut off the electricity because he said we were worshipping Satan or something. There was a lot of misunderstanding because people didn’t know what to expect of our music, and like back in the 70s, heavy metal music was associated with devil worshippers and others would assume the same from our music.

What about your personal life? What did your parents, or your family think?

Parents back then, and even now, weren’t that supportive of the arts. And I get it. It's like, comb out the spikes in your hair. When are you going to take the colour out of your hair? Can we buy some normal clothes for you? I dropped out of school because I just couldn’t stand being there. I just wanted to serve National Service (NS), get out, and then do what I wanted to do. It was my dream, to live life my own way.

I felt a lot more like an outcast back then. Right now everyone is chill. You can have tattoos on your neck, your face, and it’s not that big a deal. But back then, it was quite extreme. To the point where people would ask us to step outside for a fight because they thought we looked different. We had policemen trailing us when we were walking outside because they assumed we would be up to no good. In hindsight, there were four of us in spikes and studded jacket, so maybe someone might have called the police on us. But yeah, even if it’s better now, the feeling of being an outcast has not left me. I still think I’m an outcast.

Back in the 80s, was there any stigma against being a musician?

There was definitely that thought of if you play music, you’ll have no future. Unless you were one of those cover bands I mentioned earlier, and you landed a regular gig playing popular music because when people go for a drink, they want to listen to covers of popular music. That was probably the highest you could go in terms of having a career as a musician. Also, punk rock in the 80s was so new and still wasn’t really widely accepted in parts of the world where punk rock was already thriving. For me, I was struggling to make ends meet because I didn’t want a normal job because it meant that I had to cut my hair and wear normal clothes. So I had to look for jobs that involved manual labour - being a store man, a delivery man.

I would work eight hours in the day, then forget about it and become myself at night and go for jam sessions, play gigs, plan my next release.

How different is punk culture in Singapore than it is to its Western counterparts?

The basic foundation of rebelling against society is the same everywhere and that’s where punk exists. But you cannot import the meaning of punk wholesale, it’s adapted to whatever you’re rebelling against. The punk I got into originated from the U.K - they were working class folks and their struggles with Singapore’s working class in the 80s were very different. So I mean you can import the fashion, the sound, but what we’re hitting back against and what they’re hitting back against are totally different.

Tell us more about Opposition Party, what’s up with your band name?

Right okay, we didn't talk about politics, back then, talking about politics openly was really scary. In fact, having the name ‘Opposition Party’ really gave us huge problems. Promoters just refused to print our full band name for fear of the police coming back. We had to change our band name to ‘OP’ on a lot of our gig flyers - so that’s why we’re more known as ‘OP’ than ‘Opposition Party’ because we didn’t actually use our full band name back then.

For punk, once you get into it, it becomes your way of life. I’m not sure if it’s that way for other genres, but you’ll always have punk in you, you won’t grow out of it. I can’t imagine waking up and not being able to play in Opposition Party. So that’s the fuel that’s keeping OP alive right now, three decades, on to a fourth. With a band, I make my own music, I create my own releases, (before the pandemic) I do my own tours, I go anywhere I want to play. We’re not world famous but wherever we go, whatever small town, we still draw crowds - so that itself is very satisfying to me.

What was your experience with censorship, especially with a band name like Opposition Party?

Back then, I always had to say that we were not interested in politics. Every interview we did, I had to emphasise that there was nothing political in what we were saying. Our music did touch on politics, but only in a general sense. But even then, we had to submit lyrics every time we played a gig. For me, yes, I’ll probably make a bigger splash without censorship, but what’s the point of me playing a show, getting arrested, then not being allowed to play shows anymore?

What were the things that resonated with you in punk that you wanted to express through music?

Our music was quite aggressive. Even if we were to just sing nonsense, it was already a statement back then because of all the cover bands and Blues bands, our music stood out because like woah, what is this guy doing? Is it just noise?

I don’t really focus that much on lyrics because I was selling an attitude and that attitude came from the rejection of society. And if looking different made me a bad person, then I wanted to show that, “Okay, I’ll be a bad person then.” It wasn’t like punk in the U.K because a lot of them were very political, very anti-government and anti-authority. For us it was just an emphasis on the noise we were making and creating, and how different we looked from everyone else. Lyrics never played a big part in the first version of OP.

So if I say ‘fuck’ in a song, it’s like fuck everyone, not just the government. I was more upset at normal people than the government.

Making music and earning money, how was it like?

I was definitely not earning money. Definitely wasn’t earning money.

How about the media’s portrayal of punk back then, and how has the internet and technology changed Opposition Party and yourself?

I think the media framed us as a novelty. It was a strange time, so it was very surprising that they would give us big, front-page spreads and stuff. But yeah, it was a novelty to them because we looked different. We were colourful, and I just kind of went along with the flow because we didn’t have internet back then, so I couldn’t go online and say like, “Fuck the mainstream media.”

Now with the internet, I can utilise new media and spread word about the band. In the 80s, we had to physically meet to talk as a band, gel with each other, write music together. There was no goddamn Photoshop to deal with, so there was a lot of sweat and work when it came to designing and releasing our own music on cassette. And when new music is finally released and someone actually listened to it and bought it, it’s like woah, we did this. We’re spreading the band’s name.

But now? The three of us don’t even need to meet physically. You can record music in your own house, on your phone or whatever. We just need to meet to have photos taken together - shit, that part is covered too now. The music scene now, it’s just not punk rock anymore. It’s become just another thing to play with, there’s no meaning behind it anymore.

So you feel like the essence of punk has lost itself along the way.

Yes. Although there are many old-school bands, or even new bands that choose to remain underground. So no internet presence, maybe playing underground shows and stuff. These are the true punks. But for Opposition Party, it’s been like decades, so it’s difficult to go back to exactly what we were.

Did your goals change over the years, especially with talks of being signed to a label?

Up until the early 90s, we definitely chose to remain underground. Even though we did have media coverage, we didn’t care. But then came a label called Springroll - a sub label of a major Japanese label Pony Canyon. It was in the first half of the 90s when they started to sign many underground bands, including us.

So if you want to talk about us “selling out” by being signed to a major label and such, yeah, we kind of went through that phase too.

What made you guys sign to a label then? Was there a turning point?

It was for our music to reach more people. Unlike the U.K or the U.S, or even Japan, where the underground scene is so developed - like you can just exist within the ecosystem and still make it big without committing to the mainstream. In Singapore… I realised that it was either Opposition Party dies out in a couple more years because we didn’t have much internet back then, or use this major platform, get signed, then get more people to listen to us.

It’s similar to my decision of self-censorship. It’s my form of self regulation and I looked at the situation around me decided to make the best choice for the band.

With self-censorship, and even signing to Pony Canyon, were these trade-offs worth it?

I have not regretted making those decisions. We had those articles written about us because of it, and because of the increased exposure, we were eventually able to perform at rock festivals in Korea and Taiwan. We played all these big shows in the early 2000s, it took a while, but that’s how we spread our name without the internet. So I got the coverage to reach out to more people, and it achieved what I wanted. Similar with getting picked up by the label.

As Opposition Party grew, did you have to change your music, make it more palatable?

The music itself didn’t actually change. It actually got much heavier. Mainly because the more we played, the better we got. When we started out, we were raw and basic but then our songwriting just started becoming more complex and heavier. And that was why in the 90s, we were known more as a metal band than a punk band before I decided to move the music back to punk again.

So Baybeats has become a space for people to find out more about the underground scene, aspired towards local bands. What are your feelings towards Baybeats?

I don’t recall if there are other rock festivals or huge music festivals in Singapore. And I think Baybeats is the only one that has the spirit of supporting local artists and bands to express themselves. I mean, it’s not The Substation but you know those art instalments that The Esplanade puts up all the time? I think that’s great support because this is a mainstream place and your art is getting scene by members of the public.

This written interview was edited for brevity and clarity. Due to the nature of the topics discussed, this interview will not be available as an audio recording.

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