What is your artist name and where are you from?
My name is Aizat Haris and I’m from Kuala Belait, Brunei Darussalam.
What genre(s) of music do you tag your music in and what inspires you to create it?
I’d say my music is more leaning towards slacker rock and dreampop, but I just generalise it as Belait indie, cuz it’s easier.
Can you talk us a little about what inspired your most while creating your track for our ‘Analog Memories Vol.1’ compilation?
I was inspired by bands like Castlebeat, Hibou and Surfvampires, the sort of music you listen to with friends outside on a sunny day sort of thing. I find music like that to be uplifiting and it makes me happy.
How do you overcome creativity block while doing your music?
I think it’s inevitable to go through a block, it’s part of growing pains you go through as an artist. How I usually try to overcome it is to do different things. As a musician for me what helps is to listen to music that I don’t necessarily make or would generally listen to. I think it’s good to have variety as opposed to boxing yourself into one category.
What are your goals for next year?
Make more music, gig more outside of Brunei and push mine and my friends music into the world. I’ve always been a proponent of good music is found everywhere, regardless of where you are in the world. I want to get people from different countries to check out music coming from Brunei, because there are a lot of talented people here that don’t get time of day but would thrive if they were based in the west, just my two cents. Shout out to my Bruneian musician friends Adrian Tiga of Dreamscene, Hafeez Asmuie of Goat Eyes, Fadhlan Salleh of Yes Please, Yousseff Imani of Yukahati and Nol K of Nolicious K band. Shout out to my squad, Gajah Enam Collective gang gang forever!
If you could tell a writing/production technique, what it would be?
I don’t know, just personally, make what you think sounds good. I’m the least technical person I know. I don’t know music theory or audio engineering but I know how to press record on my computer. I find that people tend to overlook the most important things when it comes to writing, like how professional it’s gonna sound or what decibel some tracks need to be so it could cut well through the mix but I feel like more than anything, what’s really important is the bones of the song itself, the foundation. Some of the music that I find captivating don’t have like the biggest production, like early Frankie Cosmos, Cyberbully Mom Club and Daniel Johnston. Their mixes aren’t up to industry standard but the songs themselves are so good that you don’t think about how professional the song sounds, you just think about how good the song is.
If you could change anything about the industry, what would it be?
As much as I want to complain about how musicians now ‘have’ to put themselves out there through social media like instagram and tiktok. I also understand that it’s just how things are these days. I don’t want to be that old guy yelling at a cloud, but in this day and age, in order to get recognized in music, it’s kind of a popularity contest, you have to get eyes on you before people listen to your songs. I’m generalising of course, that’s not the case for every musician but most of the time in this generation, you kinda have to go through that to get noticed. I kinda wish as musicians that we don’t have to chase algorithms to stay ‘relevant’. I like to take time with my music, I don’t necessarily want to release singles each month to stay in the game. I’m not dissing the people who do, I have nothing but respect and adoration for being able to grind out music every month. However just for myself, I prefer to make albums or EPs instead.
what you like to do outside of music that contributes to your musicality?
I really enjoy spending time with my girlfriend, eating a lot of food, playing video games from my generation, repairing old consoles and skateboarding. I find that there’s always bits in life that inspire me to write songs. There’s always things happening in life that gives me a reason to write, compose and record. I find that regardless of what it is I do, there’s always a song title there somewhere or a song lyric through conversations, it’s a constant thing.
Follow Aizat Haris: https://www.7tapes.com/aizatharis
Comments