THE FEATURE: MUSICIANS IN TAYLOR’S UNIVERSITYT: How are you treated by your non-musician peers?AA: I don’t have any friends who aren’t in the art scene.One of my best friend is a poet writer person, another of my friend is a film maker and a lot of my friends are in a band, so we all have our thing. We don’t treat anyone different because we are the same.

T: How often does your band perform? And how do you cope with the schedule and your studies?AA: It depends on how often we can get shows. For ex-ample, one weekend in Singapore we did three shows in two days. Sometimes we can go several months without performing.

We have set aside Tuesdays as jamming nights. So we set our work schedule around it. It’s not the one priority but it’s in the list. At any point in your life, whether you’re at work or school you have to balance. If you don’t know how to balance it now, who’s to say you’ll be able to balance your work and family later. You’ll really have to get up and just learn how to balance now.

T: Any advice for people who want to get into the music scene?AA: Make friends, go to gigs, go to shows. If you go to a gig, go up to the band, introduce yourself and talk to them.Make friends with the audience. Just put yourself out there. It’svery difficult unless if you’re very able, to just stay in your room and write music then put it up on Youtube. There is a lot of talented people on Youtube, but there’s also a lot of ‘less talented’ people on Youtube. So just put yourself out there.

Jeffery Wong is a Diploma in Communications student and a guitarist of the young and upcoming indie band Rosevelt. Rosevelt has played in various shows and events such as the Fly FM Campur Chart, Youth ‘10, and Urban-scapes 2010. Find out more about their music at www.roseveltband.com

Tazette: Tell us about your band. Jeffery: Rosevelt started around end of 2009 as The Ran-doms. I joined the band last year in 2010. They were looking for a second guitarist and I auditioned. The band’s name is influenced by the American President Franklin Roosevelt. Rosevelt’s logo is inspired by Hoobastank.

T: Tell us more about you and music.JW: What I love to do is music. Previously my life revolved around basketball. I met a few friends who introduced me to rock music. I picked up the guitar and fell in love with it. I wanted to be a musician since I was 15. I am inspired by modern rock bands such as The Deftones and Incubus. My favourite guitarist is Tomo from 30 Seconds to Mars.

T: What is Rosevelt working on now?JW: We’re working on producing a 7-8 track album which might be out somewhere in July. Half the album is done.We are working with JD from Popshuvit, recording in his Studio 21:05.

T: Tell us about your most memorable band performance.JW: It has to be the Kelantan performance. It was some-time in March called The Attack of the IndiKids. It wasgood because the crowd was banned from music shows for 3 years, so they were all pumped up and very excited.It was a really good crowd. And my parents were there too, so it was even better.

T: How does performing in a band go with your studies?JW: The main reason I came to KL is to find a band to perform with. My dad made me stay and work with him for one year, but when he realized that my focus wasn’t there anymore, that’s when he let me live my dreams.

It is pretty hard to cope with my studies. Because at first when I joined it was as a sessionist, so it was still good. Now every night (except weekends) we work on the production stuff such as tracking guitars. Every night we start at 8.30PM, and go home around 3AM.

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BY SAMANTHA CHOW

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