Black Metal Hits Sunny Indonesia (Documentary)

Indonesia isn't exactly the first place you would look to find a thriving black metal scene. But this sunny, beach-filled island nation is seriously obsessed with metal. When Metallica played in 1993, the concert ended in a riot. And when the dark, heavy sounds of Scandinavia started to filter into the country, local metalheads began to add their own twist, taking the sounds of bands like Darkthrone, Mayhem, and Burzum and localizing it with local mysticism and Javanese elements.

Yogyakarta-based documentarian Hernandes Saranela set out to capture the local black metal scene with his doc. Where Do We Go—a deep dive into the scene that took five months of interviews and travel to complete. The documentary features interviews with Indonesian heavyweights like Immortal Rites, Sereignos, Mystis, and Warkvlt, as well as concert footage and shots of erupting volcanos (because what's more metal than volcanos?).

VICE Indonesia's Adi Renaldi spoke to Hernandes about the difficulties in completing Where Do We Go and why black metal found fertile ground in Indonesia.

VICE: Five months is a pretty tight schedule. How did you pull this off?

Hernandes: Well, the biggest obstacles were distance and time. Black metal bands are spread all over Indonesia and I had limited access to these places. I chose to visit the places with established links that have local bands with strong characters in them. The movie took five months to finish. It's a serious project and we really had to organize our time to make it happen. But obviously, I didn't get to interview all the bands on my list.

How was the doc received? Metal is pretty popular here, but this kind of stuff is still relatively obscure.

Honestly, black metal will never be part of the mainstream in Indonesia. But there's still a need to confirm its existence; a need to be acknowledged. In Indonesia, black metal is still seen as 'Satanic' or as 'devil's music.' We need to change this idea, and my documentary presents a different point of view. I see black metal not as a product, but as a movement; a subculture with significant meanings that need to be examined deeper. Initially, this documentary was meant for people in the black metal scene, but when you look at it in a different context—in the context of a country where the culture emphasizes modesty and good manners, the fact that this country is able to produce competent black metal is a story in its own right.

So are you a purist? Do you think obscure music genres need to stay underground?

Within Indonesia's black metal scene, you see two different attitudes: the first one is to keep the music obscure and it produces militant fans who have a habit of deviating from the core significance of the music. The second one wants to maintain the underground spirit of black metal while also extensively raising or exposing philosophies behind the genre's evolution locally that need to be acknowledged and discussed in the wider context of subcultures. In this movie, I don't talk to black metal bands that formed to simply fill the market's demand. I chose instead to introduce bands who fully realize their identity as black metal musicians.

Where Do We Go has gotten some pretty enthusiastic coverage in the media. Did you expect this kind of reaction?

That's totally outside of my control. Maybe my background as a fan brought the movie a narrative that's easily understood outside the black metal community. Although, I guess they might look at it with a different point of view. I fully realize that this movie portrays a certain kind of image to its viewers. I didn't choose to make it sensational.

This project had so much support from so many people. I feel like my 'footsteps' gained traction in places I didn't even visit during the making of this movie. It leaves a mark on a lot of people who feel and posses the same kind of restlessness. It manages to go beyond the trite images that surround the identity of black metal in the media.

The black metal scene here tends to be against modernism. How does this play out in the doc?

In today's era, where information flows rapidly through social media, the term underground is losing its meaning. But this movie still carries the spirit of the underground as a form of resistance to the mainstream market's demands. Today, a lot of subcultures are totally devoid of value. They conform to the demands of the industry and the market and fool consumers because the philosophical aspect of the art has gotten so vague.

Black metal developed in Indonesia while assimilating with specific local cultures. I hope Where Do We Go can provide enlightenment regarding Indonesia's long history of black metal and its unique identity among the incoming onslaught of foreign cultures and market demands. I only bring this up because I want to cement black metal as a scene among the other metal sub-genres out there. I want to confirm its philosophy. This movie shows who we are. Only a few people would care enough about this scene to make such a documentary.

You just spoke a bit about how Indonesians added their own local flavor to black metal. The legendary band Mystis is in the doc, right?

They were one of the early bands to start doing this.
Mystis was a big deal to me because they were the first band to incorporate Javanese elements into black metal. I see them as an example of modesty. They weren't in a hurry to claim themselves as A or B. To me, this is the true attitude of a legend—a band who is important but doesn't make any big claim to the Indonesian black metal scene.

So which band is your favorite?

Well, if we're talking about live performances, almost every band featured on the documentary is my favorite. But regardless of my preferences, this movie is supposed to be the first of the Indonesian Black Metal Journey trilogy, which will focus a lot of the local aspects each band pulls into the music. I learned a lot of new stuff from bands who incorporate 'ethnic' sounds into their music.