VERBAL INTERVIEW: GOLDFISH & BLINK

Verbal (V) / Goldfish (GF) / Blink (B)

V:Introduce yourselves.
GF: I m Golf Fish from Malaysia, I started Djing when I was about 17 years of age. I saw this video of A-TRACK winning the DMC when he was a little kid, that made me wanna do it. And for the Love of music I learned a lot about Dance music and Hip Hop. I got into the Hip Hop scene in Malaysia and slowly I made a lot of friends and this is how we are here today.
B:For me it's a different background I started purely from the dance music. And after two or three years playing Progressive House listening to all the English guys like Sasha, Degreed and all that kind of stuff, then I got introduced to DMC as well and I was scratching. And then I stopped playing dance music for a good three years and I was scratching all day all night and joined the battles and that's how we met each other. And from then on we still went different ways but we were still close friends. Gold has his own Hip Hop nights on a Thursdays with all the urban stuff and I played on Saturdays which was the dance stuff. And we had different projects. And just recently last year we started a night at Zouk KL which is purely, to push a whole Big Room House kind of sound and from then on we started getting in the studio and making music and we made a single which is coming out to be an album now.

Actually we started making music because we wanted to make the music that we want to play out on Saturdays. From that it lead on to that "In the House" song which we just did for fun but from then on we saw that it could be an album material so it lead on to an Album.

V:Can you paint a picture of where Malaysia is right now. What's hot right now?
GF: I think right now dance music has blown up in a whole wide scale because of the commercial value to it now. And its on the Radio a lot.
B:The main music that still goes on the airwaves is still the pop stuff.... After the whole MTV boom I think that's kind of put it down. I think the underground dance scene has dipped from the late 90s until now I think it's a little bit better also because dance is so pop now. The main music that's driven to all clubs is the Dutch house BP stuff still. I think its the same thing going on in America, you know the Afrojack guys. I think that's still the mainstream stuff.
V:Is that like mainstream coming from a club stand point? Because me to when I m in Japan when I go to the club thousand people jumping up and down to like certain songs but then on the radio that's not what's really hot. So whats like the KL music scene in general?
B:I think is very different in Malaysia because like in Japan if that Japanese artist is big, he or she is known well towards the whole country but for us the country is so multi cultural. The Malays are the biggest population in Malaysia obviously then its Chinese and Indian, so these three races has their own scenes of course the Malay artist will be the biggest artist in Malaysia but that doesn't necessarily mean that a Chinese guy will listen to her or him.

V:So what a popular Malay kind of music?
GF: There's Malaysian Pop, Rock.
V:What's for the Chinese crowd?
GF: I think its Ballads.
B:It's the Malaysian Chinese Artist they'll like that stuff and of course there into that whole Hong Kong Artists. And then for the Indian they will have there own Indian Artists but usually we are talking about English speaking artists.
GF: For English it will be Miss Nina. She sings and performs in English. I think she's the biggest pop star out now. Shes like a Beyounce here.
B:Her first single from her second album she's coming out next year is with Flo Rida. So its like a Party song. Also Yuna is huge! To be honest Yuna can be bigger then Miss Nina but Yuna is based around Malay language. Its Malay market but its in the Indie market too. I think the indie guys will like Yuna more then Miss Nina.
V:Phareall introduced me to her, not introduced personally but when he came to Japan he was like do you know this Malaysian singer? And he played it and it was Yuna. And I was like wow she sounds dope!
GF: Yeah she's really good. Really amazing.
V:That's why I don't understand the Malaysian scene. You got Miss Nina, you got Yuna, it seems like its so in sync with whats going on, collectively in the west.
B:I think its like that too you know. We have our own dancing as our own thing and for Alvin and myself we are trying to step into little bit of the mainstream side with our album coming out. We are trying to crossover from dance influence pop so what happens is we get rappers or singers to jump on our track. Actually the second single from our album is with one of the biggest rock bands of Malaysia it's a Malay band Hujan. We got the lead singer to sing on it.
V:When did you start making the album?
GF: Last year December. Two singles are out. First single we had a physical release with remixes and stuff and second one is online where we gave a free download.
B:The 3rd song we are actually getting the vocals from Hong Kong the LMF guys are doing it for us. We kind of got all the beats done its just that the recording artist still planning on the 6th and 7th song.
GF: So far its going really well, the response is quiet amazing.
B:I think because no one expects DJs to do that in Malaysia, I think in Japan it was done way back already like Taku, they have been doing this kind of thing for a while. And I think with the whole David Guetta thing its changing the game a lot for DJs.

So we gonna make some moves!

V:So do think the western influence is strong on peoples perception on whats cool and whats not?
GF: Well I guess the western music made people except dance music more
B:Yeah I think if you check out the David Guetta documentary that's coming out the DJs in it didn't even expect to talk about David Guetta. I think it changed dance music for everybody in the scene. Because dance music is commercial now. Who would have thought. Even when you go to the Hip Hop clubs they are not playing Hip Hop music anymore.
V:Where do you want to take this? Whats your Goals?
GF: We have another project, which is also Gold Fish and Blink, but we make a more serious dance music European stuff. That is more focused on international Dance label.
B:I think after last year we came out with a plane. We coudnt really do the dance stuff for the main market because they totally don't understand it. So what we do is put on the Pop Artist to make them understand better. That's for the Malaysian market but we still do the Dance stuff we don't really push it locally, I mean we play it out but we send it out to the international labels.
GF:We have a release last year on Dirty Dutch records.

For the Dance stuff we keep it dance.

V:How's the fashion in Malaysia related to the music?
GF: I think the big boom of it was when I was doing that Lapsap kind of party. During that two or three years we saw a lot of it, like the fashion and music jelling together but I feel that right now not many people are interconnecting it. Because a lot of the mainstream guys are listening to dance music already. Even when we throw a Lapsap party there are the cool kids that come they are not full on like when Ed Banger was really big. Too cool for school you know!

I think Japan is really different because Japan has always been in front of the whole fashion thing.

But I think the indie kids are really cool still in Malaysia. They are limited to the money that they spend so what they do is they go thrifting and vintage shopping a lot so they always buy second hand stuff. So that's their thing! So if you go out on a Friday night upstairs in Bossa nice two I think you will still see the hipster kids. Maybe they are not on the forefront of Grands but you still see the fashion come through them. I think they make the best out of what they have.
V:So do you have any other new plans coming up?
GF: right now we are really focused on the album. We are trying to finish it in two months time. And shoot the music video for the second single as well. The first video that we did for "In the House" we didn't expect that feed back it's been kind of mad! Everyone's supporting us now go Malaysia thing!
B:Its really cool this year Malaysian artists are coming together and we are pushing this whole Malaysia thing and I think its good for the country as well. But still people are still not buying music.
V:Any last words?
GF&B:Keep supporting Asian music! Asian Power! I think Asia is going to be the next big thing!