Profile: Shitake

Banda Aceh-based deathcore act SHITAKE was formed in 2007, when the Vertical‘s guitarist and vocalist, Aan and Nanda decided to make 180 degrees turn of their musical direction from pop-rock  into a more challenging genre, DEATHCORE. They invited Denny (drums) to join. Former Clown Nanggroe’s bassist Ogek supported the band as additional player.

The first formation performed in some Banda Aceh and Lhokseumawe extreme gigs and played their own songs only. Denny departed in early 2011, put Shitake in a state of hibernation. Lhokseumawe metal drummer, Iwan from Terror of  Blood joined them  in August 2011. A session musician Ryan was contacted to fill the band’s rhythm section in April 2012 as their definitive bassist.  Due to time conflict with his then job in a mineral mining company, Iwan resigned in late 2012 and former Black Death‘s drummer Rama Sullivan stepped in and brought a new blood into the band’s venous system.

Een Revolt from acehmusician.org conducted an interview with Shitake’s frontman Nanda and discussing about the band’s future plans.

Q: Shitake is gaining fame in Banda Aceh metal spectrum as a super-duper loudest band . What kind of practice regimen do you conduct in effort to achieve that thing?

A: Same as other bands, just keep on playing harder, faster and louder!

Q: What is Shitake’s next plan?

A: Our biggest plans are having our own full length album and go national. We’ve been working hard to create more and more tunes and starting to record ’em. There are 7 tunes ready to record, and we need four or five more.

Q: What will the album be named? What subject  do you love to tell in most of the songs?

A: We don’t decide the album’s name yet. Most of the songs tell about the social and politic stuffs, like a tune labeled Destroyed tells about corruption in our system. Everyone who reigns this nation is only talking shit but no actions. A lot of money was spent but we don’t know what the result is. A lot of promises were told in last election, but we don’t see the  implementation yet. Economy is getting slower and a lot of people is jobless. But the government officers and politicians are getting rich and fat. Poverty is knocking our front door and I think things will get worse in next few years. Armageddon is coming.

Q: Whoaaa! Brutal! I think I’m not gonna miss your future album’s launching.  Shitake is listed in forthcoming GMA’s Metal Compilation album. What song will you feature in the album? What’s the story behind it?

A: A tune we made in 2012 named Scream in the Dark will put in the compilation. It tells about coward people who badmouthing and backstabbing others, and spend their time only to spread hatred among the people in purpose to cover their own bad things. Hypocrisy plus hatemonger plus backstabbing are what we and other people in community hate.

Q: Whoaaa! Brutal! Now, tell me why did you guys pick Shitake as your band’s name? It’s a kind of mushroom, though?

A: Yeah! The idea was coming when Aan told about the philosophy of kingdom of fungi. There are a lot of different type of fungus. Edible, poisonous and some parasite fungi. He thought it’s similar to our human being life. He proposed Shitake, a Japanese edible mushroom as our band’s name just to inspire us to be more useful and good human being. All of us want to participate in making a better world for our community.

Q: Cool! I wish I could have your tunes in my iPod soon. Thanks for coming and I do really have a good conversation with you guys today.

A: You’re welcome. We have a good one with you too.

SHITAKE’s current line up:

Nanda (vocals)
Aan (guitars)
Ryan (bass)
Rama (drums)

Social Media

Facebook : Shitake
Reverbnation: Shitake