Project Pop makes music with a laugh

By Hera Diani

JAKARTA (JP): Who doesn't know who Project Pop is? Unless you are too busy to watch television, you will recognize this ubiquitous sextet as the comedy group du jour.

Project Pop comprises Mochamad Fachroni (Oon), Djoni Permato (Udjo), Hermann Josis Mokalu (Yosi), Wahyu Rudi Astadi (Odie), Gumilar Nurochman (Gugum) and Kartika Rachel Setia Redjeki Panggabean (Tika).

They all went to college together at Bandung's Universitas Katolik Parahyangan, except for Gugum, who graduated from the Universitas Padjadjaran.

After college, the six joined the Bandung-based comedy group P Project, establishing Project Pop five years ago.

"It was aimed at regeneration. People only knew (P Project's) Denny, Iszur or Daan at the time. So P Project felt they had to introduce their 'younger brothers and sisters,'" Udjo told The Jakarta Post last week.

It turned out that Project Pop was not only good for some laughs, but could actually write songs and sing, too. Unlike P Project, which parodied famous hits, Udjo and friends composed their own songs and succeeded in combining pop music with humorous lyrics.

This combination came through in their 1996 debut album Lumpia vs Bakpia (both are traditional snacks) and continued on their second album, Tu, Wa, Ga, Pat (One, Two, Three, Four), which was released earlier this year.

While the first album was something of a flop, the sophomore effort proved a success thanks to the contagious pop tunes and comical, yet witty lyrics.

The Post met with these college buddies, minus Yosi, before the taping of their regular Project Show at Indosiar.

The result was a rollicking interview that sometimes got confusing, with the members of the group showing their willingness to jump in with a joke. But the feeling was not that they were trying to be funny, but that they were just being who they are.

The following is an excerpt of the interview:

Question: Why do you call yourself Project Pop?

Udjo: When we first established the group, it was meant to be a vocal group. And we were singing pop songs. So, even though our songs have Latin touches, or rock, or anything, basically it's pop.

Q: How is your latest album doing?

Tika: You mean Tu Wa Ga Pat? So far so good. It has sold around 150,000 copies, so far. And we are told the sales are continuing to increase, given the promotion and our winning at the MTV awards and all.

Udjo: It's such a surprise that people like it. You see, the first album was not too successful, but it taught us many lessons. On how to produce songs, how to sing and many more.

Tika: We were actually happy just that it was released, because of the monetary crisis and all. We just wanted to offer something different for the music industry.

Q: You guys mentioned once that you did not want to be called comedians...

Udjo: Exactly. We prefer to be called entertainers because "comedian" is too much of a burden for us. It's true that we have a commitment to create, more or less, something with that contains the basics of comedy.

Gugum: Actually, we want to be called freshmakers ... because we want to make everyone fresh (laughs).

Udjo: Well, we just want to shape ourselves as creative people. Or, as Yosi put it, creative entertainers.

Q: What's the most difficult thing about entertaining people?

Udjo: Nowadays, it's very difficult to guess the trends, what people like. So we have to keep creating something new, innovate. Like people said, "Wow, Tika has such a good voice." That's because she was never known as a singer before. She was doing a lot of comedy stuff, but not singing. So those are the kinds of things that we want to explore. We want to be creative through many mediums.

Q: Who comes up with ideas first?

Udjo: All of us. Each of us have his/her own strong points. Like Yosi is basically the concept man, Gugum has this musicality and spontaneity, Tika, because she does a lot of emcee works, is better at gauging the attitude of the audience. But each of us always comes up with something and then we discuss it.

Q: Speaking about salaries, are they good?

Udjo: Our salaries are similar to the legislators' (laughs).

Odie: Salary is a very relative thing, but we can say that it is enough.

Tika: We can cover our own expenses. But when it comes to weddings, of course we still ask our parents (laughs).

Q: Weddings, huh? Any weddings soon?

(A lot of joking and laughing but no answer)

Q: How many job offers do you receive a month?

Oon: At least two. But just like hotels, there is a low season and there is a peak season (laughs). But we still have lots of things to do if there are no jobs. Either with P Project or individual jobs, like emceeing for example.

Q: Do you have any plans to leave P Project?

Udjo: Actually we plan to ask (rock group) Gigi and (pop group) Kahitna to join us (laughs).

Oon: No, we don't have any plans to leave P Project because that's where we come from, where are roots are. P Project itself is not just an organization, but a big family. If there's a conflict, we try to solve it as a family. We have come to the point where we are now because of P Project.

Q: All of you are college graduates, mostly from the Department of International Relations. Do any of you ever feel like you should be in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs instead of making people laugh?

Everyone: Nooo.

Odie: You know something, only five out of 1,000 international relations graduates work at the ministry. The rest of them work at advertising companies, in the media, or even as a magician, like Mr. Robin.

Tika: As for Odie, even if he was a genius he wouldn't be accepted because of his height. Really, there's a height requirement to be a diplomat. Besides, with his style, there's no way he could be one.

Odie: Hey, but maybe I can still work at Unicef.

Gugum: Maybe in WHO. Who are you, I mean (laughs)...

Oon: Anyway, we've been doing this since we were university juniors. So, we've been in this business too long.

Q: What are the prospects in this business?

Oon: Well, the entertainment world never dies, it keeps going on and on. It's us who have to be innovative.

Tika: But if it gets to be time for us to quit, we can do many things in the future.

Udjo: Back to our parents perhaps.

Tika: Going back to school.

Odie: Open Odie Car Wash.

Gugum: Open a business.

Tika: Well, at least we already have the knowledge, either from university or from what we're doing now. We would probably end up working in television, or anything.

Udjo: Or maybe we will become The Jakarta Post's competitor, establish our own newspaper, Project Post (laughs).

Tika: Maybe we won't be diplomats. But it's still possible to be a diplomat's wife.

Q: What about the next album?

Udjo: It won't be exactly new. We're doing remixes and remakes. Some songs are new, the rest are old songs.

Q: There's also a comic project right?

Gugum: Yes, but it's P Project's "project" and we're also in it. It's a parody of the Highlander series called Si Lender. The illustrator is a graduate of the Bandung Institute of Technology's School of Art and Design. It's already being sold in bookstores. So far the response has been quite good.