Their most recent video came out a few weeks ago, so here’s your chance to check it out and find out more about Jahat…
Simple things first – where are you guys from?
We are from the city Tilburg in the south of the Netherlands.
How did you meet?
We have known each other a long time from previous bands and the local bar scene. Some of us even go back much longer and grew up together.
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How long have you been playing as a band?
As Jahat we have been playing together for 2 years now. We have spent the previous years making the band ready. Working on a full setlist and practicing endlessly. Also we have been preparing for live shows, getting our equipment ready to go and building our own monitoring system.
Before you get sick of being asked… where does the band name come from?
The name Jahat has its origin in the Malay language where it means “evil, bad, wicked”. In general a meaning for a negative trait. 3 of our members have Indonesian ancestors. We really liked the simplicity but also the broad meaning and the sounding of the name.
What are your influences?
Our influences come from all the kinds of metal that we liked and still like. For instance we have influences from nu-metal to death metal, black metal and industrial etc.. As long as we can make it bounce and energetic. Not really one band or genre stands out in this for us.
Describe your music. What makes you unique?
We are not trying to be unique. But as explained before we like to grab influences from all kinds of different styles of metal. Just combine everything we really like ourselves. I like to joke that our music is a style that Nu-metal could have become if it developed in another way than it did.
Do you have any particular lyrical themes?
We don’t write about one theme but rather about our personal frustrations, worries and experiences. For instance our second single “Fermin Didot” was about the overkill of news and how hard it has become to get to the truth. Our current single Four Walls is about the mother of our singer (Jeremy) who is dealing with mental illness and fighting this battle every day.
What’s your live show like? How many shows have you played?
Since we have started performing live in januari this year, due to the Covid19 pandemic, we actually only had one chance to play live. We did a try-out show in a local club in Tilburg. But we did do a couple of live-streamed performances from the studio and from our rehearsal room. One thing I can tell is that our live shows will be very energetic and we like to make it into a big party. While the lyrics are mostly about negative aspects, during the liveshows we just want to celebrate and have a great time together with everyone who wants to join is to do so.
What’s the wildest thing you’ve seen or done at a live show?
A couple of situations come to mind. But the wildest I remember was seeing Meshuggah live for the first time at the Dynamo open air festival. I was a big fan of their album “Destroy, Erase, Improve”. But I had no idea what to expect live or even what they looked like. So when they started their show I was really blown away by the energy of the band. And still performing an ultra-tight set. They really raised for me that day.
What kit do you use / guitars do you play / etc.?
I play my Cort signature guitars which I got when I played in My Favorite Scar. I got the chance to design them myself and they still are everything I want in a guitar.
Our other guitar player plays on Schecter guitars, which sound really good with my guitars. Our bass player plays Status basses. The ones with headstock and wooden necks. They sound amazing right away. In the recordings I haven’t changed anything on the sound in the mixing phase. It was already perfect.
We don’t use amps since we play with in-ears and wanted our backline to be as compact as possible. For guitars we use Kemper profiling amps, bass uses a Line6 basspod pro.
As for drums we use Ddrum kits with Amedia cymbals. And vocal mics we use sE electronics exclusively.
What, if anything, are you plugging/promoting at the moment?
We just released our third single, called “Four Walls”. For our first two singles Jeremy (vocalist) made lyric videos, but for this one we shot our own video for the first time. We are a real diy band. So it made sense to try this as well. We did our own recordings, mixing and mastering. Now we’ve also done our own filming and editing.
What are your plans for the next 6 months or so?
We hope that we can finally start playing live shows for a real audience. In the meanwhile we will be working towards releasing a full album. We have recorded most of our songs already and need to record the last couple of songs for a full album. But mostly getting out there and connect with likeminded people and other bands.
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If you were second on a three-band bill, which band would you love to be supporting and which band would you choose to open for you? A chance to plug someone you’ve toured with, or a mate’s band we’ve not heard of before!
Well to be honest I think we just want to play. I have already had the chance to open up for so many great bands. And we have so many great bands of friends of ours which we want to play with that it is impossible to choose. As long as we can have a great time together, we are in for any three-band bill. Maybe a travelling festival would be a better option..
