Fazz: The Theatrical Band’s Latest Album ‘Passage’ is a Story of Growth

Branding themselves a theatrical-pop band, Fazz is a band that does more than just perform- they are master storytellers. With the release of their newest album, Passage, they invite us to join them as they embark on their journey to rediscover their musical direction and where their music will take them.

Embodying what it means to a performer, they adorn costumes and make-up, truly living up to the thespian within themselves. What started out as a four-piece band in 2012, the band has grown tremendously and now comprises of Lynn (Vocals), Ad (Trumpet), Grace (Keys), Jone (Drums), Jason (Trombone), Raja Farouk (Double-bass) and Iz (Trumpet).

Throughout their many years, the band has gone through their fair share of member changes and additions, even changing from a male to a female vocalist. Though their music direction is more or less unchanged, there’s a strong difference in how much growth is apparent in Fazz’s music- All of which results in the evolution of what they bring to the table and of themselves as well.

Quotes

On “Passage” and the unfurling of a journey in the making:

Grace: For the Passage album, how we organized the list of the songs is to tell the story. So when you listen from top to bottom without picking the tracks one by one, you can actually hear what’s going on from top to bottom.

On their latest single, “Cheshire Cat”:

Lynn: When we wrote that song, we didn’t really target the wonderland concept. It was just, I guess it’s what we face or what I face personally going through this limbo of not knowing of what’s coming up next and the complexity of emotions and the states of mind.

Lynn: I think this song is to embrace yourself and embrace what you go through and what you went through and you know, all about being crazy or like really cuckoo, like “Hi, I’m cuckoo”. It’s that kind of song where you sing and you release and accept yourself.

On Valhalla and its initial implications:

Raja Farouk: The story of Valhalla was actually for the GE13 actually!

Raja Farouk: In Norse mythology, there is this metaphor where people want to go to the Valhalla because it became like heaven, the place to be, the place you want to go. Eventually, throughout the story, we told a tale of people wandering in the desert for being alive. It’s about how even in Valhalla, it’s not as pretty as it seems.

Raja Farouk: We wanted to name it ‘Syurga’, but we didn’t want to be called a nasyid band – R.F.B

On Theatrical Pop as genre and self (band) discovery:

Raja Farouk: Theatrical has always been our direction to look at.

Grace: We have been told that when the audience watched our shows, it does look like it’s a show, it’s not just a band performing.

Grace: We have no idea what to call ourselves when it comes to genres, so we just stuck to theatrical pop for a while. It is to allow others to understand who we are, but it doesn’t really define everything about us.

On the importance of incorporating Malaysian influence into their sounds:

Farouk: One of my dreams is to actually to play on an international stage to perform a full set of Bahasa Malaysia songs.

Farouk: Sudirman himself was playing for a show in London. He was representing Malaysia for a particular show, he was doing a full set of Bahasa Malaysia songs and when he was done the people were shouting encore, and he replied “if you want to hear more, come to my country. I’ll show you our hospitality.”

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Featured image source: Seven Pie http://sevenpie.com/fazz-malaysian-musical-indie-band-fuses-theatrical-broadway-with-modern-day-poetry/