The sounds of Indonesian indie music hit Toronto on March. 20.
Reality Club, an indie rock band with members born primarily in Indonesia, stopped at Velvet Underground for their latest tour promoting the album Reality Club Presents.
Formed in 2016 out of a shared passion for music, the band has spent the last eight years creating music together. With three albums, they’ve amassed more than 2.3-million listeners on Spotify.
“The biggest achievement for us is just making these albums because we started in a bedroom. One-bedroom musicians, with the simple desire of making an album so when we go driving our cars, we can listen to our own songs,” explains Faiz Novascotia Saripudin, the band’s vocalist and guitarist.
The album has deeply resonated with their global fanbase, earning the band two Anugrah Musik Indonesia awards for best alternative album and best alternative group in 2023.
Inspiration for the album came from cinema and theatre, with everything from their social media aesthetic to their music videos and lyrics aiming to be cinematic.
While they draw inspiration from artists like John Misty and Arctic Monkeys, movies remain their primary influence.
“We have a cowboy song inspired by the game Red Dead Redemption and a musical-like song influenced by La La Land,” explains Fathia Izzati, vocalist, and keyboard player. “The underlying message of the songs is that they’re all basically a love story. Some songs are about heartbreak. Some songs are about trying to explore more about love. Some songs are about betrayal. So basically, we have a quote for this album, that is: ‘every love story deserves its own movie, and every movie has its own soundtrack.’ So that’s where our songs come in.”
Their success led to their first North American tour, from March. 3 to 22, covering nine cities across Canada and the U.S., including Toronto.
The highlight of the tour for Izzati was meeting fans in person and experiencing different cities.
“It’s been super fun. We’ve been on the road, we get to explore places that we would have never explored if we weren’t on the road with the band. And we’ve met fans. It’s really nice to put a face on them because all this time in Indonesia, we always see the statistics from Spotify or Apple Music. Oh, we have fans in North America, but not actually seeing them in person. It’s like wow, you’re real. It’s been really nice,”
In Toronto, the show at Velvet Underground was met with early arrivals and fans bringing flowers, a testament to the mutual excitement.
