After Glastonbury, Indonesia’s Hijab-Clad Metal Band Voice Of Baceprot Set For Bigger Things

By Tria Dianti and Ismira Tisnadibrata

An unlikely trio became Indonesia’s first band to play at the famed Glastonbury Festival of music in England last month.

The band members went to an Islamic junior high school, grew up in a conservative corner of Indonesia and play headbanging heavy metal songs about social justice – oh, they also wear hijabs.

The three metalheads in their 20s are called the Voice of Baceprot (VoB).

They made their Glastonbury debut on June 28 performing a nine-song, 45-minute set at the festival, which is one of the biggest music platforms in the world. And the reviews their performance received were terrific.

Baceprot means noise in the Sundanese language spoken in Indonesia’s West Java province, including the city of Garut where the three women are from. The band’s members are Firda “Marsya” Kurnia, who plays the guitar and sings, Euis Siti Aisyah, who is the drummer, and Widi Rahmawati, who plays the bass. 

They spoke to BenarNews after returning to Indonesia from Glastonbury. Widi admitted the band had pre-show jitters.

“We were nervous before going on stage because we saw only two rows of people in front of us,” she said.

That changed by the time it was their turn to perform – they were the first act on one of the stages on the first day of music at the festival – and a packed crowd greeted them.

The spectators were mostly “intrigued” at first, said one reviewer, adding that “curiosity … visibly morphed into proper excitement 45 minutes later.”

That’s because the Indonesian band demonstrated that its position on stage had nothing to do with the novelty of seeing three hijab-clad women belting out 1980s-style thrash metal, and everything to do with skills, wrote the reviewer forloudersound.com.

“The reasons are clear: firstly all three members of VoB have mastered their instruments way beyond their years, bassist Widi Rahmawati doing a mean impression of Steve Harris, galloping up and down her fretboard with impressive dexterity,” he wrote, referring to the leader of the illustrious band Iron Maiden.

“[E]ven a late-set drum solo, standardly the ultimate momentum killer, by Euis Siti Eisyah, garners huge roars of approval,” he added.

VoB’s songs also managed to convey their themes, despite being sung in Sundanese to an English audience, he wrote.

“This is a band that are passionate about the causes they talk about in their music, and even though there is an obvious language barrier, the eco-friendly and anti-war sentiment seems to hit harder thanks to the unique perspective they bring.”

Another reviewer, atkerrang.com, called VoB at Glastonbury “as joyful to watch as they are commandeering and ferocious.”

The Guardian’s reviewernoted that the band’s “cheerful onstage disposition masks an impressively beefed up brand of old-school metal,” and its members were at ease delivering a “lacerating growl or a clean, soaring pop-metal melody,” as well as “frenetic slap bass riffs.”

Few hardcore metal aficionados would have been surprised.

After all, VoB had been invited to and performed two years ago at the Wacken Open Air heavy metal festival in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany.

The annual music extravaganza is one of the biggest metal events in the world. In 2022, joining the roster of performers with VoB were vaunted metal artists such as Judas Priest, Powerwolf and Slipknot.

As school students in Garut in 2014, VoB’s members didn’t initially set out to play heavy metal.

Their musical journey began with covers of pop songs, but a chance encounter with the music of the Armenian-American heavy metal band System of a Down on their teacher’s laptop stole their breath.

“System of a Down’s [song] ‘Toxicity’ blew us away. The drumming was so complex, I [just] had to learn it,” Siti told BenarNews.

“After that, we became comfortable with heavy metal.”

News reports said that the band members gained national and even some global attention when a video of their composition “The Enemy Of Earth Is You” became wildly popular in 2017. The song is a furious indictment of environmental destruction.

The band’s music is more than just noise. It’s a platform to speak about social and environmental issues close to their hearts, the members said.

Growing up in Garut, they said they witnessed firsthand the struggles of farmers facing unpredictable weather, dwindling water resources and crop failures.

“Women as household managers feel the difficulty of getting water for cooking or washing clothes,” Marsya said.

“They also become victims of domestic violence because their husbands can’t earn a living due to crop failures. In the end, girls have to sacrifice themselves by marrying young to ease the burden on their parents.”

VoB’s lyrics also confront what the band members see as intolerance and the patriarchal norms of the community they grew up in.

Equally, they criticize Western journalists who are focussed on their hijabs, they told popular British publication NME (New Musical Express) in an interview last year. They were on the music magazine’s cover in the first week of August 2023.

“God, Allow Me (Please) to Play Music,” is an example of such a song that slams both sides.

Here’s what they say in “(Not) Public Property,” one of their hit songs – “Thеy are still busy talking ‘bout dressing appropriately. We are forced to abide by unwritten [expletive] rules. And we are tired of things that people say to be good.”

VoB’srise hasn’t been without challenges.

The members initially faced resistance from their conservative families and neighbors, who associated heavy metal with moral decadence, drugs and promiscuity.

Now, the three young women say their parents are among their biggest fans.

Then there were the skeptics.

“Some people said we only get attention because we’re novel,” Marsya said.

“But we practice hard, we pour our hearts into our music. We want people to judge us on our skills, not just our appearance.”

They said they wear the hijab because they are at ease doing so.

“We’re not comfortable when we perform somewhere and people say, ‘Wow, you are cool women wearing hijabs.’ It shifts the focus,” Siti said.

“We’re more comfortable being judged on our musicality.”

Their determination to let their music speak for itself has paid off. VoB’s music and spirit have resonated with a global audience, earning them critical acclaim and a growing fanbase.

Social media endorsements from renowned musicians including Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine and Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers further enhanced VoB’s profile.

But performing at Glastonbury was an unprecedented accomplishment, said Wendi Putranto, music journalist and former editor at Rolling Stone Indonesia magazine.

“This was a historic moment,” Wendi told BenarNews. “No Indonesian musician or band has ever played at a legendary festival like Glastonbury.”

While VoB may not yet be a household name in Indonesia, Wendi said he believed that their Glastonbury performance will help them gain wider recognition.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if they become much bigger after this.”

He said he admired VoB’s talent and determination, noting that the band had honed its heavy metal sound in remote towns with limited resources.

“They defy the idea that metal is just for men or non-religious people,” Wendi said.

“[A]nd they challenge assumptions about Muslim women and their musical tastes.”