Nepal D.I.Y. Punk Kills You: An interview with Rai Ko Ris (Part One)

I've finally done it!  This interview has been a long time coming, and I'm pleased to share its sprawling magnificence with all of you, dear dear readers, in two badly formatted, yet nonetheless special, parts.

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The Himalayan country of Nepal, squeezed between the rapidly developing nations of China and India, home of Everest and the Yeti, was until recently completely cut off from the rest of the world. But hey now, that doesn't mean that it's an uneventful place. Witness the Nepali Royal Family Massacre of 2001, a Hamlet-esque orgy of violence that culminated with the deaths of the King and Queen and seven other relatives at the heavily armed hands of the Prince; experience the horror of the bloody and contentious civil war of '96-'06, which resulted in thousands of deaths, displacements, and general bad feelings; and taste the fury of agrarian society fighting a battle for survival against the dreaded juggernaut of Progress.   

It's a hit in my house, anyway.

Fortunately, the ups and downs of this dizzying upheaval have been placed into clear context by the one-hit-kills gut-punching rock unit of Rai Ko Ris. Full time parents, as well as face melting post-anarcho-motorikpunk revolutionaries, Sareena Rai and Olivier Bertin are kind of like the Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore of Asia, but without the hipster smugness or top ten college rock hits. 

Sareena spent her formative years in the U.K. during the Thatcher years, where she was versed equally in punk rock and late 20th century Western consumer culture and its persistent overtones of racism and sexism ("Where do you think you are now? Oh little brown girl so out of town" --On the Bus in the U.K.). In high school, she formed Skinhead Barbie; later, the "canto-punk" duo Bruce Lee.

Finding her way back home to Nepal, she and French expat Olivier created a musical project which was known as Juto, Magic Scooter, Jajarcot Massacre, and finally (kind of) Rai Ko Ris. In addition to self-recording and releasing a multitude of albums under the RKR moniker, they have performed and recorded as the post-riot-grrl thrash punk outfit Tank Girl and reggae/ska saboteurs Naya Faya. They organize and play regular gigs, raise a family, run an infoshop & bookstore, in addition to getting involved with their community in ways that are incomprehensible to the rest of us cowboys and yahoos. So put down your iPad, set your fucking g.p.s. camera phone to silent, get your thumbs out of your ears and pay attention.

Rai Ko Ris is a really fucking good band.

The Little Black Egg will begin with the most cliched of all music interview questions: What are some bands that have influenced you over the years, both musically and politically?

Olivier: Many, but to name few: the Minutemen, Fugazi, Crass, Inner Terrestrials, Kasi Sayang, Inferno, Kortatu, Frank Zappa, the Krays, Harum Scarum, Ya Basta, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Itsukas Over Disneyland.

Sareena: Politically and socially wise, the consistency of the DC bands and Ian Mckaye and friends’ ethic helps us not to feel on an island alone. Anti Product, Bikini Kill/Le Tigre and all the female bands and musicians that ever blasted away all those long haired metal dudes that i thought were gods when i was a kid – when i discovered The Slits, Thee Headcoats, The Raincoats, Throwing Muses, Babes in Toyland, I was a little bit feeling crap for idolising only male bands for so long. Musically, after my pre-teen metal phase in the 80’s, I liked the grunge era as well as Sonic Youth’s sonic sounds; early R.E.M, all that...Pavement, The Breeders...I love all that stuff and STILL listen to them all...even tho half the tapes are mouldy and squeaking. I have too many bands to mention after this phase...but basically those politically active, anti sexist d.i.y bands put music and politics into perspective for me later. Better late than never.

 Himalayan Frostbite 7" back cover

TLBE: What sort of music do you listen to when you finally get to sit down and relax at home? Any bands that you listen to currently that you think deserve wider attention?

O: Lots of different stuff. But nothing beats when I listen to the bands we’ve been sharing the stage with while on tours. One band we haven’t met yet, Itsukas over Disneyland, a band from the Philippines who we have not had the pleasure. Just email pals.

S: Right now I’m listening to Dinosaur Jr. Oops, don’t think they need wider attention! The French band Ya Basta totally gets me going....militant lefty ska punk...inspires me to continue our ska band Naya Faya. I love the guitar playing of Sleater-Kinney...they do twin guitars better than Iron Maiden, so how come they didn’t get as much attention world wide? Steel Pulse. Mmm. Good band. So many bands. When this question comes up i always forget the list that I’ve been making in my head. A guy called Marc who calls himself One Man Nation from Singapore who does noisescapes...he is frightening, he is good. The guitarist of Vialka, Eric is like a guitar/bass hero for me. The drummers of Bhaktapur (medieval town outside Kathmandu)...my drum teachers there are all rockers. Black Sabbath would feel embarrassed in front of them. We both love the bands we met on tour though – Inferno from Rome, Mossuraya are so good – from Switzerland; women in Ze Revengers from France; I’m getting old and I forget everything.

Tank Girl CD Insert.

TLBE: It's sort of comforting to know that such a highly-developed musical entity could exist and even thrive in such an isolated environment. Do you think a lack of outside pressure has allowed you to do your own thing without having to compromise your message?

O: Yes, very much. But also the fact that for us the armed struggle of the farmers here from 1996-2007 was something very, very intense which the band sort of grew up with; a situation where we had to take a stand, especially being in the capital where almost everybody was either against the farmers (who were challenging their capitalists’ heaven) or at best didn’t give a damn about all the atrocities going on all over the country...

S: ...or didn’t go out of their way to find out. Hey, i'm not sure about the 'highly developed musical project' part....ha ha! In the early years we really did try (maybe too hard) to talk a lot about d.i.y and doing things collectively with other bands here, to try to get them doing things on a more socially responsible level, but it backfired on us and other bands thought it all too serious and almost hated us for it. Understandable, because it's alien for young middle class and rich city kids in Kathmandu (or anywhere. kids today...-ed) to want to really take any responsibility. So in that way, we had no scene and felt alone, and despite being alone, we just continued our thing, just the two of us. As a result we might have gained a lot of respect from it in the long run, for sticking to our guns for so long and maybe being the only band in this regard in Nepal.

The first vinyl record ever made in Nepal?

TLBE: Have you received any sort of attention from the "outside world"?

S: It’s hardly attention! One punk or activist person emailing us every three months, one visitor every so often travelling through. It seems, though, that there are more punks travelling than before, and more opportunities to connect because of internet. It's more a case of developing interesting new friendships with similar politics. People are mainly surprised that we exist and do what we do despite our ages! (we’re getting older but scarily more into what we do as it goes). 
 
O: We were invited last year to play in a “sub-culture” festival in Denmark with plane tickets and all expenses paid plus money for the gigs we did. That was quite a surprise, until we found out that one or two people involved in the artistic direction happened to be in the punk scene. We had some internal discussion between both of us whether to do it or not, because it was not really a politically motivated event; but we decided to do it because the people seemed genuine and it gave us a chance to tour rest of Europe after the festival as well. We even had to go on a mainstream tv news program and be interviewed by a leftist newspaper in Denmark...that was weird. Later we went on to tour part of Europe playing in squats and community centres and we were surprised to be so well received and seemed like people kind of appreciate our music and lyrics. They were just as surprised as we were.

S:  I’m not so interested in westerners who are just fascinated by brown dudes with Mohicans regurgitating Dead Kennedys or Casualties – brown dudes who don’t really give two shits about the girl raped in their neighborhood. Sometimes the ‘orientalist’ perspective in punk is just a cool photo story to tell fellow western punks back home: ‘hey I went and got trashed with some punks in Kathmandu and heard three different bands in one gig play the same Rancid song over & over’. It's like a postcard of brown people imitating western subculture, like when they see coca cola written in Arabic and want to take the can home as a souvenir. So I’m not surprised by the attention in that touristic way.  I’m surprised when people are genuinely liking the music of Rai Ko Ris. That totally surprises me. There are so many good bands in the world.....Punks are everywhere now, like coca cola. But they're different types than us. We aren’t one thing, as you know, just like back home. There are so many assholes in the punk scene, even in Asia, even in Nepal.

"The Relevance of Anarchism"

TLBE: I remember about ten years ago seeing a show at a place called ABC No RIO in New York City.  The rest of the kids there were about 14 years old and sloppy drunk on 40oz,  shouting for Misfits songs and grabbing the microphone. That's the first memory that popped into my head when you described the state of the scene that has sprung up in Nepal. Is that kind of how it is, sort of an unfocused adolescent rebellion, fueled by violence and alcohol?

O: Yes, like “let's get trashed, fuck everything and have fun”. But we don’t really get carried away thinking about it, we are pretty busy at doing things that matter to us, so we don’t have energy to spend on thinking or criticizing people that are insignificant in their actions. It just gives a bad name to “punk” here, no big deal.

S: I think it’s ok, as long as I’m not there! Ha ha! I think it’s kind of sad that some bands mistake our distance from this aspect of punk as us being elitist or mainstream or something. I just want to say once and for all, getting totally shit faced and swearing really loudly and pushing everyone really hard ‘til they hurt themselves just does not relate to my own personal feelings about what it means for me when I say ‘fuck you, I’m punk and that’s what I am’. But as Olivier kind of states above, there are bigger fish to fry out there in this fucked up world than chaos punks! I wish they’d realize the same when they attack us for avoiding such punk gatherings.

Nepal Ko Katha Haru Lyric Sheet

I’ve been in a beautiful situation where people were drinking but weren’t shit faced; where people were dancing against each other but in this really elated trance that was far from violent; where men and women were jumping together and bodies were touching one another but in a way where girls were not feeling unsure or unsafe – we were all just dancing together to the sounds of a punk band in Denmark. I did not once feel threatened – in fact, two tall women were behind me smiling and were ready to gently push anyone with a smile who might hurt me by mistake. I have yet to experience that again. It’s not quite that here yet. Maybe there’s just too much drugs and alcohol and sexual frustration. In fact, the whole Nepali boys hardcore or punk scene is fuelled probably by sexual frustration. That’s why i don’t blame women for feeling a little scared in it. Probably was the same in the hardcore scene in the 80’s in USA. Did you see any of those documentaries that recently came out about hardcore or punk? A lot of testosterone. That’s what’s being imitated here, but badly. Now there are movies about it, it kind of legitimizes Nepali boys’ punk motivations. I can only speak about all this in my perspective as a girl, a woman. I am not out to judge anybody – just to say how i’ve felt all along and that is why I choose to avoid being in certain scenes or situations.

Internationally, though,  we definitely do belong to ‘a scene’ – any old band from anywhere in the world can’t just go touring the punk circuit as you know, unless your politics are halfway right. If they’re not, people in our d.i.y conspiracy pretty quickly will find out that you are just macho or fascist or just spoilt rich brats using this network for a stepping stone to go major. I mean, people ultimately can do what they want and it's fine, but we personally feel comfortable in the underground socio-political music scene as opposed to the other options, and in so doing, we make a lot of like minded friends all across the world through this ‘scene’.

Back of Nepal Ko Katha Haru CD sleeve.

TLBE: Sareena, I understand you spent many of your formative years in an English boarding school. Is that where you were first introduced to punk rock? What sort of reaction did you have to your sudden immersion in western capitalism?

S: We (there were two other Nepali girls with me in the school) thought that white people’s crap never smelled bad like ours did, and that their excrement was white in color too. Ha ha!! Oh capitalism is so widespread, I encountered it way before boarding school – i was actually born in Hong Kong because my father was serving as a mercenary in the British army for many years.

The shocks were more about how people behaved – the culture thing. I stayed with some (white) friends and i saw their parents walk around naked going from one room to another. I was like, yikes, these people don’t know i’m here. But they did. And kids behaved so badly towards elders...no regard. Talked to them like shit. I thought that was weird and scary. People didn’t share their chocolates or chips so easily as we did...i don’t know. We shared answers during exams; cheating was like, no big deal. My white friends never wanted to share info during these times, like they took that stuff so seriously. We didn’t have the attitude, but learnt it as soon as we realised ‘we are on our own in this crazy life’ (that’s what they teach you in school in the west. Not so much here.)

Sareena & fog.

I was lucky, in my teens i went often to meet a cousin brother who was older than me, who was already squatting round London and was an anti war activist in the anarchist circle. (He later wrote books on the Iraq war and about Noam Chomsky’s politics). I went to some demonstrations, saw the activist life in action, saw another life that was hidden from my upright, bourgeois British education: equality of sexes, living alternative to the dictated system. I must have been 16 when my brother blasted Crass’ ‘Beg Your Pardon’ on his LP player. Something shook deep inside of me when i saw him pogo round the tiny squatted living room on his own, jumping wildly while I just sat and nodded my head to the music, thinking what is that? That affected me years later. There was another way to live.

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Thus concludes part one of our exclusive Rai Ko Ris interview.  Please return soon for part two, fellows, and you will be informed about all the things that you need to be informed about, forever and ever.