Start Listening To: Vegtable

Singapore trio Vegtable talk embracing empty space, finding inspiration in Acetone and stripping everything back on their second album Hit By A Car.

In a Singapore guitar scene dominated by math-rock, metal and emo, Vegtable occupy a much quieter corner. Made up of Dan, Jeriel and Shen-en, the trio make sparse, slow-moving indie-rock built around repetition, restraint and the idea that sometimes the most interesting thing a musician can do is simply not play.

That philosophy sits at the heart of their second album, Hit By A Car. Named after the strangely anticlimactic sight of a friend slowly cycling into a car, the record finds Vegtable stripping things back and resisting the temptation to push every song towards some grand conclusion. We caught up with the trio to talk making music in Singapore, recording in Geylang, finding inspiration in Acetone and why doing less can sometimes say much more.

For those unfamiliar with your music, can you tell us who you are, where you’re from and about the music you make?

Dan: Jeriel, Shen-en and I are Vegtable from Singapore and we make slow/sparse indie-rock (call it slowcore if you want)

Singapore’s guitar scene seems to lean heavily towards math-rock, metal and emo. Was Vegtable consciously formed as a reaction to everything happening around you?

Dan: I don’t think it was conscious because we also play in other loud/fast bands, but a few years back I stumbled upon Acetone at a time when I really needed to hear it. I got obsessed and wanted to find a medium to express playing guitar the same way Mark Lightcap of Acetone does. I realised after we started playing shows that no one sounded like us locally/regionally. Maybe this wave hasn’t caught on here yet because our scene was also pretty late to the shoegaze revival. It’s funny though because whenever it’s our turn to play at a mixed line-up, I feel like we immediately bring down whatever energy was brought up by the previous acts so I’m grateful we even still get invited hahahaha

You set yourselves the challenge of largely avoiding references to music released after 2000. Where did that rule come from, and has restricting yourselves actually made you more creative?

Dan: I get overwhelmed pretty fast so narrowing things down helps a lot with making decisions quickly (in general, not just creatively), especially in this digital age where everything is possible. Whenever I interact with a thing (art/object/music) I always wonder what was the source/inspiration so I rather go to that first before seeing the reactions/responses. It also helps me appreciate even more the things that come out from the source.

Hit By A Car takes its name from Daniel watching a friend very slowly crash his bike into a car. What made that strangely anticlimactic accident feel like the right image for the record?

Dan: To me the record is about how we’re all just running around doing a bunch of stuff that we think is important and getting lost in it but we don’t realise the slow build-up underneath of a breakdown, that maybe we’re not tuned to because we’re focused on other things. Could be systemic, societal or personal/inner. Because slowly crashing your bike into a car wasn’t actually like a 10min thing, but more like years of micro-decisions that have led to this moment and it goes both ways for the crasher and the crashee.

There’s a similar feeling of something almost happening throughout the album, with songs built around anticipation, repetition and empty space. How difficult is it to make music that deliberately does less without it becoming boring?

Dan: With my previous bands, the relationship with music/songwriting was to get to a certain place in the songs (“intro” to “climax”?) but I realised that you’re actually already there when it starts and I wanted to hone in on that, like being okay with emptiness and unease if that’s what the song wants to be. And I always think musically too, where is “going” and what is “place”? It’s all just sounds. I also don’t want to stay in things too long, so I deliberately avoid songs being longer than 4min. We even went so far as removing more layers/sections that made things feel more grand just to really narrow down what’s essential to whatever we’re trying to make. Love writing with Shen-en too because he always wants to reduce whenever he can (sometimes not even play) which feels pretty rare to find in a drummer

Jeriel joined during the making of Hit By A Car after originally meeting the band while interning on your first album. How much did bringing a new person into the band change the way this record developed?

Dan: Jeriel was working at the studio where we were recording our previous record (where we also did this new one). When we found out she was studying electronic music, we knew we had to ask her to join us to play the synthesizer live. She eventually started showing us demos of songs she wrote and it felt so refreshing and nice to have new input because she’s a lot more into the modern stuff that we were kinda out of touch with. When we parted ways with our ex-bassist/vocalist Bo, I think we were joking around that Jeriel should learn the bass but she actually did and in like 2 months we were off to working on the next album. She gives us a fresh perspective from how we initially used to do things, and it’s cool she opens us up a lot more.

Jeriel: joining the band felt kind of crazy because it felt like I was just an intern at the studio and then I blinked and now I play bass for the band. Beforehand I had only enjoyed listening to this genre of music and never have attempted to write songs adjacent to Vegtable’s style, so I’m glad the band was open in accepting my music writing, mixing, recording, and bass skills. From what I see the way the band works has been so much more streamlined since we’re all pretty simple people.

You’ve suggested playing a Charlie Chaplin film over ‘Phone Calls’ as a way of explaining what you wanted from the bass. What are some of the stranger non-musical references that ended up shaping Hit By A Car?

Dan: We’re not musically literate at all (semantics-wise), except for our drummer Shen-en who plays jazz, so we had to come up with all sorts of descriptions to tell each other what we had in our head. Not strange per se but we would reference objects, people we know (imagine [insert] as a rhythm), hypothetical scenarios like “what if you had it all today then you lose it the next day”. I’m not sure if we really get what each other is saying, but it’s cool to see how it’s interpreted.

Jeriel: I think it kind of clicked in my head one day (when the band was in the process of discussing music video ideas casually) after watching a random charlie chaplin film on silent with my friends and thought “wow phone calls would go crazy on this like a music video”. It brought me back to when my friend Marco (who plays in a grunge revival/alternative rock band named Bellied Star) was obsessed and kept trying to prove this one online urban legend “dark side of the rainbow” where essentially people argued that Pink Floyd's 1973 album The Dark Side of the Moon synchronizes with the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. There was a phase where they wouldn’t stop playing the film synced to the album on repeat just to subtly prove their point to me. Besides, I feel that charlie chaplin’s demeanour fits the song very well. But I think that’s honestly just me.

You recorded the album at PK Records in Singapore’s red-light district, somewhere you’ve described as feeling like a different universe from the rest of the city. Did the atmosphere of that area find its way into the record at all?

Dan: I would say so because it’s usually orderly-looking (orchestrated by the powers that be) or like industrial so not a lot of stimuli but Geylang Road is vibrant, chaotic, packed, full of life, you feel the age/wear in the buildings and people and it’s split in the middle by never ending traffic with a wide road that you have to run across and hope you don’t get run over if you wanna go to the 7-11 (or you can wait for the traffic light). I’m definitely romanticising here but it feels nice to be in a place that’s organic and real in extremely-sanitised Singapore, which influences us subconsciously because we go through it to get to the studio or we go through it when we head out to take a break etc. PK Records as a space is a godsend too because it’s also our third-space a lot of bands hang-out at, so the whole thing just feels like a creative enclave.

Hit By A Car arrives pretty quickly after last year’s Through The Motions. What did you learn from making the debut that you deliberately wanted to do differently the second time around?

Dan: The previous record was more on the emotional side because of how Bo is and the way he writes his parts, and it was also kind of a recording project that we wanted to sound like it was from a certain period of time (late 90s early 2000s). But with our new line-up for this upcoming record, I wanted us to come from a place of detachment. External, rather than internal? If that makes sense. Definitely embraced modern technology too (hahahaha) with how we recorded and how it was mixed. Super smooth because of the way Jeriel works (she mixed it) and she’s really fast with decisions.

Jeriel: I didn't want to play into any “stereotype” of music or mixing technique. I helped here and there with the first record, and watching Bo work on it I realised that he was really playing into one kind of archetype while making decisions and being intentional about his work. I wanted to apply a bit of my own “here, there and everywhere” music and recording/mixing experience and style onto the record, making the album more versatile in terms of style.

What do you love right now?

Dan: I just recently got into the concept of hanging out without a real purpose (not at a show/event/etc). I used to be in a rush to get things over with so I can go home and work on things but I realised it’s all pointless and the real meaning is connection with others and also just having fun…

Jeriel: Honestly just being real for my home girls and boys, showing up for friends when it matters, and getting real good at 8 ball pool.

What do you hate right now?

Dan: Advertisements, product placements, corporate sponsorships

Jeriel: terrible time management, soldering, bodily injuries, inauthenticity

Name an album you’re still listening to from when you were younger and why it’s still important to you?

Dan: Ramones ‘Rocket To Russia’. I thought it was cheesy as hell when I first heard it when I was young, but I don’t know why there was a pull to keep revisiting it and all their other records until eventually it all just clicked and I realised that the Ramones is absolute genius, pure shot of pop with no nonsense just straight to the soul.

When someone hears your music for the first time, what do you hope sticks with them?

Dan: That there was something in there that they couldn’t totally put their finger on, but can kinda get it in the way of how it felt.

Jeriel: I hope that we could spark conversations or make lasting impressions on our overall approach to the music we put out. In the mix and songwriting aspect that is.