CURB: Moving Forward

We recently got to hear ‘Nothing’ by Singaporean emo band CURB, the first single taken from their forthcoming EP ‘benjapes!’ It’s 3-minutes of unyielding, emo-inspired, alt rock aural pleasure that’s well worth pouring in your earholes. 

This latest EP is the follow up to their critically well-received 2023 debut – ‘Hope You’re Doing Well, Michaela’ – and showcases a more mature but no less visceral CURB. 

The band comprises longtime friends Sam Venditti on bass, Lucas Tee on guitar, and Farizi Noorfauzi on drums, with the boys sharing vocal duties.

Hailing from Singapore, CURB's reputation and following have already spread far beyond the confines of the Southeast Asian city-state, with the band’s latest release being handled by noted Californian independent Slang Church. 

We were fortunate to be sent an advance copy of the new EP – released today – and it bangs! Each track delivers. It’s a raw, relentless and deeply satisfying collection of songs you should definitely check out. Wanting to know more, we had a chat with the band.

What's the story behind the new EP? Does Singapore have an emo scene? What does benjapes mean? Find out in our exclusive interview. 

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Please describe CURB for anyone who hasn’t heard you yet. 

CURB – We’ve been struggling to define the sound for ourselves too, just because we kinda write whatever we want.

We didn't set out to be an emo or post-hardcore band – the most common associations we get – we just write whatever we think is cool and whatever we wanna hear ourselves.

We just try to be as honest as possible. If we ever feel like we’re doing something that isn’t CURB, or not an accurate representation of who we are or how we feel, we can tell pretty quickly.

That’s not to say other bands don’t come off as honest, but I think the intentionality of it comes through in the music we make.   

How did the band start? 

We’re a pandemic band. We were already friends for a long time before the band started. Just as we decided to start writing songs, Covid hit and lockdown started. The timing was pretty shit. 

We just started making demos and sending them to each other over Telegram. Although we scrapped a lot of those initial songs, it ended up being the launchpad to us releasing our first LP: ‘Hope You’re Doing Well, Michaela.’ 

Naming a band is famously a nightmare. Tell us about yours.

We used to spend a lot of time sitting at the side of the road, just hanging out, whether it was having a couple drinks or just goofing off. It’s really not profound, unfortunately. We just spent a lot of time on curbs. 

Lift the lid on your new EP: ‘benjapes!’ Is a there a common theme to the songs? 

There wasn’t one when we first set out writing all the songs. As it came together, we realised there was a common underlying theme of change and moving forward. 

Benjapes is a Thai philosophy that at the age of 25 you experience more bad luck and trials and tribulations. It resonated with us as we were all around 25 when writing these songs.

Writing these songs felt like finally getting a huge breath of air after holding your breath underwater for too long.

There’s catharsis and a sense of hope in moving forward, with no disdain for the past. It’s more like, ok, that was a thing, now let’s move on. 

How does it compare to your previous releases? 

It feels a little more confident in what it is. When we were writing it, it seemed like we knew for sure how everything needed to sound for it to work 

Our previous LP was just a collection of songs, basically, that were more thematically disparate. It felt a little like we had no idea what we’re doing – maybe we still don’t! – but it definitely feels more solid now than it did for the LP. 

We love ‘Nothing’. Please tell us how you came to write it and what it's about.

Writing ‘Nothing’ was pretty smooth. It was one of the last songs we wrote for the EP. We had enough time to soak in the general vibe of ‘benjapes!’. 

It’s about being able to move forward in life, but still holding on to what you value and always valued. That can be tricky because we tend to bring along other feelings. like being jaded or resentment for certain things. The song is about navigating that. 

Where did you record the EP? 

We recorded at PK Records which is the same place we rehearse and hang out a lot of the time. Our good friends from PK, Ian Lee and Zhang Bo, helped to engineer the recordings. This EP literally wouldn’t exist without them. 

We recorded the instrumentals completely live, with no click, inspired in part by how some of our favourite records were made, I guess in the spirit of being honest and real.

We spent about two days getting the instrumentals together, and then another couple of days putting down vocals and adding layers. 

The first single’s out and the EP's about to drop. How are you feeling? 

We started writing it sometime in September of last year, so we’re super psyched to have it finally get put out into the world.

There is a sense of nervousness about the reception as it is a slight departure sonically from the LP, but we also set out to just write the music that we want to write, so we don’t focus on that too much. 

We hate doing the whole rollout phase of putting out music, just because it’s doing a bunch of stuff that isn’t music, so we’re both relieved and excited that it’s almost out.  

How do you write your songs? Tell us your process. 

All of us can play each other’s instruments, to a degree, so ideas can really come from anyone and in whatever form, whether it’s a riff or a groove or a lyrical idea.

That’s normally the starting point, and then we bring it into the studio and figure it out together, which is where an idea really starts to become a CURB thing more than Sam’s idea or Rizi’s idea. 

No one is really the lead songwriter, but normally the person that came up with the idea has a rough guide of how he wants it to sound. It’s more a guiding thought than a ‘my way or the highway’ kinda deal. 

What it’s like being in CURB? What's the dynamic in the band? 

We’ve described CURB as the perfect democracy, just because everything seems to fall into place pretty naturally. No one person is the emails guy, or the never on time guy. We just lean on each other’s strengths and fill in the gaps where necessary.  

It definitely helps that we’ve been friends for a really long time now, so all expectations have been set and we can just be honest with each other.

Generally, we all kinda like to keep to ourselves and make music or do stuff that’s fun and rewarding for us, like bouldering, fishing or watching good films. I don’t think we’re super interesting people, actually. 

Please tell us about the EMO scene in Singapore. 

Singapore is a tiny country – you can literally drive from east to west in about an hour – so, obviously, the independent music community is tiny too.

There isn’t really an emo community per se – everyone’s tastes are pretty diverse – so you’ll see the same people at indie shows as you will at emo shows, or hardcore shows, which we think is super awesome.  

But it has been growing pretty steadily. Now there are so many new kids that show up and are there for the music. It’s sick to get to see the community grow right in front of our eyes. We hope it keeps happening.

What’s been the band’s biggest highlight so far? 

Getting to play Joyland Festival in Jakarta was a big deal for us. Super sick to play on the same lineup as bands like Squid, The Beths, Otoboke Beaver, Fleet Foxes. and dope Indonesian acts like Gabber Modus Operandi, Dongker, Grrl Gang, and Leipzig, to name a few. 

The response we’ve gotten from the people here in Singapore is still pretty wild to us. Our music is so personal and anecdotal that it’s like, why do you guys even care?

It’s been super awesome to just have kids at the shows go crazy, shouting the words back at us. It’s more than we can ask for, to be honest. 

Thanks for answering our questions. Before we wrap up, is there anyone you want to thank? 

So many! Thanks to Jared Lim for mixing and mastering. He plays in this sick band called Sobs. Do check them out.

Huge thanks to Ishan, Billy and the rest of the Slang Church team, all the way from the Bay in California, for helping us release the EP on tape. They do awesome work for their community and are just the best guys ever. 

We also wanna thank Divided We Fall for helping to release our stuff locally. Also, much love to the boys in New Mongrels for helping us with the digital release.  

Final shoutouts to Mary Sue for reaching out and hopping on the first song, and Taufiq Rahman for shooting all the sick photos for this release. We owe these guys everything!

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► ︎‘Nothing' by CURB is streaming now on Apple Music, Spotify, Bandcamp and elsewhere.