Future's so bright for indie pop sweethearts Postbox

Anyone who said teenagers are a pessimistic bunch should talk to Ahmad Ariff. The 18-year-old guitarist of Postbox is looking at the future of Singapore music, yet while countless others might choose to mope at its lack of mainstream support or widespread quality, he’s got nothing but gushing praise and fluorescent hope for it.

“I think it's expanding and improving like never before,” he says. “I mean, there are definitely a lot more great bands today as compared to, say, five years ago. We also see that there is a demand for local acts. People are more willing to pay good money to watch good bands play. Hopefully in years to come, S$15 won’t be a big issue for ticket price for a good gig anymore, and people would be more willing to pay good money to watch a good local gig.”

Such positivity is borderline creepy. Yet it says plenty about Ariff and his merry mates. Postbox’s average age is 18 and a smidgen, with only drummer Noradzuan bin Hussein (Wan) being just a year older. The remaining members of Ariff, vocalist Samantha Teng, guitarist Fadlul Adzim and bassist Isa Ong are all fresh out of school, having just completed their A Levels last November.

And yet with adolescence and puberty barely over, Postbox have already done the musically grown-up thing of putting out their own EP. The self-titled release was recently launched at Singapore’s *scape: The Lab, where 140 people squeezed into the cosy venue and watched the two year old band twirl through their tunes while donning insatiably sunny outfits.

Postbox are indie pop through and through–no real surprises there. Birthed out of a random sighting by Fadlul of an old, red postbox after a practice session, their twinkle-toed template never strays too far from that set by Camera Obscura or The Concretes, right down to the token crystalline female-fronted vocals handled by Samantha. With perky handclaps and sparkling guitar plucks guiding the way, the six-song EP skips down a yellow brick road that insists there can never be enough chirpiness in the world. “I’m bored, why can’t my music cheer me up today?” wonders Samantha on ‘Miss Sunshine’, with all the belief that music really was created to put a smile on grumpy faces (or at least cheer someone up during exam period, which is really what led to the song).

And yet unlike the genre’s grating penchant to over-twee everything, Postbox possesses sufficient musical acumen to make some edgier adjustments where appropriate. ‘Amber’ and its incessant pining for departed love borders on emo with frenzied, fuzzed out strums that weave greyer threads into the cutesy rhythmic patterns. That’s not to say that they’re brooding by any means–no band with a lyric like “I just need you, I just want you, please” (‘Clouds’) can be in much danger of spontaneous wrist-slitting–but it does suggest that there might be a little bit more here than four chords and pleated skirts.
 
The band began against the backdrop of Isa, Samantha and Ariff’s friendship through their school days. Together with a couple of other buddies, they began by jamming Metallica songs at Isa’s house. Eventually tastes were refined, and they moved on to The Strokes, but it was when Ariff discovered Singapore rock giants Electrico and Serenaide in Grade Nine that the band were inspired to start writing their own music.

“Serenaide and Electrico got me hooked onto indie,” says Ariff, who cites Serenaide’s ‘The Girl From Katong’ as his trigger song. “I was really blown away after listening to those two bands. I couldn't believe they were local at first! Over time, I came across more great local indie bands like the Stoned Revivals, Astreal, Force Vomit and Plainsunset, just to name a few. These bands inspired me to start a band, and I've always dreamt of being as big as them!”

As Fadlul and Wan replaced the two original members, Postbox went underway, recording their EP in late 2007. With schoolwork, exams and other niggling teenage obligations to juggle, the whole process ended up taking slightly more than a year. “We weren’t in a rush, and back then we didn't really have any plans to release anything,” says Ariff. “So yeah, like they say, slow and steady wins the race!”

Out of the studio, the band have worked hard to refine their live performances. They joined acts like West Grand Boulevard and Astroninja on the School Invasion Tour in 2007, and in that same year played their own concert at The Esplanade Powerhouse (“The stage and changing rooms were epic,” gushes Ariff. “It was sooo big, and we felt like rockstars for a few hours!”). Already they have earned a solid following among the schooling demographic–a following probably helped along nicely by the fact that they’ve got a sassy female frontwoman. “During one of our School Invasion shows, one boy asked for Sam's number,” recalls Ariff cheekily. “That was damn funny, ‘cause we gave him a random number, haha!”

Unfortunately, 2009 shows signs of being a quiet year for Postbox. National service beckons for Ariff and Isa while the rest continue to grapple with polytechnic assignments and exams. So it looks like gigs will have to be put on hold for now. Yet Ariff sees it not as a lost cause, but simply another opportunity for everyone else to work on new songs. “There haven't been any tough moments together as a band,” he says. “We're thankful for that. Hopefully we won't have any in the future too!”

WORDS CHRIS PHOTOS RUEVEN
www.myspace.com/postboxband

*Taken from Junk's April 2009 issue