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letter size: 
.: Denpasar Moon Story - interview
Interview with Sabah Habas Mustapha
by Jenny Robinson
In 1994, according to Billboard magazine, the song „Denpasar Moon“ became the biggest selling English language hit ever in Indonesia. Why? What happened?
Yes. Well, the idea for the song came several years earlier. On my first visit to Bali in 1987 I heard some beautiful, sad sounding gamelan music that I learned actually came from West Java. At the same time I discovered the delights of the main Indonesian Pop-music style called „Dangdut“. I think even then the idea came to mix these styles together. It wasn’t until some time later that I had the chance to bring this to fruition, as they say. In 1990 I was in Jakarta looking to license some music for some European record companies. There I met Mr Astakona Hartono, the owner of the Puspita Record label. A generous man and open to experiment, he offered me the use of his recording studios and said he could provide some musicians to help me learn how a Dangdut record is put together. So we arranged a date when I would return to Jakarta after a brief holiday in Bali. While there I thought I’d better prepare something to record in Jakarta. So I sat on the balcony at Mendra’s Guest House on the Monkey Forest Road in Ubud and wrote two songs, which turned out to be „Bali Girl“ and „Denpasar Moon“.
Did you have any idea then that Denpasar Moon would become such a huge hit?
Absolutely not. The whole thing was just a fun exercise. I just wanted to make some unashamed pop-music and it was a good opportunity to try the Degung / Dangdut mix.
Degung / Dangdut?
Degung is the name of the West Javanese music I mentioned before. And I wanted to write the lyrics in the style of some Degung lyrics I had read. Sad, heartbroken, lonely, reflective. Big melancholy.
What happened then?
I went to Jakarta. Mr Hartono took me to his studio and introduced me to Johnny Kaké, who was going to arrange the songs in Dangdut style for me. I played a rough version on guitar and we built up the drum, bass and keyboard tracks and then brought in the suling and gendang players. The suling is the bamboo fute and the gendang is a pair of hand drums – look like big bongos, sound like big tablas. That’s the essential ingredient of the Dangdut style. At the end of the session I had the two songs and took a copy home with me. Mr Hartono put the master-tapes on his shelf, marked „Mr Collin : Experimen“.
So he didn’t release them at that time?
No, he regretted that later. Nothing happened until 1992 when I was on tour in Japan with the group Camel. I had my two songs with me and thought I’d try to get in touch with Wave Records. I’d done some work for them in London with some of the 3 Mustaphas 3 for an Okinawan group called the Rinken Band. I knew that Wave had been putting out some Indonesian productions in Japan, so I got in touch with the man who had arranged the London sessions : our Frenchman in Tokyo, Francois Dumas. He kindly got me together with Wave Records and I met their Indonesian specialist, Kensuke Shiina, gave him the cassette and told him I wanted to make an album like that in Jakarta. When I got home from the tour there was a letter from Wave saying : there’s a guy at Sony Records (Wave was a Sony subsidiary) who thinks your song could be a hit. Let’s make your album real soon. I thought : a hit? Interesting. So we made a deal and, after writing the rest of the songs, I set off to Jakarta, met up with Kensuke Shiina again and we started on the album.
What I didn’t know was, at that moment Sony were recording Denpasar Moon in Tokyo with a young singer from the Phillipines, Maribeth, who they wanted to launch in Southeast Asia. Later my album was released in Japan and...nothing much happened until New Year’s Eve 93/94. I got a phone call at home from a friend in Jakarta saying Happy New Year and by the way, your song is everywhere. Sony had been using it in a TV ad campaign for Sony hi-fi’s and the thing had just taken off. Funny that Sony never told me. So I got on a plane to Jakarta and, it was true, I heard the song everywhere. At the airport, in shopping malls, in the street! Not an unusual experience for someone like Elton John, for example, but quite a novelty for me.
Anyway, Maribeth sold officially over half a million cassettes, but a real figure is hard to come by because of the piracy problem. Later came the cover versions. I’ve got a collection of over 40 different versions in various regional styles and dialect translations.
Which is your favourite?
I’m very proud of the version by famous Javanese diva Waldjinah and there’s a great Jaipongan Gamelan version by the Karawitan Group.
There was no follow-up?
Sony did ask me for Denpasar Moon 2 and I did write something for Maribeth called „Borobudur“, but I knew it wasn’t as good. My heart wasn’t in it. You can’t just manufacture these things. The gods gave Denpasar Moon to me there in the Monkey Forest Road and I’m very grateful to them.
by Jenny Robinson
In 1994, according to Billboard magazine, the song „Denpasar Moon“ became the biggest selling English language hit ever in Indonesia. Why? What happened?
Yes. Well, the idea for the song came several years earlier. On my first visit to Bali in 1987 I heard some beautiful, sad sounding gamelan music that I learned actually came from West Java. At the same time I discovered the delights of the main Indonesian Pop-music style called „Dangdut“. I think even then the idea came to mix these styles together. It wasn’t until some time later that I had the chance to bring this to fruition, as they say. In 1990 I was in Jakarta looking to license some music for some European record companies. There I met Mr Astakona Hartono, the owner of the Puspita Record label. A generous man and open to experiment, he offered me the use of his recording studios and said he could provide some musicians to help me learn how a Dangdut record is put together. So we arranged a date when I would return to Jakarta after a brief holiday in Bali. While there I thought I’d better prepare something to record in Jakarta. So I sat on the balcony at Mendra’s Guest House on the Monkey Forest Road in Ubud and wrote two songs, which turned out to be „Bali Girl“ and „Denpasar Moon“.
Did you have any idea then that Denpasar Moon would become such a huge hit?
Absolutely not. The whole thing was just a fun exercise. I just wanted to make some unashamed pop-music and it was a good opportunity to try the Degung / Dangdut mix.
Degung / Dangdut?
Degung is the name of the West Javanese music I mentioned before. And I wanted to write the lyrics in the style of some Degung lyrics I had read. Sad, heartbroken, lonely, reflective. Big melancholy.
What happened then?
I went to Jakarta. Mr Hartono took me to his studio and introduced me to Johnny Kaké, who was going to arrange the songs in Dangdut style for me. I played a rough version on guitar and we built up the drum, bass and keyboard tracks and then brought in the suling and gendang players. The suling is the bamboo fute and the gendang is a pair of hand drums – look like big bongos, sound like big tablas. That’s the essential ingredient of the Dangdut style. At the end of the session I had the two songs and took a copy home with me. Mr Hartono put the master-tapes on his shelf, marked „Mr Collin : Experimen“.
So he didn’t release them at that time?
No, he regretted that later. Nothing happened until 1992 when I was on tour in Japan with the group Camel. I had my two songs with me and thought I’d try to get in touch with Wave Records. I’d done some work for them in London with some of the 3 Mustaphas 3 for an Okinawan group called the Rinken Band. I knew that Wave had been putting out some Indonesian productions in Japan, so I got in touch with the man who had arranged the London sessions : our Frenchman in Tokyo, Francois Dumas. He kindly got me together with Wave Records and I met their Indonesian specialist, Kensuke Shiina, gave him the cassette and told him I wanted to make an album like that in Jakarta. When I got home from the tour there was a letter from Wave saying : there’s a guy at Sony Records (Wave was a Sony subsidiary) who thinks your song could be a hit. Let’s make your album real soon. I thought : a hit? Interesting. So we made a deal and, after writing the rest of the songs, I set off to Jakarta, met up with Kensuke Shiina again and we started on the album.
What I didn’t know was, at that moment Sony were recording Denpasar Moon in Tokyo with a young singer from the Phillipines, Maribeth, who they wanted to launch in Southeast Asia. Later my album was released in Japan and...nothing much happened until New Year’s Eve 93/94. I got a phone call at home from a friend in Jakarta saying Happy New Year and by the way, your song is everywhere. Sony had been using it in a TV ad campaign for Sony hi-fi’s and the thing had just taken off. Funny that Sony never told me. So I got on a plane to Jakarta and, it was true, I heard the song everywhere. At the airport, in shopping malls, in the street! Not an unusual experience for someone like Elton John, for example, but quite a novelty for me.
Anyway, Maribeth sold officially over half a million cassettes, but a real figure is hard to come by because of the piracy problem. Later came the cover versions. I’ve got a collection of over 40 different versions in various regional styles and dialect translations.
Which is your favourite?
I’m very proud of the version by famous Javanese diva Waldjinah and there’s a great Jaipongan Gamelan version by the Karawitan Group.
There was no follow-up?
Sony did ask me for Denpasar Moon 2 and I did write something for Maribeth called „Borobudur“, but I knew it wasn’t as good. My heart wasn’t in it. You can’t just manufacture these things. The gods gave Denpasar Moon to me there in the Monkey Forest Road and I’m very grateful to them.
