SINGAPORE, Nov 13 — A quartermaster is a military designation describing an army personnel responsible for procuring and maintaining army stores.
But there’s nothing military about the indie band The Quartermasters.
The band, which has seemingly popped up in the local music scene from out of the blue, comprises singer-songwriter Charles J Tan aka Charles Jedidiah, who does the vocals and plays the resonator and banjo, Kelvin Ang on guitars, Tim De Cotta on bass, Amy Myers on vocals and keyboards, and Stefan Lim on drums.
Despite being a new band — or perhaps more accurately, a music collective — its members are familiar faces on the scene and hail from Australia, Singapore and South Africa: De Cotta is the bass player for jazz-funk band TAJ, guitarist Ang has played with his own band, wise-cracking drummer Lim is also a Hollywood music industry veteran and entrepreneur, and Tan has two previous musical outings to his name: The Pelham Sessions and Maybe Somewhere North.
That said, and despite a recent sold-out show to launch their EP, you’ll find precious little information about the band.
The Quartermasters didn’t reveal much information about themselves in their somewhat cryptic press release, and even the music video for the rather catchy single Catch On Fire features members of other bands: The Sam Willows, Lost Weekend and LEW.
Thoroughly intrigued, we decided to find out more. But that’s easier said than done — we had a couple of photo requests turned down and the interview was a long time coming.
To be honest, we might have easily dismissed them — if it weren’t for the fact that The Quartermasters have come up with some of the catchiest tunes we’ve heard since, oh, the early Sam Willows.
Here’s what went down when we eventually got them to talk. (And for the record, they insisted on having their answers credited to “the band” and not individually.)
Q: Who are The Quartermasters and how did it all come together?
A: The Quartermasters started as a result of friendship, which evolved over the course of Charles J Tan’s solo tour across Hong Kong and China in 2013. Friendship and mutual respect were forged as a result of touring and roughing it out over tiny budget hotel rooms, risky travel options in China, braving the smog and exploring the unknown.
Q: What is the idea behind the band’s initial secrecy?
A: At the inception of the band, we knew that we were going to be very different. And we wanted to stay true to that original spirit that brought us together. We want people to focus on the music and not be distracted by who is in the band or any kind of marketing. We want to let the music speak (for itself). We are just instruments and messengers of the medium. And we’ve seen that work, with a sold-out EP launch without much (if any) media attention before the launch.
Q: What is Small Batch Records? Tell us about how that came about.
A: Small Batch Records is a long-time dream of Charles J Tan. It started initially as a label to launch his own solo records but over the last few years, the label has signed Giants Must Fall. It is more than just a label but a collective of passionate artists who want to push the agenda of artistic excellence. We had some funding from the National Arts Council to help us with the recording and production cost of our EP. Compass Singapore helped us out a little by defraying the cost of the EP launch party at Lepark.
Q: So is this really a band or a vehicle for Charles J Tan?
A: The band does benefit from the amazing voice of Charles J Tan and his songwriting prowess, but Charles is just one part of The Quartermasters now. So the short answer to that question is, no, this is a band. This band came together because just like chemical elements, it just bonded naturally, in terms of music and friendship.
Q: The EP has a strong country-folk vibe. What were your influences going into the writing and production?
A: We never really asked ourselves what we wanted to sound like or how we should sound. We just jammed, wrote, improvised, re-arranged, and recorded. It’s a steamboat pot of all our musical skills and experiences. We don’t deliberately sit down and listen to other band songs to mimic, but our playing and writing are influenced by the music we’ve each grown up with.
Q: Some of the songs have evocative titles such as Harlot Train and Catch On Fire. What are these songs about?
A: These are emotional snippets in a capsule. The Harlot Train is a metaphor about prejudice, mindsets and tunnel visions, distracting us from the bigger picture. Catch On Fire is a simple straightforward tongue-in-cheek song about serial liars — and we all have some of those in each of our lives, we are sure.
Q: Worry is a very well-written composition. Can you walk us through the writing process for that song?
A: Worry is by far not just the longest song, but the longest and most satisfying to make. We probably spent more time recording this song compared with the rest of the songs on the EP! We’ve all grown up in church and doing a gospel choir take for this song was second nature for us. The vocal arrangement was actually done on the fly, without much thinking, in a very instinctive way. The song went through quite a few reiterations and chord options, but eventually Kelvin came up with an arrangement that facilitated a warm and meandering texture to lift the song and take the listener on a journey — a refreshing and fitting finish to the EP, we believe.
Q: What are your plans to promote the EP? Any gigs overseas?
A: At this stage, we are planning to play the local circuit a bit more, including hopefully some of the iconic local festivals, before looking for gigs around the region. As we’ve just launched the EP, we are waiting to see where the dust falls before we decide where to head from here. We are working on music videos for the singles and we hope to use that to create some online buzz. — TODAY
* The Quartermasters’ self-titled EP is available on all digital music platforms. For more information, visithttp://theqmband.com/
