Tag: music

Earlier this month on their facebook page, Riz Farooqi officially announced the break-up of iconic local hardcore band King Ly Chee after 17 years of gigs, tours and albums. You might not be into hardcore music, but the band not only entertained it’s fans it inspired many across all music genres about what a Hong Kong band could achieve.

It wasn’t an end though, rather the beginning of something new. Dagger – a new more metallic hardcore band formed by Riz and former King Ly Chee bandmate Ivan with James and To – who released their debut EP Dagger on Bandcamp this week. bc spoke to Riz about Dagger.

Best start with the obvious one from many fans will King Ly Chee return, the band has after all undergone many lineup changes over the years?
No – I can’t imagine the band will ever play shows again. Originally in January we decided to take a break. Right around that time I was already getting the itch to play guitar in a band again which was the whole catalyst for Dagger. So King Ly Chee was most definitely put on the back burner to be revisited again maybe at the end of the year or even next year.

I started Dagger with the current King Ly Chee drummer Ivan so it kinda left the other three guys in this weird kinda place where they didn’t know what was going to happen. Eventually those guys decided they didn’t want to be left in limbo and made the announcement that they were leaving.

Once they did that there was NO way I was going to put myself through searching for THREE people! That’s just insane…plus these three guys aren’t replaceable. These are all guys who’ve put in a LOT of time, effort and heart into the band. How do I just ignore that and “replace” them? It just doesn’t work that way… So when they made that announcement I was at peace to just end it.

We’ve done everything that we possibly could do with the band over the 17 years we’ve been around. We’ve released albums that have impacted Hong Kong and our scene of heavy bands here. We’ve toured Asia countless times. We’ve played in the States opening for our heroes Sick of it All on their 30 year anniversary!

How do we top any of this? If anything – I might record the demos that I had written for what was going to be the next King Ly Chee album and put it up for free download or something. But for now the band’s done. We had a good run. It wasn’t easy ever that entire time. But we were able to accomplish some great shit…

Why a new band, rather than a side project / collaboration?
Well it was supposed to just be a side project. Then when King Ly Chee ended it became my main band.

What do you want/need to say with Dagger that you felt you couldn’t do with King Ly Chee?
Lyrically it’s all on the same wave length. With Dagger the focus is certainly more on riffs and musicality. I wouldn’t say lyrics are a second thought – but it’s certainly the music that is the driving force in this band.

Long time fans are going to see ghosts of the past, how are you going to get people to see Dagger for what it is something different?
People already see it as a different beast because our EP is up and they can hear that the music is completely different, not to mention that I’m not the main vocalist. The music is just much heavier.

The response for the EP has been beyond our expectations because to be a new band in 2017 it’s pretty much impossible to get people’s attentions cause there are millions of bands in existence. But people have been giving it their attention and it’s unbelievable that it actually resonates with people! That’s insane to me…

Where did the name Dagger come from?
No real back story…just searching for a one word name that was short. I was considering how the name would look on merch. 17 years of trying to lay out “King Ly Chee” across a variety of merch has taught me to never use a long name again Hahahaha

The new EP Dagger, tell us about it?
The band started in January and I already had a couple demos just to get the ball rolling. But once the four of us got together it was easy to get more ideas out and change parts, rewrite parts, start new songs, move parts around etc. It all came together super quick.

The actual idea was to release a demo of these tracks. But as we started talking about recording and how high our standards were for even the quality of the demos…we realized that with the amount of money we’re throwing into this, the demos really are more like an EP. The tracks were all mixed and mastered in the US so this isn’t really a “demo” by any means. That’s it…things have moved at a quick pace. Now we’re ready to play a bunch of shows and start working on brand new tracks for our debut full length.

689’s disdain for the arts reached absurd levels recently with riot police deployed to prevent a gig taking place and international bands detained at the border. What would you like incoming Chief Executive Carrie Lam to do to support local music and especially live music in Hong Kong?
I don’t know what expectations I have for her or any CE coming in. The CCP continues to force the idea that we are not autonomous – they will always be the masters. So what can any CE really do when they’ve been hand selected by the masters? All they can do is follow their orders.

My only wish is for the CCP to one day see Hong Kong for what it is, a city with a strong set of values for right and wrong. A city that doesn’t accept nor follow blind worship of any specific political system nor party. A city that doesn’t need nationalism shoved down our throats to keep people in line.

Hong Kong has always been an international city. All this stupid talk about putting more ethnic Chinese people in places of power such as the judiciary, the government and police force (as if that already isn’t the case!!!) sets this city down a very dangerous path where we will lose all its international character.

We’re only years away from seeing all our signs with traditional Chinese characters being replaced with simplified characters, you’ll hear more Mandarin on the streets, there’ll be more of those stupid red propaganda banners along the roads…

So all of this is deeper then just the woes of us musicians. The character and beauty of the real Hong Kong is at stake.

The SAR turns 20 at the end of the month, what are your personal musical highlights of those twenty years?
20 years is a long time to talk about…off the top of my head seeing Metallica, Megadeth and Sick of it All on our shores was simply unbelievable…

The bands that I grew up listening to while walking the streets with big ass headphones and my Walkman trying to make sense of my place as a Pakistani kid in a Chinese society…for the bands who provided the soundtrack for that part of my life to finally play here in Hong Kong was unbelievable.

In the words of Taylor Young at California’s The Pit who remixed Dagger’s debut EP “RIP King Ly Chee, long live Dagger!”

Dagger’s debut 6 track EP is out now on Bandcamp and will be released on cassette at Dagger’s debut gig – the Unite Asia Showcase on the 1 July at Focal Fair

Photo: Mike Sakas