All-female Indonesian metal band Voice of Baceprot to perform at Glastonbury Festival – Culture

With hijabs and hard-hitting metal music, the women of the Indonesian band Voice of Baceprot have played on stages from the USA to France. But this week they are making them nervous.

On Friday, the trio will be the first Indonesians to perform at the Glastonbury Festival in England, one of the largest in the world, sharing the hall with artists such as Coldplay and Shania Twain.

For the young women, this is the biggest stage yet, far away from their home village of Garut in the West Java province of the sprawling Southeast Asian country.

“We carry not only the voice of Baceprot, but also that of our country,” said 23-year-old bassist Widi Rahmawati Reuters.

With the loud sounds of her guitars and complex drumming, the voice of Baceprot – a word that means “noise” – has made it onto the cover of the British New Musical Express Magazine and received praise from former Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello.

Beyond music, the three also want to challenge stereotypes that Muslim women are modest and weak or that Muslims in general are violent militants, says 24-year-old singer and guitarist Firda Marsya Kurnia.

Indonesia is the country with the largest Muslim majority population in the world. 90 percent of the 270 million people are Muslim. The country is secular and the vast majority practice a moderate form of Islam, although there are also some conservative strongholds.

The band sings about female empowerment – and laments a fixation on looks rather than music – and the environment, Marsya said.

Widi, Marsya and drummer Euis Siti Aisyah, 24, met at an Islamic school and formed the band in 2014. Even as children, they were immersed in Indonesian pop and Islamic music, Widi said.

Their love for metal came after listening to the album toxicity by the American band System of a Down. They listened to it on the computer of their school teacher, who was their biggest supporter.

It gave them an adrenaline rush, Marsya said, and so they started playing their own music.

Marsya said the biggest challenge for Voice of Baceprot has been dealing with stigma at home and abroad.

“In our village, metal is considered satanic – not for women, especially not for women wearing hijabs,” said Widi, referring to the headscarves. Marsya said her family once suggested she take part in an Islamic healing ritual in the hope of banishing her love of metal.

“At first we felt like we had no home to return to,” she said.

In the US audience, they were once called militants, she said. “It was as if we were criminals.”

After Glastonbury, Marsya said the three would work on a new album and a song called “Mighty Island,” which she said deals with corruption in Indonesia. They also wanted to build a community of aspiring musicians in their homeland, she said.

“We want to strengthen the community there,” said Marsya.