Issue 74 / February 2017

Bido Lito! February 2017 13
a game we used to play as kids in Singapore, a
bit like rock-paper-scissors,” bassist Saam tells us,
"It’s
jumping straight in on the origins of his band’s name.
“So, you all say ‘OooyapaaayaSOM’, and on ‘SOM’, you would
either show the back of your hand or the underside of your hand.
It’s kinda like an analogy of life, it’s half chance.” I’m sat with
the international trio in a cosy corner of Unit 51, tucked away
from the Baltic wind which howls relentlessly outside. Despite
the location being a far cry from the equatorial tropics of Saam
and fellow band mate Ashwin’s childhood games, OYA PAYA are
a band that seem to inject light into a room, all big smiles,
laughter and loud, colourful patterns. Even the minimalist
surroundings of Unit 51 can’t fail to be warmed by their very
presence.
“Me and Ash went to school together in Singapore,” Saam
continues, as he explains how the trio came to be. “It was a
pretty strange setup where you got given a problem at the start
of the day and had to
solve it by the end of
the day. Some days
you could get away
with doing practically
nothing and we used
to just mess about
and somehow blag
it!” After flying halfway
across the world, the
pair found themselves
studying at LIPA where
they met singer and
guitarist Max. “I lived
in France for most
of my life and when
it came to applying
for uni I applied for
four French business
schools and LIPA,” Max
explains. “With my
dad originally coming
from Liverpool he had
always told me about
LIPA. When he came
back here he picked up
an application form –
and I suppose the rest
is history.”
Bringing together a variety of ideas grown from different
cultures and interests, the three set about making a band to tie
their backgrounds together. “Having known Ash from Singapore
and then meeting Max at LIPA about four or five years ago, by
the time we became a band I had already got over hating them,”
jokes Saam on their relationship. “It was all just a bit of fun in
my bedroom when we started out,” Ash explains of the band’s
origins. “It was just me and Saam at first, and it was only when
we wrote Nothing Left that we felt we had something.” Upon
hearing the instrumental, Max was given the chance to sing on
the track, and thus Oya Paya the band became a trio.
As a unit, being a three-piece suits them well, and it’s clear
just from the sheer amount of laughing and smiling that this is
an extremely tight group. “We found that we all came together
as friends with completely different musical tastes, but now all
our tastes seem to have unified into one and we all listen to
very similar stuff,” says Saam. Citing the smooth future soul of
Hiatus Kaiyote and the blunt rap of Rich Chigga (an Indonesian
rapper who taught himself English through listening to Tyler,
The Creator and Macklemore) as common influences, it’s clear
to see that the three love music in all its forms. Favouring the
slightly leftfield, their taste is not something that reveals itself
explicitly in their own work. There are nuances of all three band
members’ eclectic tastes flickered throughout, whether that be
the basslines of Thundercat or the aggressive lyrical delivery of
Chigga. But it’s not just their geographical and musical diversity
that influences the trio. From Max’s extensive background in rock
bands to the production skills of Saam, the three-piece have
managed to fuse together their individual talents into a sound
that’s fresh, vibrant and striving to succeed.
Nothing Left is the perfect example of what Oya Paya are all
about. The genre-bending track fuses elements of hip hop and
rock within its many layers, which blend expertly to create a pop
song with meaning and depth. The cryptic lyrics actually refer
to cult animated series Rick and Morty, which deals extensively
with the philosophy of existentialism. Much like Rick and Morty,
Oya Paya manage to hide serious topics behind a laidback
exterior. And, again like their cartoon inspiration, the trio are
a true success story of the technological age. “We never hold
something we’ve written in the bedroom as sacred. We just send
it across to each other and can’t wait to see what comes back,”
explains Max. “When you look at the Lennon and McCartney
writing relationship, there’s a huge amount of competition.
We’re not like [that], we’re always excited to see what the other
makes of the track and how they can evolve it.”
In November last year, Oya Paya were one of the bands
who appeared on Bido Lito!’s stage at the Liverpool Music
Week closing party. It was there that they really jumped to our
attention, and the Spiritual Bunker showcase at Meraki suited
them down to the ground. With a natural groove underpinning
their set, the trio really pushed the crowd’s expectations in terms
of the standard guitar/bass/drums setup. Some of their slow
motion RnB beats, with Max’s throat-scraping vocals floating
over the top, highlighted a restraint to a standard ‘rock’ formula
that was refreshing.
The band also have a penchant for peppering their online
output with a series of strange, selfmade videos. Using
Boomerang (an app which helps make GIF-like images) alongside
their music and with liberal cries of “SPICE”, they have captivated
the millennial generation’s attention with a series of memes.
“It’s not something contrived, it’s something we just do for fun,
you know?” explains Ash. The cries of “spice”, which is somewhat
of an Oya Paya catchphrase now, is an inside joke which has
grown into their online presence. “It all started out as a joke
between Max and his brother, but then we all started saying
it,” laughs Ash. “...But when Ash gave us some real spice – food,
not the drug – it took on a whole new feeling, ha!” Saam quips.
Despite their chilled-out approach, there’s a real drive in
Oya Paya’s output which is more than musical: it’s a thriving to
succeed as musicians, as a band. With Ash’s visa soon to run out,
there is a cloud of uncertainty above them and the other two are
determined to keep him here. “Over this next six months we’re
really going to push
the band,” says Saam,
“otherwise it looks like
I might have to marry
him, ha ha!”
It’s clear that the
guys have a really close
relationship, spending
time together both in
and out of the band.
Like many intriguing
acts that have gone
before them, Oya
Paya are a group of
best friends and that’s
what makes the music
so fun. They are in
touch with each other
creatively, and allow
their own strengths
to thrive. But perhaps
what they have most
in common is a drive to
make music their living.
“I have five different
streams of income and
only one of them isn’t
music,” says Saam. And
the same can be said
for the other two, with Max working as a session musician to
pay bills and Ash trying to prove he can earn a significant income
in the UK to stay. “I know it’s clichéd, but music really is pretty
much everything.”
In a world where music is very quick to pigeonhole itself into
genres and cultivate a cynical image, Oya Paya are not afraid to
be themselves – and there’s nothing much like them about today
either. Their first EP alone may only have three tracks on it, but
within it there are elements of everything from electronica to
funk to rap; they create music which is truly their own. Besides,
who else would spend their time making a video of a cat in a
constant state of transition moving up and down a set of stairs,
soundtracked by the funk-riddled groove of a bass, harmonised
by the cat’s meows to their cheers of “spice”? Exactly. And we
could all do with a little more spice in our lives from time to time.
soundcloud.com/oya-paya
Just Around The Bend is out now. Oya Paya play the Ditto Live
event at Camp and Furnace on 24th March.
bidolito.co.uk