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AMRAN KHAMIS knows his six-year-old instrumental rock combo I Am David Sparkle will never be the Lion City’s answer to Linkin Park. While radio-friendly Singapore rockers Electrico and the Great Spy Experiment continue to win fans, I Am David Sparkle seems destined to be leftfield trailblazers making music that is strictly for the hardcore.

Even though their music might be hard to wrap your head around at first listen, dig a little deeper and you'll find a band completely adept at weaving a sophisticated web of harmonies that are as melodramatically mind warped as they are seductive. It’s a quality that’s held the quartet - which features long time friends Amran, Djohan Johari, Farizwan Fajari and Zahir Sanosi - in good stead within the local indie rock circuit.

With only two albums - 2006’s Apocalypse Of Your Heart and the recently released This Is A New - under their belts, I Am David Sparkle have since chalked appearances at Singapore indie rock event Baybeats and shared the stage with hip-hop legends The Beastie Boys at the Good Vibrations Festival at the Fort Canning Park last February.

A performance at next month's ZoukOut in Singapore’s Sentosa Island is also in the cards.

But it was a concert in Malacca last month that the band swears is their most memorable yet.
“Actually, we had mixed feelings about playing Malacca because we weren't sure if we'd go down well,” Amran said of Recharge Revelation 5 Global Gathering where the band held their own against big names like Simian Mobile Disco and the Jungle Brothers.

The trip there still lingers in Amran’s memory: Not only were they in danger of missing the show due to traveling schedule mix-ups but on the day of their performance, their manager Lesley Chew from Kitty Wu Records broke her leg after a bout of drunken roller-skating at the disco tent.

Luckily, their 45-minute set - playing under the blazing sun and surrounded by fields of mud brought on by the previous night’s rain - went down a storm.

“I think we played a good set to a small but appreciative audience but even though the festival on the whole could do with better on-site management, we still had fun,” added the 30-year-old guitarist.

In December, the foursome will also play at the granddaddy festival of them all, ZoukOut at Sentosa.
It’s an impressive resume for a band that has nothing at all in common with the play list of the I-Pod DJ playing at your local indie disco.

They continue to be a force of sound and fury: On their recently released second album This Is A New (recorded over a six month period in a studio deep in the heart of Little India in Singapore), I Am David Sparkle have crafted a thunderous brew of thrashing guitars, burrowing bass lines and lightly brushed drums that straddle the divide between punchy anthems and wistful ambient textures.
 
FOR NOW, the band is perfectly comfortable with the fact that their quest for world domination begins with trips to Malacca and Kuala Lumpur.

Never mind that back home, this zeal to create something out of the norm has had some music fans tagging them as ‘pretentious’.

“I don’t think we are pretentious because we make instrumental tracks without a singer although being ‘boring’ without lyrics would be a far scarier thought,” counters Amran.

“I think we’re comfortable enough to play our instrumental music to the listeners and the only challenge now is to make sure that we are able to connect with them throughout without any lyrics delivered - either on the record or in a live situation.”

Setbacks notwithstanding, playing to Malaysian audiences is always a joy for the band. “When we played Kuala Lumpur in February this year, we all had a fantastic experience,” he beamed. “We’ve had people writing to us from Kelantan to Sarawak, telling us how they loved what we were doing. It is moments like these that make you want to always get better at what you are doing.”

Contrary to popular belief, Singaporean rockers are making their mark overseas: Punk bands Plain Sunset and My Precious have played in New Zealand, Hong Kong and Japan, local hardcore heroes Stompin’ Ground have an almost fanatical following in Malaysia while black metal outfit Impeity scored underground acclaim following a string of successful dates in Europe two years ago.

The Internet has obviously done wonders in helping Singaporean rockers cross borders. “It definitely helped struggling bands to get their music further all over the world to more appreciative audiences that could help them with word-of-mouth promotion, online sales and setting up tours,” said Amran.
But the relying on cyberspace isn’t enough - these achievements also come from the networks built and a lot of the hard work, he added.
 
EVEN AS SINGAPOREAN rock continues to strike a chord with regional fans, Amran feels more needs to be done to get local bands more acceptance back home.

“There are very few avenues here for shows to happen and for bands here to play in a proper club setting,” he argues. “Even now, it is still hard for bands signed with small independent labels to get their music stocked at the big stores here. So whilst the musicians and bands have improved and continue to be hard working, there isn’t the necessary related infrastructure work that is needed for the scene to be sustainable and grow exponentially.”

For Amran, the limited channels available - be it the online music stations Unpopular Music and Sweetmusic.FM or dedicated music websites like AgingYouth.com - aren’t enough. “The bands can only do so much on their own and at the end of the day, they will do whatever is needed to help themselves, and not necessarily the music scene at large. Which is why the bands need others to do this for them.”

This is exactly why a lot of Singaporean bands head elsewhere for gigs: It gives them the opportunity to seek newer pastures rather than cannibalize the already meagre fan base back home.

But don't let this grim picture fool you. Amran assures me that no amount of negativity will tear I Am David Sparkle away from the prospect of tinkering further with sounds, ideas and concepts.
Already plans are afoot for a regional tour, and a gig composing music for a play is also in the pipeline.
“The band has been around for a significant amount of time, and after some hurdles and even moments of inactivity in our past we do want to make the band better and reach out to more people from now on,” he said sheepishly.
 
To check out I Am David Sparkle‘s music, visit www.iamdavidsparkle.com or www.myspace.com/iamdavidsparkle. To contact the band, e-mail iamdavidsparkle@gmail.com.