Gentle Bones and MYRNE Teamed Up for the B4NGER Project

By Ammar Haziq  •  30 Mar 2018 in Interview

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Two of Singapore’s finest is giving other players in the scene a run for their money in this new collaborative project titled the B4NGER Project – the brainchild of both Gentle Bones and MYRNE. Together, the pop r’n’b artiste and EDM producer channeled their passion and creativity in the project that is also produced by them.

B4NGER draws inspiration from the diverse musical backgrounds that they have, creating a truly banging album.

The first single from the record titled ‘JU1Y’ was released last year, teasing listeners with the overall sound of the album. JUICE got to chat with the duo to find out more about the collaboration, and what fans can expect from it.

Given that you guys come from different musical backgrounds, how did this collaboration come about? And was there any clash of interests or you guys had two different ideas and didn’t know how to put it together?

MYRNE: We just really knew each other five years ago because we were either on Soundcloud or some other music platform and Gentle Bones put out ‘Until We Die’, right? The EP. I heard it and I really wanted to make my spin on the first song ‘Until We Die’. He let me do it and we put that out. It was an indie-folk record and and it think was really different than anything else in Singapore that was coming at that time, and fast forward two years later he put out his second EP, Geniuses and Thieves that was a bit more electronic, and it’s really interesting. His voice works like, super well in this one and he actually reached out to have a listening session to ask me what I thought about it, and I really liked it. And I remixed another song from Geniuses and Thieves and it turned out well so after that I just realised that both of us, if we we were to work together it could be something really interesting that we’ve never done before.

“This album is from the both of us and for most part, an experiment – to try things that we’re not really comfortable with.”

We see a lot of dolls and trippy visuals in the MV for banger. How did that come about?

Gentle Bones: We’ve been a fan of the artiste who did it, his name is Howie and I’ve been following him for a while and when we came out with our track I think the unique sound kinda drew me to him in terms of like, coming up with the visuals and with his help we just put it together and just came up with a nice, interesting product.

Is there a meaning behind the video that comes with the song?

Gentle Bones: Yeah I think each video has its own meaning and the animation just kinda serves like a… It’s a more asian type of influence from the illustrations all the way down to the style of it. It’s almost like cutesy and dark at the same time, which is how we wanted to represent the album.

How would you guys describe the mood of the album?

MYRNE: I think it’s super tongue-in-cheek. When we created the album we didn’t think of a certain underline meaning or something to tie the album together or purpose of the album. We just had a lot of ideas, we’re just two young boys and we wanted to put something out there that’s very different and I think the only common thread would be something tongue-in-cheek. This album is from the both of us and for most part, an experiment – to try things that we’re not really comfortable with. To see how well it’ll mash together and it turned out great.

“We’re all masters, like respectively, in what we’re doing in our different fields and to have us all three (Gentle Bones, MYRNE, and Sam Rui) come together in a cohesive track just says something about collaborations in Singapore and beyond.”

What’s the reaction you guys hope fans will get when they listen to this album?

Gentle Bones: I just hope they like it, and to be honest I’m really proud with what we’ve come out with, like when approaching this project we just wanted to do stuff that we’ve never done before and it so happens that it came out to be a unique sounding album, so I hope people can enjoy the songs for what they are and just, fresh music I guess.

Okay, Joel and MYRNE, choose one song from the album that stands out to you, and what it means to you personally?

Gentle Bones: For me ‘7OVE YOU’, track number seven – which also the music video for B4NGER. I’ve always been a sucker for love, or what I at least thought to be love (laughs) so like to craft this song and write the lyrics for what ‘7OVE YOU’ is about and to have the production to be so magnificent lah to my opinion, and made it into a proper love song, banger type-thing. So that’s my favourite.

MYRNE: For me it has to be VODKA, the last song ’cause that song had the most revisions and I think it was the song that we were working on for quite a while. When the song first started out it was just like a really happy, summer anthem type-thing because the main vocal that comes through the chorus of the song is in major and it’s supposed to sound really happy, but then we slowed it down and we tweaked it a lot and gave it this whole – dark atmosphere. We also had like one of the biggest influencers and inspiration on it, a friend of us called Sam Rui. It’s just an incredible product because all three of us grew up in Singapore. We’re all masters, like respectively, in what we’re doing in our different fields and to have us all three come together in a cohesive track just says something about collaborations in Singapore and beyond.

Follow Gentle Bones on Twitter and MYRNE on Instagram for more updates.