Artist Spotlight: Soft soft pillow on Their Pillowsophy of Life
Loyal to their name and pillowsophy, Malaysian dream pop band Soft soft pillow hopped on our Zoom call with gentle and sincere smiles you couldn’t help but feel relaxed alongside them. Despite the major time difference across the screens, the band members were bursting with spirit and brilliance, leading to a virtual exchange of laughs, compliments, and emotions. Making their presence known with their debut single “Pillowsophy,” the quintet Wee Ting (frontman and guitarist), Faridz Husaini (guitarist), Jerald Chong (bassist), Ralph Ong (drummer), and Yin (synthesist), embarked on a mission to break boundaries across spaces through their music.
With a discography dripping with lazy vibes and soft sounds, Soft soft pillow carry a refreshing take on the indie scene as they invite you into a dream full of comfort and void of life’s burdens. EnVi spoke with the band through Zoom, diving deep into the depths of their discography, their unique cultural and musical background, and personal insight on past tracks.
Following the Pillowsophy
In all aspects, Soft soft pillow are like a breath of fresh air within the indie rock scene. The band’s ability to blend genres and experiment with various sounds distincts them amongst other rock performers. Through their profound lyricism and mesmerizing soundscape, Soft soft pillow serve a form of raw sensitivity and awareness that allows listeners and musicians alike to connect with their music.
Coming out with their self-titled debut album in November 2023, Soft soft pillow embody the band’s versatility and dynamism. The soft rock album shows off their seamless fusion of rock with the classic indie rock elements, exhibiting their signature dreamy and comforting sound in each infectious track. Soft soft pillow is full of retro synth-groove melodies and whimsical elements suitable for any kind of listener to hum and move along too. The group’s devotion to their name and mission follows suit in their debut project’s physical album — a vintage walkman, a custom cassette tape, and pillow pouch as homage to their retro inspirations.
Living in Malaysia, a country where it feels like summer all year round, Soft soft pillow desired more humor to face the repetitive routine day by day; including their personal observation of Southeast Asian society. Even as a rising retro dream-pop band in Malaysia, Soft soft pillow admit to struggling in life just as everyone else does. And similarly to their debut album’s theme, the band’s core concept with life is to be gentle all so that listener’s won’t feel pain in their lives. “We like the contrast of interpreting some heavier topics such as human rights, freedom, and our own cultural competence and identity,” Wee Ting said. He further explained, “In a light and humorous way, we feel like everything’s so fast. We choose to resist the anxieties and unease probed by rapid development in a gentle way — music.”
As their lead track in their album and most popular song to date, “Pillowsophy” stands as the group’s most prominent song as it not only holds their signature dreamy sound but also what Soft soft pillow stand for as a whole. The harmonies in “Pillowsophy” (and in their other songs) was mainly inspired by famous Malaysian musician P. Ramlee and the Singaporean-Malaysian psychedelic rock group yeh yeh!.
Ralph hoped for the track to be something people can fall back on and take a break from their busy life, reassuring those who listen that it’s okay to slow down and we don’t need to feel guilty about it. “As we know, the rapid development of the world is an irreversible trend, right?” Ralph noted “And as a person living in an island country, we often see many friends from European and American countries coming here for vacation. So it kinda shows that the people here are very chill and they love the vibes here.”
Ralph further acknowledged that although it feels like being lazy and chill is a sin, the song does much more than serve as consolement, “When we wrote ‘Pillowsophy’ it was not only to encourage everyone to be lazy…but we [also] wanted to reject that [belief of sin] so everyone should not be burdened by it. We should allow ourselves to rest more instead of not getting any work-life balance.”
On the topic of inspiration behind the songs, Wee Ting revealed the nuance in their song “Dream of a butterfly,”. Originally known as “美夢中離去” in Chinese, the titling is poetically translated as “Dream of a Butterfly,” a well-known Chinese parable discussing skepticism towards general knowledge. Wee Ting went on to tell the tale of the philosopher Chuang Tzu and his dream. One day, Chuang Tzu had a dream in which he was a butterfly, experiencing (what felt like) a real event up until the moment he woke up. The dream was so vivid that Chuang Zhu started to question which one was real — the butterfly in the dream or Chuang Zhu himself.
“Being chill allows us to have more time to think. We think about truth and falsehood about reality and virtual reality. And we also imagine the difference between online and offline, which happens to coincide with the thoughts of the philosopher Chuang Tzu.” Wee Ting said, tying the song’s content with the reflective philosophy. “This [story] is very similar to the world we live in now, where we question which one online or offline is more like our true selves.”
In a light-hearted tone, “Dream of a butterfly” dives into the themes of death, specifically how one deals with death, its effect in our life, and its role as an inevitable fate we can only make peace with. A significant element to take note is the outros’ heavy assortment of East Asian instruments, specifically the inclusion of sonar and percussion instruments used in Chinese opera. Wee Ting invited his father, a Chinese opera instrumentalist, to perform the short yet impactful outro, resulting in an overall authentic and resonating composition.
Having Fun With the In-Betweens
Drawing influence from their Southeast Asian roots and the unique sounds from the ’80s synthwave era, the members proudly proclaim themselves as a dream pop band with Southeast Asian vibes. Committed to breaking boundaries in their country, Soft soft pillow produce and influence with the strokes of their pen and the beats of their dreamscape. When discussing the band’s retro sound and contemplative writings comes alive, Faridz excitedly spoke up and dived right into the bands creative approach. As an avid listener of Indonesian indie pop and self-proclaimed gear geek, Faridz indulges in all blends of music despite the language arries, attaining music across asian diaspora at his disposal.
Having grown up in a Chinese opera environment, Wee Ting also confessed to his musical journey beginning at the age of three. As he toured alongside his parents, the singer visited various regions in Malaysia and meeting different performers on the Chinese opera stage and environment allowed the singer to discover the authenticity of music and live performances.
To create their dreamy sound, the guitarists described the creative process to fall under three aspects, melody, arrangement, and lyrics, to which he confessed to taking main responsibility in all three. Taking advantage of this, Faridz fuses their diverse backgrounds to create what listeners describe as a comforting dream. “I inject this kind of influence and then mix with Wee’s inspiration of opera acting so as a result it’s really really creating this kind of leisurely Southeast Asian and just match everything together,” he explained. Soft soft pillow’s authenticity flows out into their visual expression with all props and backdrops being self-produced by the band themselves, with their hairstylist and makeup done by their manager and producer Kido Lee and wardrobe done by Kido’s mother.
Before Soft soft pillow came to be, the band members were originally complete strangers. Born during the pandemic in 2020, the group virtually came together and began their journey in an exchange of music and culture. “Somehow, it [was] like, Instagram or Facebook algorithm that just matches us together. It’s like online dating.” Faridz laughed at his comparison. “It just suddenly everyone found each other in our creative processor, it took about one year where everything was done online.”
The band engaged in weekly Zoom meetings with members splitting into groups and tasked with different responsibilities. The aspiring musicians presented their completed drafts and openly shared their thoughts and feedback in this small space they created. For an entire year, everything was conducted online. Faridz finished his thoughts, reflecting, “It was important to learn how we communicate within each other because basically [we were] five strangers [meeting] for the first time in different cultures, languages, and places. So it [was] really unique of us to actually find ourselves within this online [space which] just happened during COVID time.”
Beneath the Sound
As they continuously adhere to their mission to soften the world’s pain through their artistry, what makes Soft soft pillow groundbreaking is their innate ability to utilize the soft-sounding instrumentals of psychedelic rock and synth-pop to challenge serious topics. Complementary to the philosophical perspective adopted for “Dream of a butterfly,” their 2022 single, “Agnes” was inspired by a democratic movement taking place in Hong Kong in 2019-2020.
The song was originally written in 2020 where the band witnessed the futile struggle against the system, and then subsequently being forced into lockdown. They further specified the song to be written from a perspective if you were the partner of an activist, in this case Agnes Chow, a famous Hong Kong social activist and politician who was arrested. Holding strong emotions throughout this moment in history, the band composed a song revolving around the duties of activists, the numerous perspectives adopted, and the sense of community through shared sacrifice and support.
Jerald made sure to point out Soft soft pillow’s multicultural and multilingual background addition to their cross-cultural relationships, so the possibilities are endless when it comes to the topics the band will touch on in the future. “We hope to write some interesting stories that happened in different cultures and backgrounds.” he happily stated, “and even try to express them in different languages.”
Dreams of Soft soft pillow
With 15 performances (and counting), the group has captured a few memorable moments on-and-off stage throughout their career. For Yin, there was one memory in particular for the band after the release of their debut album. Before taking stage for a performance in June 2023, Soft soft pillow won Fresh Music Singapore’s Rising Star Award. Smiling as he reflected back on the surprising yet pivotal moment in time, Yin expressed his gratitude to his fans. “This is very significant to us now as it shows that there are people that are fans who love our music and who will love us as a piece, we appreciate it a lot. It’s a reminder to ourselves… that we will continue to make music and have people to appreciate it.”
Sticking to loving moments between fans and the band, Soft soft pillow recalled a wholesome moment taking place in their first live shows. Taking place in a small thrift shop, the band aimed for an intimate set in hopes to control everything better. As the time to perform grew closer, the team was full of anxiety and concern, questioning the what-ifs and possible mishaps that could take place throughout the night. Yet despite the overwhelming doubt, the night turned out to be one they’d never forget.
Wishing to make their performances special for the people who made the effort to come to their live shows and have something to remember them by, Soft soft pillow announced a dress code for audience members to come in their pajamas. When the shows came along, every audience member showed up in PJs for their Saturday night show. The band found this moment to be very touching.
The band also couldn’t help but mention their biggest live show in which they’ve arranged themselves. Getting together with friends and Malaysian indie band babychair, the two acts hired a venue with 300 caps with the concert selling out almost immediately. The venue was packed to the point where seats weren’t enough, having the team arrange the extra attendees to the front. In spite of the unexpected turnout, the end result had the band full of encouragement and tender emotions they’ll never forget.
Jerald shared seeing fellow indie bands such as Sunset Rollercoaster and No Party For Cao Dong perform in acclaimed music festivals such as Coachella and Greystone serve as acts of encouragement for Soft soft pillow. “I think we have a lot of dreams we would like to achieve,” he shared. “I will say in the short term, we will probably want to play a Mahara sub and parole Music Festival in Bangkok. Try our luck at Summer Sonic if our music happens to match that team, hopefully for this year or for the next year. And as for Europe, we will like to play Primavera and for the US I will say we are thinking maybe Lollapalooza. We definitely need to do more homework.”
Faridz chimed in with his own ambitions, “We hope that our existence is not just within our region, but also by meeting more bands from different languages and cultures, right? So definitely start with an Asia tour.”
Reminiscing on the past and looking at the present, Soft soft pillow once again express their utmost appreciation and love towards Softies, their fans. “This is truly amazing. Whenever we give our all and pour our efforts into music. The appearance of softies seems to be a celebration of our masterpiece.” Wee Ting shared, in a serious tone, pondering the plentiful experiences shared between the band and Softies, “… there are so many music lovers growing with us and we sincerely hope that they can continue to support us and provide honest feedback when we are not doing well.”
Parts of this interview have been edited for clarity.
Listen to Soft Soft Pillow’s debut single “Pillowsophy” on Spotify and Apple Music!
Ready to follow the pillowsophy of Soft soft pillow? Make sure to follow the band for the latest news on their social media accounts Instagram, X, Facebook, and YouTube.
Searching for more indie groups to add to your playlist? Check out our recent Artist Spotlight on Taiwanese indie band Huan Huan here!
