trenddjakarta.com, August, 27th 20225 – Who Knows Where Life Will Take You? is the ‘tle of Reality Club’s fourth album and also sums up the Jakarta-based quartet’s journey to date. Recorded in Bangkok, Thailand with producers Brad Oberhofer. Iga Massardi and Wisnu Ikhsantama and released to streaming plaGorms on August 27, 2025 following accompanying singles “Quick! Love!” and “You’ll Find Lovers Like You and Me”. It sees vocalist-guitarist Faiz Novasco’a Saripudin, vocalist Fathia Izza’, drummer Era Pa’go and bassist Nugi Wicaksono at their most personal and confident yet.
Afer 2023’s Reality Club Presents. led to their biggest hit “Anything You Want”, a couple of AMI Awards trophies, a North American tour and opening for superstar Niki across Southeast Asia. It turns out the next challenge for Reality Club was themselves. “We’d already made three albums and had great achievements we were grateful for. But we’d always had a bit of impostor syndrome and downplayed our achievements,” says Faiz. “This ‘me, we decided to stop it. So ‘no
more impostor syndrome’ was the whole mantra of the album.”
As a result, Who Knows Where Life Will Take You? has more carefree vibes and indie rock sounds that resemble Reality Club’s debut album but with the skills. And experience they’ve gained during their nine years together. “Looking back, we made Never Get Be@er just so we could play our original stuff in the car; on What Do You Really Know?. We were trying to prove to people that we’re cool and edgy. And on Reality Club Presents…, we were trying to prove to ourselves. That we have the musical chops to do di fferent genres, work with an orchestra and go all-out with the movie-like videos,” says Faiz. “On this album, we’re not trying to prove anything to anyone, not even ourselves. That’s why I feel it’s similar to the first album in a way.”
Who Knows Where Life Will Take You? began in May 2024 with a nine-day songwri’ng session in Ubud, Bali that led to its 13 songs. Like on previous Reality Club albums, romance in its various permuta’ons and phases make up the bulk of Who Knows Where Life Will Take You?. Particularly the songs wriden by Faiz who upholds the band’s signature widy yet hearGelt lyrics and catchy melodies on the melancholic “Muted Sirens” and “You’ll Find Lovers Like You and Me”, while adding more humor via “Lost Myself in Reveries”. “Finding a Catholic Man to Love the Love of My Life”, “Shut Up, Behave” and “Thank You for Hijacking My Existen’al Crisis”.
Who Knows Where Life Will Take You? also branches out into topics inspired by the band’s loved ones, with the raucous Era-penned opening track “I’ll Do It Myself” hilariously capturing his wife’s workplace frustra’ons, while Fathia dedicates soothing lullaby “Mama’s Coming Home” to her son, has a playful dig at her brother Faiz’s love life on the quirky “Quick! Love!” and pays tribute to their father’s odyssey from humble smalltown boy to globetrogng ambassador on the jaunty “Now I’m a Diplomat”. “There’s songs about life, dreams and God, even,” says Fathia, who also contributed the haun’ng “Enough for You”. “It took a lot of living and experiencing the world to be able to write this album. And I feel like as individuals we’ve grown a lot.”
Another first on this album is the elegant spiritual awakening tune “Close to You/Jauh”, Reality Club’s debut song in their na’ve language. “Whenever asked if Reality Club will have a song in Indonesian, the other members would almost definitely point to me,” says Nugi. Who helped adapt the Fathia-wriden tune in addi’on to making his Reality Club wri’ng debut on the yearning rocker “Does It Happen?” “I can’t wait to see how people are going to react to it.”
While naviga’ng life as an independent band in between management again. Which meant having to sort out all logis’c arrangements on their own Reality Club spent March 2025 at Tree Recording Studio in Bangkok to avoid di strac’ons and fulfill a longstanding desire of recording live, with all musicians Fathia, Faiz, Nugi and Era, plus Gerry Roithart, their live guitarist of three years, and Upi Maajid. Who recently switched from being the band’s monitor engineer to his new role as synth player recording the bulk of the songs by singing. And also playing their instruments together as opposed to the usual prac’ce of tracking each part separately, before overdubbing various elements later on.
According to Nugi. “Having Gerry and Upi involved gave us lots of new ideas and took us into di rections that we’d never imagined before.” Though the studio’s strict 10 am to 5 pm recording hours felt daun’ng at first. It ended up pushing the band to be more efficient. “We were worried that it wouldn’t be enough ‘me but knowing that we had to finish at 5 helped us be hyper-focused. And crea’ve because that deadline mindset is real,” says Era. “Live recording really had a big impact. And I’m sure the microphones
didn’t just capture our voices and instruments but also every look, emo’on and laugh.”
In bringing Who Knows Where Life Will Take You? to life, Reality Club were joined in Bangkok by three producers with di fferent approaches. The band flew in Brad Oberhoferfrom Los Angeles to oversee “Quick! Love!”, “Finding a Catholic Man to Love the Love of My Life”, “Lost Myself in Reveries”, “Enough for You”. “Mama’s Coming Home”, “Thank You for Hijacking My Existen’al Crisis” and “You’ll Find Lovers Like You and Me”. “I’ve been listening to his songs by his band Oberhofersince uni. He’s very unique and eccentric, an amazing musician and person,” says Faiz. “He kept the songs mostly like the demos. But the lidle things that he added and the way he di rected us made so much impact on the whole album.”
The band also recruited Iga Massardi from the band Barasuara. Who took on “I’ll Do It Myself” and “Shut Up, Behave” while adding his di s’nc’ve guitar stylings. “Since the Ubud songwri’ng trip I think we pencilled in Mas Iga to produce some of the songs,” says Faiz. “There were parts he changed or sec’ons he added even before we got to the studio. So he already did his homework and made the songs so much beder.” Rounding out the producers is Wisnu Ikhsantama who handled “Muted Sirens”, “Does It Happen?”, “Now I’m a Diplomat” and “Close to You/Jauh”. As well as working alongside the other producers on their assigned songs, and mixing the whole album. “Tama is someone I’ve always loved working with since our second album. I really like how he tries to understand the emo’on, story and vibe behind the song before he works on it,” says Faiz.
After the success of Reality Club Presents…, following it up would seem a daun’ng task. But befigng their new-found confidence, Reality Club are more than content with finally being able to make the album of their lives. “I feel like it’s already a great success. Coz we already love it and that has always been our number one criterion of success,” says Faiz. Nugi adds, “This is our most personal album yet because all four of us relate to it. We love the songs so much.”
So who knows where Who Knows Where Life Will Take You? will take Reality Club? Wherever it goes, they hope that listeners par’cularly their loyal fans, the Goddess Rockstars come along for the ride. According to Era, “This album has taught me so much. Both the recording process and the hilarious and heartwarming stories that we shared while making it. I hope it’ll improve our listeners’ lives, like it improved mine.” “I just hope people not only enjoy the songs but also appreciate them in their own way,” says Fathia.
Most importantly, the band have finally learned to appreciate themselves. “I don’t know if it’s talent or magic or connection or whatever, but we do have something. Maybe we’re not small-time fries anymore. Maybe we do deserve whatever we’ve had,” says Faiz. “Whatever’s in the future, that’s not for us to decide. But whatever we already had, we deserve that.”
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