Wawan Juniarso Regrets Leaving Dewa 19

Dewa 19 initial personnel (Instagram @wa2n_juniarso)

JAKARTA - Dewa 19's long journey as one of the top bands in the Indonesian music industry cannot be separated from the figure of Wawan Juniarso. In fact, the acronym of the first drummer is the basis for the name of the band that is still being used today.

Wawan Juniarso officially left Dewa 19's permanent personnel in 1993, after recording six songs from the album Format Masa Depan which was released a year later.

Thirty years later, when asked by Ahmad Dhani for the decision to leave, Wawan admitted that he had regrets.

"Anyway, sir. That's honest, sir," said Wawan Juniarso, greeted by laughter from Ahmad Dhani, Ari Lasso and Andra Ramadhan, launching the VIDEO LEGEND YouTube channel, Monday, October 23.

"Yes, I remember when I was still at the cheap hotel, chasing the bus. Yes, remember the struggle," continued Wawan Juniarso.

Wawan said that at that time he had the main commitment to completing his studies at the university. This commitment is also fully supported by his parents.

"People tell me every Eid it says 'When will you go to college (S2)? Don't worry about the costs'," said Wawan

In addition to educational reasons, Wawan also admitted that he was annoyed with Ahmad Dhani during the second album recording process. At that time, he felt that he was not given room to explore his drumming game.

"Then I went berserk. On the second album, I already described all the drums with him (Ahmad Dhani). We don't have a workshop, he said, 'Come on, sis, the drums are filling like this'," he said.

Hearing what Wawan said, Ari Lasso saw that it was natural for Ahmad Dhani to act like that. The reason is, the second album of Dewa 19 was produced by him.

"Yes, he (Ahmad Dhani) has the rank of producer on the second album. My vocals follow his direction," said Ari Lasso.

"Yes, until now I have drawn all the drums," said Ahmad Dhani.

For information, after using additional drummers for a while, Dewa 19 decided to replace Wawan Juniarso's position with Aksan Sumatra.

To fill the acronym vacancy 'W', Aksan Sjuman chose the stage name Wong Aksan after joining Dewa 19.