Riko Prayitno Tells Mocca's Journey As A Campus Band

Riko Prayitno (both from the left) in a Bisik Bisik by FESMI (Ivan Two Men/VOI)

JAKARTA - Riko Prayitno is one of the founders of the Mocca music group, which has been playing for 25 years. Until now, the band's line-up is still intact.

Remembering the re-establishment of Mocca, Riko said that he had never thought about entering the music industry seriously. At first, he only wrote songs for his own pleasure.

"In the past, we wanted to just make our song come true. Because our song is English, who wants to hear it. We just want to know if we make a song, "said Riko Prayitno in a Bisik Bisik event held by FESMI in Thamrin, Central Jakarta recently.

Mocca's first stage as a group took place two years after it was formed. As a student of the Bandung Institute of Technology, Mocca personnel at that time appeared on campus events.

Seeing a pretty good response, Mocca decided to record their works to be used as an album.

Then, Riko began sending their music demos to several music labels in Bandung.

Finally, Mocca recorded her first album on Fast Forward Records, which previously only distributed cassettes from overseas musicians.

"Actually, my ideals are moderate, if they can release an album from an outside musician, it can be released by my album. Finally, Mocca became the first artist on Fast Forward," said Riko.

Since the first album, My Diary (2002) was released, Mocca has received a good response from listeners. Despite getting many offers from the music label, they chose to stay with Fast Forward until the fourth album, Home (2014).

Furthermore, Mocca continues to run by producing their own albums. They still released two other albums, namely Lima (2018) and Day By Day (2020).