weish is a multihyphenate who’s no stranger to multitasking. In the past, she's balanced her solo career as a live looping singer-songwriter with her roles as frontwoman for electronic duo .gif and prog rock band sub:shaman. In recent years, she’s even dabbled in multi-disciplinary productions ranging from crafting plays and short films to acting in TV shows. But even by her busy standards, 2024 has been monumental.
Earlier this year, this wunderkind wrote, composed and even starred in Checkpoint Theatre’s Secondary - a witty, moving and eye-opening musical about Singapore’s education system that was based on her experiences as a literature teacher. She then made her dance debut as part of Singapore International Festival of Arts’ (SIFA) visceral movement opera SUARA / ORO RUA. Immediately after that, she embarked on a transcontinental European tour as a guest vocalist for Wormrot.
Forget the scale, can you even imagine the talent needed to pull off projects as diverse as conceiving a stage musical, learning abstract dance choreography, and screaming for a grindcore band in front of legions? Somehow, she even squeezed in the time to produce a wonderfully unorthodox NDP song with frequent collaborator Claude Glass (Isa Ong of Pleasantry and Amateur Takes Control).
Before she heads to the Padang on 9 August to perform ‘Horizon’ live at the National Day Parade, we caught up with the polymath to talk about her massive year.
Hi weish! Even by your standards, this has been a prolific year for you. How are you doing personally?
I’ve come dangerously close to being burnt out a number of times! But I’m really only still standing thanks to the really good people I work and play with, notably Marc Gabriel Loh – collaborator on almost everything, sounding board, manager, emotional support animal… well, and more. That and I think… the immense amount of work is almost always accompanied by tenfold the reward and fulfilment, which does so much to keep me alive.
Secondary wrapped just a few months ago. Now that you’ve had time to process it, what are your thoughts on writing and composing a musical of that scale?
I’m not sure I’ll ever fully process it, and I certainly never predicted the scale of the production. Writing a musical at all was never even part of my… life plan? For Checkpoint Theatre to’ve had the faith to pump that much resources into staging Secondary is insane to think about, especially as a new playwright; there’s a lot of imposter syndrome surrounding that.
But the process of writing, composing, and music directing was so joyful. Not without intense frustration and obstacles, but ultimately some of the best times of my life, mainly because the entire team poured so much love into it. It wasn’t just a job to anyone. I think that was the most moving and deeply affirming thing. From co-producers and arrangers PK Records to costume designer Max Tan, choreographer Hafeez Hassan, stage manager Saffa’ Afiqah and every member in every department… they deeply cared about the show, fussed over all the little things and gave us their best work. Huzir Sulaiman provided the discipline, inspiration and guidance I needed over a three-year development as my dramaturg, and as our director injected so much life and flavour into the text on the rehearsal floor. Marc gave me lots of great ideas for songs, jokes, plot lines, and did so many big and small things as Assistant Director. Some actors even spent their off days voluntarily sending me videos of themselves experimenting with new ways to read a scene, or exploring new vocal tones and textures.
It’s crazy to think that what were merely dots on a page a couple years ago had come to all this. From involuntarily chuckling to myself while writing alone in my studio, to hearing the laughs at table reads, then again in a big theatre… from doodling melodies and harmonies in my Voice Memos, then translating them into audio files and charts with PK Records, then hearing them in the voices of twelve performers, and then again in the mouths of audiences leaving the theatre… It was all very overwhelming.
You couldn’t have anticipated this at the time, but you ended up also starring in the lead role for a few dates. Tell us the story behind that…
Our lead Genevieve Tan had developed an insidious throat injury, likely from working too hard. She noticed a strain a couple weeks before opening and we gave her vocal rest, confident that, like any other sore throat, it would relent in a few days. But three days to opening night, her doctor warned that healing was incomplete, and performing opening weekend might lead to longer-term damage. That’s when we hit the panic button. We made the decision together in a dressing room backstage, hugging and crying together. Gen had worked so, so hard to perfect her performance over eight weeks of rehearsal, and I was gutted to take opening weekend away from her big musical debut. Thankfully, after four shows, her doctor gave us the green light for her to return.
I had never wanted to perform my own play, not just because it was too much work on top of what I was already doing, but because it was scary to play a role so heavily based on my own life and past traumas. Even watching some of the scenes at auditions was triggering for me; I had to nip out for little cry breaks. But eventually, with a great deal of help from Checkpoint and Marc and the cast and crew, I learned the lines and blocking in three days and pulled through.
The reception to Secondary has been tremendous, with many even calling for a second run. But we’re curious about how it was received in the education sector?
Actually, the most passionate responses have been from teachers and students! Several teachers cried into my shoulder at the Victoria Theatre lobby post show, citing uncanny resemblances between characters and their own students, or sharing their own eerily similar stories. There was one teacher who, having spent many years at Headquarters, had been torn between remaining there or going back to teaching on the ground. She shared that watching the play made her decision crystal clear.
But my favourite responses have been from youth. Many were surprised and excited about the music, how much it differed from traditional musicals. Arts school students noticed the ways in which we played with the storytelling form, and got excited about experimenting in their own practice. But even kids with less arts exposure or cultural capital – many for whom it was their first time watching a play – had a lot to say. There was a bunch of school boys who, upon seeing Shahid Nasheer (who played Omar) after the show, stopped roughhousing to gently greet him “Mister Omar” before shyly asking for a photo. A spontaneous presentation by a school group, about who among them identified most with which character and why. And a boy who came to say “each movement got one meaning at first, then by the end of the show change meaning”, prompting a look from his teacher that I’ll never forget – so much surprise, then pride.
Many issues in Secondary have been discussed in local plays and films that preceded it, so I really cannot lay claim to bringing new themes to light. But if exploring an age-old theme in new ways yields these kinds of reactions, I think that makes the doing all worthwhile.
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Secondary is obviously very personal and authentic to your past life as a teacher. Did any of the real-life people your characters were based on watch the play?
Yes! The Maths teacher that inspired Charlie Chu came. Apparently, I had remembered the brand of his non-sequitur humour so well, his wife turned to him to ask, “Are you Charlie?”… to which he replied, “What do you think?” (Charlie’s catchphrase in the show). Even some of the story’s “villains” came. I was shocked and a little terrified to see them, but they congratulated me warmly and appreciated the play’s balanced views.
Some ex-students came as well, which was the loveliest thing. I drew so much from my memories of them while writing – all the nonsensical things they do and say, all their unseen trials, all the ways they took care of each other. Again, more post-show crying and hugging. So much catharsis!
A lot of your projects this year are very high profile. But one that flew under the radar that might be the most interesting was your dance debut in SUARA / ORO RUA for SIFA 2024. Were you more nervous than usual during that performance?
I was nervous about the dancing, for sure, in the first week of rehearsal. But in the hands of Safuan Johari, Eddie Elliot and all his lovely dancers, the nerves dissipated real quick. They gave us everything we needed to succeed. It was such a relief, after Secondary, to be coached and directed and told what to do! It felt like a holiday. I learned things about my body, felt a new kind of rush moving alongside other bodies in formation, and was given so much trust and freedom to explore vocally, too.
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You just returned from a massive European tour with Wormrot. What was that experience like?
I’m laughing because I don’t know if I can answer without writing a whole thesis.
Of course there was insane adrenaline from performing to a 10,000-strong crowd at Hellfest, and maybe just as many at Obscene Extreme Festival. But the smaller shows where Wormrot were headliners went just as hard. Circle pits I might’ve died in, Gabriel Dubko bleeding from the head, moshers crashing into mic stands… In the Czech Republic there was a frail little granny who crowd surfed towards us mid-set. They gently placed her on the stage, and she did a tiny geriatric jig at 0.5x speed from stage left to stage right, before a full trust fall back into the audience.
I’m new to grindcore and have only been tangentially involved in heavier music communities back home, so I was really intimidated at first! And afraid that grindcore purists or long-term Wormrot fans would be mad at me for butchering the repertoire that they know and love. But everyone was really kind; these giant Europeans with the ink and beards and outfits are all really gentle and sweet. Shane Embury from Napalm Death hung out with me in Trutnov, telling me he’d been listening to my solo music. The guys from Earache Records welcomed me so warmly in London. Women in Brighton, Barrow in Furness and Munich came to thank me for being a woman in grindcore. More impostor syndrome ensued, but it was very gratifying. The response was overwhelmingly positive in every city, and many lauded Rasyid Juraimi for his vision and guts to push boundaries. I don’t know what I did to earn his trust, but I’m really grateful.
Above all, it’s made me so, so proud of Singapore. Like, there were people who’d flown from other countries (some as far as the USA) to see Wormrot play live. Some people watched multiple shows in multiple cities throughout the tour. People queued around the block to get into the venue. There was a dude with a giant Wormrot tattoo across his entire chest. Another big bearded man cried during the set, turning to strangers to say he never thought he’d get to see Wormrot live in his lifetime. Every crowd, no matter how lukewarm through the night, went nuts when Wormrot began. They’re seriously at the forefront of the genre, their writing and arrangements are actually insane. At every show I have this soaring pride. Like, how does the average Singaporean not know about this?
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Let’s get to the Padang-sized elephant. You have an NDP song with Claude Glass. How did it come about? Was there any anxiety about working on something this big?
I love that there is more than one question about anxiety, because I have plenty of it!
NDP Music Director Bang Wenfu invited me to write and perform an original song for the parade, assuring me that he and Creative Director Brian Gothong Tan wanted me to write unapologetically in my own style and voice, without watering anything down to pander to the mainstream. It was after all meant for a final segment of the parade that looked towards “a brave new future”, so it needed to be bold and progressive.
I was pretty anxious until I asked Isa Ong (Claude Glass) to co-write with me, having been a longtime fan of his composition and production style. I knew he’d inject the song with the exact kind of juice and spice it needed. With him at the helm of the production work, most of my fear dissipated.
The creative process for writing, composing and recording an NDP song must be an entirely different beast from what you’re used to. How did you and Isa approach it?
We were given full creative freedom, so it wasn’t crazy different! The main new considerations were writing a catchy hook, and of course, uplifting and positive lyrics. Depressing lyrics are usually my comfort zone, heh. That might’ve been the hardest part for me.
We studied a bunch of interesting anthemic songs and analysed the ingredients that made them rousing, which I think Isa applied very effectively in the instrumentation. We still had to make the song palatable enough for the general public, and well, the army personnel vetting it, so Isa was constantly treading a fine balance – noisy, dirty synths counterpointed by sweet, organic textures, aggressive pulsing bass with soaring, feel-good strings. Vocally, I wanted to find a stirring ferocity with a tribal, primal kind of approach to vocal tone and harmony. We eased the listener in with a more traditionally “pretty” voice, then began to layer in other, “uglier” vocal shapes and shouts later.
At the end of the day we still snuck in dark chords, gritty textures, and Isa even slipped in some subtle odd-timing bits. Thanks to Wenfu and Brian fighting hard for the song, we managed to get most of it approved and are really happy with how it turned out.
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Lastly, how have the rehearsals been going? And how do you feel in the lead up to your National Day Parade performance?
Rehearsals have been unexpectedly fun. It’s a massive production in so many jaw-dropping ways, with so many departments and moving parts. The spectacle of it all is crazy to witness in real life, from a backstage area that spans entire roads… to the scores of children walking past you dressed as giant fishballs or jellyfish-like tents that light up from inside… to the sweet NS men who hold electric fans to my face and umbrellas over my head, in the heat.
To be honest, I was initially afraid I’d struggle with the potential farce of all of it. I’ve spent most of my life with complicated feelings about Singapore, from as early as primary school. But… I don’t know if it’s just because I’m viewing it from within, but the show this year feels different. It’s pushing boundaries in subtle ways that I really appreciate, not just aesthetically and stylistically but also in the framing and storytelling. It celebrates aspects of Singapore that I really, truly, love – down-to-earth stories of everyday people that make up the fabric of who we are, the unique qualities of our food and culture and speech, even raising awareness about suicide and mental health struggles and where to find help. I’ve been really impressed that the committee is embracing songs and conversations that may have been deemed taboo not too long ago.
So as cynical or suspicious as I have been all my life to the rah-rah and the fireworks… standing in the middle of the Padang singing 'Majulah Singapura' alongside fellow performers and scores of bright-eyed children has hit me quite deeply. I even choked up reciting the pledge last week!
I’m feeling good about it all. Proud to’ve made this track with Isa, proud to be an indie musician on the biggest national stage, and, just as I have been through the Wormrot tour, proud to be Singaporean.
