Arkarna

History

Formed by engineering prodigy Ollie Jacobs in England in the mid-1990s, and debuting in 1997 with the album Fresh Meat. Jacobs (Programmer and vocalist) had worked as an engineer and producer in his father's London studios, Rollover , from the age of 14. By the time he started the band, Jacobs had mixed for Dreadzone, Leftfield and Deep Forest.

Acoustic guitarist and backing vocalist James Barnett, formerly a member of Lunarci, recorded for Big Life Records and regularly appeared on the Megadog club scene. Lalo Creme, son of Lol Creme of Godley and Creme fame joined after playing guitar for a series of Trevor Horn sessions, Creme was directed to Rollover Studios where Jacobs and Barnett were in the process of crystallizing their musical ideas.

The trio were signed to WEA Records by Clive Black and Raz Gold in June 1995 and later released their debut single House on Fire and the album, Fresh Meat. During this period they took the first steps in performing live, hiring drummer Sebastian Beresford before enrolled him as the fourth member before their 1997 tour of Australia. As a four-piece, they went on to tour across the world until after the release of their second album, The Family Album (2001).

In 2010, Arkarna joined forces with session musicians Tim Owen (drummer) and Dave Landers (bassist) to perform in front of over 30,000 fans for Java Rockin'land in Ancol Dreamland, Jakarta, Indonesia. They headlined alongside the Smashing Pumpkins and Stereophonics and were voted the festival favorite and instantly won the hearts of young Indonesian adults across the nation.

New material started to appear in 2011 for their third album, the first single from which is entitled Left Is Best The sneak-peek promo video for Left Is Best first appeared on YouTube in December 2011.

With millions of loyal fans in Indonesia, on October 20, 2014 Arkarna was invited back by Indonesian President Joko Widodo to perform live in front of over 250,000 people at the presidential inauguration in the National Monument MONAS - Jakarta.

There are about 69 million Indonesian subscribers on the band's Facebook page, with Jakarta being popular as the world’s Twitter city. On August 17, 2015, the Indonesian youth once again turned their attention to the Internet, radio stations and TV networks when Ollie Jacobs and Matt Hart were summoned back to Indonesia to launch a new single Kebyar-Kebyar in Indonesian language to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the independence of Indonesia.

Music

Some of Arkarna's more popular songs are House on Fire and Eat Me, both of which appeared on Arkarna's debut album Fresh Meat. House on Fire has featured on U.S. sitcom series Friends, The OC and also appeared on the Batman & Robin soundtrack. Another hit song from the Fresh Meat album, So Little Time, was also the theme tune to Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen's TV show in the U.S. So Little Time. Arkarna's The Family Album produced the singles Skin, Rehab and the Number #1 radio tune in Southeast Asia Life is Free. Several other international inroads over the past decade included soundtracking Levi's Ads and Honda TV commercials in the United States.

Ollie Jacobs

Jacobs started out doing remixes for Frankie Goes To Hollywood ("Relax") before he went on to mix Leftfield's, Leftism. Jacobs then began composing his own songs, and became the frontman of Arkarna. Jacobs was soon involved with East 17 and Take That and made an appearance on BBC One's Top of the Pops with Rozalla, performing behind the turntables on "Don't Go Lose It Baby"

Jacobs has also collaborated with various well-known artists and producers including Madonna, Trevor Horn, Art of Noise, Barry Manilow, The Prodigy, Skunk Anansie, William Orbit, Tinchy Stryder, Stooshe, Boyzone. Early on, Jacobs wrote and produced the number #1 hit Mysterious Girl for Peter Andre. Additionally, he has mixed the track Pop Your Cork for the Stanton Warriors feat. Twista and also collaborated with Dave Hedger under the name West London Deep. In 2013, Jacobs was voted Top UK Hit Songwriter for writing and producing the number #1 hit for The Saturdays What About Us, which has sold over 500,000 copies in the UK, plus 120,000 copies in the US alone without even charting on the Billboard Hot 100.

Albums

Singles

Remixes