Death Metal in the Land of the Killing Fields
© Steve Porte
Plastic bags hang in the bushes, as brittle as porous skin. Children crouch in the dirt, sucking their thumbs. The air smells of sewers and burnt rubber. The members of the Cambodian death metal band Doch Chkae (Editor's note: it is pronounced "Dudsch Gai") call their slum "Flying Shit Town". It is located just under half an hour from Phnom Penh airport. Because there are no toilets in the tarpaulin-covered wooden shacks, the residents do their business in plastic bags, which they then throw out the window. "Hence the name of the city," explains singer Theara. His bandmates Vichey and Hing nod. This is no joke, you can see it in their impassive faces. The teenagers spent their childhood here in the slums among garbage collectors, drug dealers and prostitutes.
People make a living by collecting garbage
Until recently, the largest garbage dump in Cambodia was located in the Stung Meanchey district. Families from all provinces came here to find recyclable material in the garbage dunes: metals, plastic, paper, food. Over 1,000 tons were dumped every day. Huts grew up on the edges to form a slum suburb. The dump became home to thousands of children. In 2009, the government shut down the dump. But people here still make a living from collecting garbage. Poisoning and accidents are part of everyday life. Guitarist Vichey's father died when a garbage truck ran over him while he was taking a nap.
Dogs lie between the garbage bags in the midday heat. The city's restaurants pay up to 20 US dollars for not too emaciated specimens. The slum dwellers keep them like cattle that remain nameless, watch over the sheds and will one day be eaten or sold. The strays that live off what others throw away are the heraldic animals of the band Doch Chkae: The name means "dog's life", an expression of the deepest disdain and, in Cambodia's young pop culture, a statement of unprecedented radicalness. "I am crazy like a rabies dog / I hate my fucking life" yells singer Theara in the first death metal song ever recorded in the national language, Khmer. In one of their music videos, the band members jump against the bars of a cage with bared teeth, their childlike facial features distorted into brutal grimaces. Theara, Vichey and Hing are 18, 17 and 15 years old. But that is only an estimate. Identity papers were only issued to them in the home. Over 10,000 children on the streets, many work as prostitutes
The plight of the garbage children has repeatedly attracted the attention of the numerous NGOs that have been present in the country since the 1990s. Although the poverty rate has more than halved between 2004 and 2011, Cambodia is still dependent on humanitarian aid from abroad. The education system has improved from the four years under still not recovered from the terror regime of the Khmer Rouge. It was practically abolished, as was the health system. The average age is just 23.9 years. According to an estimate by UNICEF, in the capital Phnom Penh alone, over 10,000 children live on the streets, many of them working as prostitutes. The orphanages and educational institutions run by NGOs have now taken on the function of a social safety net. According to a study by Columbia University, 80 percent of the 49,000 children living in Cambodian homes are not orphans in the traditional sense. Theara and his half-brother Hing were raised by their aunt until she, like Vichey's mother, could no longer afford to support them. Many families separate from their children in the hope that NGOs will offer them a perspective or at least temporary financial relief.
"Vichey has a cousin whose mother only comes to the home to see if she has breasts yet, so that she can take her on the streets," says Timon Seibel. The 36-year-old is the manager of Doch Chkae. The Swiss national came to the country eight years ago after studying philosophy as an employee of the donation-funded NGO Chidbodia. As a carer at a children's home in a suburb of Phnom Penh, he saw Theara, Vichey and Hing grow up. The three were the problem children in the home. Theara in particular was notable for her extreme temper. "He kept freaking out over the smallest things. Kicking doors in. Breaking things," remembers Seibel. "Hing often followed suit. He wanted to be like his older brother." Three years ago, the home managed to track down Theara's father, an architect who lives with his family in a suburb. They spoke briefly on the phone, then the father told the carers never to call him again. Theara's mother worked as a prostitute and he wanted nothing more to do with that chapter. When Theara threatened the carers with a kitchen knife a few weeks later, they were close to throwing him out. Seibel believes that Theara would have been back on the streets with his drug-dealing cousins by now, had it not been for the evening of November 11, 2014.
At that time, the educator took Vichey, Theara and the underage Hing to a bar in the city center, "simply because they were the oldest and most aggressive and I didn't know what to do." That night, the deathcore band Sliten6ix played in the Show Box, which was frequented mainly by foreigners. It was an awakening for the later members of Doch Chkae. The very next day, the boys, who had previously often lived lethargically from day to day, started searching the Internet for more of this music. Seibel recommended the Red Hot Chili Peppers to them, the YouTube algorithm directed them to Rage Against The Machine and finally to the deathcore band Slipknot. "Stuff that was too extreme for me," says Seibel. Almost at the same time, the three began to rehearse in a disciplined manner. "They freaked out in the home's music room almost every day. I'm familiar with art therapy and things like that, but I was surprised that they would let off steam to such an extent to metal."
At the first performances in the home: incredulous faces. "Most Cambodians have never heard this kind of music," says Theara. Unlike other Asian countries such as India or Indonesia, metal never became established in Cambodia. But its population was daring: under King Sihanouk, pop culture flourished in the 1960s, miniskirts and long men's hair were part of the street scene in Phnom Penh until the Khmer Rouge began a bloody campaign against everything they considered western decadent in 1974. Around 1.7 million Cambodians - according to some estimates, even considerably more - were killed in just five years. An unbelievable genocide initiated by the government, which also claimed the lives of national pop stars such as the well-known Sinn Sisamouth. Death metal, with its morbid aesthetic, should really be too disturbing in the land of the Killing Fields. That is what the sites of mass murder are called. Despite this, or perhaps because of this, the young band Doch Chkae became a topic of conversation. After appearances at the Show Box and a guest appearance at the Golden Street Festival in the city center, reporters visited the band in the studio. The "Phnom Penh Post Weekend" published Theara on the cover. The headline: "Not The Same Old Song". The "Cambodia Daily" wrote that Doch Chkae embodied a "new desire for Khmer metal". "Just in time," says Seibel.
In 2016, the increasingly repressive government under Prime Minister Hun Sen announced that it would drastically reduce the number of NGOs in the country. They were said to be stirring up protests and undermining the family as the smallest unit of society. Many NGOs, however, believe that the government now prefers to accept development aid from the new regional power China, which is tied to fewer conditions and control mechanisms.
“Children come from everywhere and want to participate”
Band projects like Doch Chkae could serve as role models in the future, says Seibel, who, in addition to his work as a social worker, now also runs a record company called Yab Moung, which is intended to encourage musicians to help themselves. "Every band member is a shareholder and gets $120 a month, which is about what they would earn as a dishwasher in the city," says Seibel. The band members learn to produce their own music, as well as manage and distribute it. "I told my employees: see it as an incentive and set up companies that in turn train others." The fact that Doch Chkae play concerts in the city and have even been on television has gotten around. "Kids come from everywhere and want to join in. I'm excited to see whether Doch Chkae will also have an influence on the subculture as the first death metal band to sing in Khmer and make it big," says Seibel.
Singer Theara recently told a team of reporters that he wanted to help others who, like him, grew up in the shadow of the garbage mountains. But Chkae want to hold a fundraising concert in "Flying Shit Town" soon. A music room for the village children is to be built, which Theara wants to run. Instead of death metal, however, he has something else in mind: "I want to start a gangsta rap project and tell our story." Hip-hop might fit even better into this world. As a genre already established in the country, rap could also reach more listeners.
Doch Chkae have already achieved a small revolution in their environment: the house and yard dogs of the record company Yab Moung now all have a name.