Nice Stupid Playground

Nicestupidplayground was formed in Sarawak, Borneo, Malaysia in 1992 and fronted by Charles Rossem.

Musically, they are influenced by the now defunct early 80s British sounds.

The current band members are Charles Rossem (vocals), John Boniface (bassist), Abdul Aziz Sahal (guitars), Bendy Ismardy (drums), Nellfee (guitars) and Abdul Hadi (keyboards). Nellfee and Abdul Hadi was recruited early 2005 before the recording of the new album.

In 1996, John Boniface (bassist) sent their most successful demo titled Thirtyzeroeight to Paul Moss, one of Positive Tones highly rated producer.

The demo automatically caught Paul Moss interest and immediately offered nicestupidplayground a compilation album deal.

The compilation which was released in 1997 entitled Boys & Girls 1 + 1 = 3 in which nicestupidplayground contributed 3 songs- Bedroom Window, She Wants and and I dont admire .

Bedroom Window was the main single for the compilation and was well received everywhere.

It was a successful year for nicestupidplayground when the compilation was awarded a Double Platinum from album sales and caught music critics attention when the compilation album won The Best English Album at the Anugerah Industri Muzik in 1997.

To topped a successful year for nicestupidplayground, Bedroom Window was handpicked in Hong Kong by Holywood movie producer Wayne Wang, to be included as a soundtrack to the movie titled The Chinese Box which starred Jeremy Irons and Gong Li.

Bedroom Window video which was directed by Planet Films also won Monthly Best Music Video (March) in the Video Muzik show.

Prior to that, Bedroom Window was nominated in five categories at the finals of Anugerah Video Muzik (Video Music Awards)1997.

Dubbed as Sarawaks best kept secret, nicestupidplayground success follows with a full length album deal offered by Positive Tone.

In 1999, they started working on their new album and by December 1999, a new first single stereogirl was released and immediately topped several local chart show.

In February 2000, the first full length album my life is my parents biggest television was released and at the same time, a music video for Stereogirl was shot.

Stereogirl music video was awarded 3rd Best Music Video at the Malaysian Video Awards (MVA) in 2000.

The album also received good reviews from music critics everywhere but unfortunately the album sales are not too convincing.

Nicestupidplayground parted with Positive Tone in 2003 due to a change of management.

They did get an offer to record a full length Malay album but were not keen to persue the project.

However, nicestupidplayground keep on performing at numerous shows both in East Malaysia and the Peninsular during their quiet period.

They keep on writing new songs and hoping somewhere, somehow there will be an offer a deal by any label or perhaps a potential investor who are willing to invest.

Finally in 2005, nicestupidplayground was offered an album deal by Mr. Clinton Ang who is now the spokeperson cum manager for the band.

All the new songs were recorded between May October 2005 at Zanzibar Media in Kuching, Sarawak.

The album is called A Beautiful Life and musically tagged as the new BorneoPop, most of the new songs sounding pretty much from the 80s New Wave era.

Nicestupidplayground hope to catch up with their fans whove been waiting for something new from the band for the past 5 years.

The 10 new songs mentioned are 1. beautiful life 2. miracle 3. happy 4. chasing butterfly 5. telecommusication 6. if all else fails 7. stronger than before 8. closer 9. my teenage view 10. because we are With a new self-released album out, they hope to prove to any major labels that signing them will never be a mistake.

Info source: Band's Official Website & MySpace