My Death Diary have a strange kind of archive. Old gig photos survived (see loads of them below). Flyers and posters survived. Facebook still holds years of visual scraps, and the band still have a physical issue of HAI magazine that covered “Stay Here For You” and “Slipped Away”. Almost every original WAV master from their first run is gone. When Mimi and Alay started pulling the band back together in 2025, some of those songs existed only as MP3s left online from the ReverbNation era.
My Death Diary formed in Jakarta in 2009, when emo was still a relatively small part of the local scene and pop-punk and alternative music were more dominant and visible.
The name My Death Diary came pretty casually. They picked it because it sounded right at the time, without attaching some big meaning to it. Years of changing lineups, disappearing from music and eventually coming back gave it a different weight on its own. A lot of their songs came from the same place: stuff they were actually going through and often found easier to put into music than say out loud.
It might be a shocker to our younger audience, but back in 2009, most of the social life around My Death Diary existed offline. Dejavu Cafe in Central Jakarta was one of the regular places. Killing Me Inside and Pee Wee Gaskins were among the bands passing through there. Rossi in the Fatmawati area was another point where bands and music communities met.
Outside the venues, they spent time around Blok M, Taman Barito, Taman Menteng, Taman Suropati and Kota Tua. These were ordinary meeting spots. People hung out, talked about music, killed time before shows and kept seeing the same faces afterwards. Aldi’s house in the Raden Saleh area became My Death Diary’s unofficial basecamp. When the band had a gig, they would usually meet there first and head to the venue together.
“We got to know most bands, friends, and communities through gigs,” they recalled. “We would often see the same people at different shows, watch bands grow alongside each other, and a lot of the relationships between bands and communities were built simply by being there together.”
HAI Demos put My Death Diary in front of a wider audience. They entered a public vote for a place on the HAI Demos stage and got there through the votes of people already following them. HAI also featured the band in its print Demos section and in a separate HAI Online article. The old print piece covered “Stay Here For You” and “Slipped Away”, and the band kept a physical copy.
Last Kiss From Avelin and For Revenge were among the bands they felt closest to as they moved from gig to gig. They also point to Killing Me Inside, For Revenge and Revenge The Fate when talking about the mix of emo, alternative, post-hardcore and heavier music developing around them at the time.
And yeah, finding music in 2009 was a different routine altogether. A lot of it came from simply going to shows and asking friends what they were listening to. MySpace was huge, especially for bands from outside Indonesia, and internet cafés were part of the whole thing because plenty of people still did not have reliable access at home. You heard a name somewhere, looked it up later, passed it to somebody else, then maybe caught that band at the next show.
My Death Diary changed members repeatedly through those years. The earliest lineup had Alay on guitar, Ega on drums and Landi on vocals, with no permanent bassist yet and auditions still happening.
Minoy later joined on screamed vocals while Landi handled clean vocals, alongside Alay and Ega. Michael was also part of the band during this period, although both Michael and Landi moved in and out of the lineup.
A later six-piece had Mimi on clean vocals, Minoy on screamed vocals, Alay and Ari on guitars, Steve on bass and Ega on drums. After Mimi, Minoy, Ari and Steve left, the band changed again: Ratna on vocals, Alay on guitar, Ichal on guitar, Lucky on bass and Ega on drums.
Over time, work, families and moving pulled the lineups apart. Some members married and started families. Others focused on careers outside music. Ratna, Ega, Lucky and Ichal eventually stepped away for those reasons. Mimi kept singing and later joined Anastasys. My Death Diary gradually stopped being active.
Alay dates the change to roughly 2013, when community events began becoming less frequent and the musical directions around them started changing. When Mimi and Alay returned in 2025, the difference was obvious to them.
“Back then, everything felt much more face to face. Social media was not as dominant as it is now, so most interactions happened directly through gigs, communities, hangout spots, or through friends.”
In their experience, community-based shows and gatherings now happen less often, with far more interaction taking place online. Emo Night is one of the few examples they still see that brings people together around the music in a way they recognise from their earlier years. Younger bands can find each other quickly through social media. My Death Diary say building the sort of relationship that once grew from repeatedly sharing rooms, parks and gigs has become harder for them.
“Ironically, even though people can connect much more easily through the internet and social media now, for us building connections that genuinely feel like part of a scene has become more difficult.”
The old recordings were never released as physical CDs or demo tapes. They moved through friends, gigs, MySpace, ReverbNation and the local network around the band. Old gig photos, rehearsal shots, different lineups, posters and flyers proved easier to recover. They remain scattered through Facebook and the band’s own folders. Some photographer credits have been lost, although the band are still trying to identify sources where they can.
The audio archive took more work. Almost all of the original WAV files and studio masters disappeared. When Mimi and Alay began recovering the catalogue, the copies still sitting on ReverbNation were sometimes the only versions they could find.
“We had hoped that some WAV files or original masters might still exist somewhere, but as far as we know now, those files are gone.”
They cleaned up those surviving MP3s and created new WAV files for digital distribution. They kept every original vocal and instrumental performance and left the arrangements intact.
“For us, that is where the line is: improving the presentation without rewriting the recording itself.” The original performances, imperfections and period sound remain intact. Going further would have meant replacing the recordings they actually made at the time with revised versions.
The older catalogue includes “Stay Here For You”, “Slipped Away”, “Antara Waktu dan Penantian”, “Tentang Dia” and “Takkan Berakhir”. These are now being prepared for official digital availability after years of surviving through old web platforms and personal archives.
The current run began in January 2025. Mimi and Alay met again around that point and started talking about whether My Death Diary could work with only two people.
Mimi had one reference in mind. Twenty One Pilots made the idea of a two-person band easier to picture. She saw that two people could carry a strong band identity and make something meaningful together. Mimi took vocals. Alay returned on guitar and songwriting. My Death Diary became a duo.
“We know that the My Death Diary that exists now will never be exactly the same as the band that existed in 2009. A lot has changed, including the people inside it.”
“Alone“, released on 11 September 2026, is their first new song since the return.
The arrangement uses piano and synth textures, vocals, electric guitars and a heavier full-band sound. It stays within the emo/alternative rock style My Death Diary have used since 2009. Mimi and Alay use the song to put feelings into words that are difficult to say directly.
The words start with someone banging their head “over and over again”, feeling desire die and refusing to go back. Regret stays buried, there is a wish to hold someone and wipe away their tears, and the chorus says, “The world doesn’t want to be friendly / But I keep dancing in the rain.” Later, silence stops helping. The narrator needs a friend, finds hope and imagines shared dreams leading towards a “shining star”.
The song was written by Alay, with lyrics by Alay and Mimi. Alay also handled the music and arrangement, and My Death Diary produced it. It is available through Spotify and other major digital streaming platforms. For My Death Diary, music is a way to store and share stories. If one of their songs makes somebody feel a little less alone in their own life, they consider that story to have found its place.
Mimi and Alay still have the photos, the HAI clipping, the names of the parks, the old gig routes and the songs themselves.
“We chose to continue something that had once been left unfinished.”
