Every good teenager needs a hobby of some kind, but most teenagers stick with boring stuff like sports, part-time jobs, or hassling shopkeepers. According to The Guardian, a group of teenage girls from Indonesia have come up with something much more badass: they started a metal band. The group is called Voice Of Baceprot, or VOB for short (which means “noisy” in the Sundanese language), and the band’s three members—Firdda Kurnia, Eusi Siti Aisyah, and Widi Rahmawati—happen to be hijab-wearing, practicing Muslims who are intent on teaching people to look past stereotypes associated with teenage girls, metal music, and their religion.
The Guardian story says the band was formed by the girls’ music teacher, Erza Satia, who says that music is “a constructive, creative way” for young people to avoid things like drugs and premarital sex. The girls also live in a “relatively conservative” area of Indonesia, and Satia says he has received “threatening phone calls” trying to get him to break up the band, and a religious leader even pulled out a power cord and cut the sound during one Voice Of Baceprot concert.
It sounds like the girls themselves have either been able to ignore the backlash or rise above it, though, with vocalist and guitarist Kurnia seemingly shrugging off any critics by saying, “Of course Islam and metal can match,” adding that metal is “often associated with bad things, but it doesn’t have to be.” They also want to show other girls that it’s okay to be different, saying, “don’t be afraid to shout your independence.” The girls are still in high school, but they’re hoping they can get famous and release an album someday. Here’s a clip of VOB in action, performing a song about climate change (because young people are cool):