He was born in 1955, in Jakarta, Indonesia. As a child in the 1960s, Raharjo studied gamelan and Javanese dance as a member of the dance and karawitan group, Arena Budhaya, in Yogyakarta. During the 1970s, he became a rock and folk guitarist and began to explore joining “pentatonic (gamelan) and diatonic instruments and make music with instruments made by tin / used canned goods.” He was also an announcer at Radio Suara Padmanaba, in Yogyakarta. Rahario began working with synthesizers in 1977.