(Art work and GIF by Jove Calalo)
The year 2020 has been a whirlwind of horrifying and exciting things all mixed into one hot mess. For the members of AREA FIVE, it's been a weight carrying us down. When we opened up to 2020 we had so many plans and exciting moves to make. We had a line up of gigs, social media content strategies in place, new song releases in the works. We were happy and excited and we couldn't believe how quickly our fan-base began to grow online from 100 to 1000 on facebook will almost 0 effort in marketing. But as soon as the lockdown hit and COVID-19 began it's rampage in the Philippines, one by one our plans began to fall apart. First, we couldn't see each other, so that destroyed our recording and vlogging plans. Then our gigs began to cancel one by one. Not long after, the stress of online class made it nearly impossible to find the motivation to write new songs and come up with a solution to our modern day OPM band problems.
It wasn't until around August or September when I (Jose) decided to give song writing a shot again after I had been messing around with a bunch of lyrics I wrote last June about how frustrated I was about this Church bell that kept ringing while i was jogging along the Marikina River. I tried to give the song some structure which took me several days of procrastination and sudden thoughts of "Should I even bother trying?" When I finally got the groove back, I made some freestyle melodies, recorded it on my phone and sent it to the band chat. Keep in mind, that band chat had been silent for more than 5 months and I was getting worried that we'd reach a point where one of us would say, "Hey I don't wanna do this anymore." I took my shot and hoped for the best.
(Photo from L!FE's youtube video)
To my surprise, Benjo (our bassist) heard it and instantly replied that he liked it. I was happy and excited again to be working on a new song because I wasn't doing it alone. Benjo had his own things to deal with so it took a while before he could send some samples of instruments to help give the song a more whole body. By this time, Benjo has been at full throttle with his Youtube Channel and his career as a music producer under the alias "L!FE." He released songs on Spotify and began regularly working on his videos and his music. So I was not surprised when the samples he sent back had a very distinct vibe that felt a lot like L!FE. I embraced it and I think the rest of the band did too even if Charles (Drummer) and Cyrille(Guitarist) couldn't participate as much in the song writing process. To be honest, the song writing process was both fun and frustrating because in the beginning, we liked how it sounded but half way through the process, we practically shifted gears and re-wrote a lot of lyrics and melodies. We really intended to put a rap in the song for experimental purposes and because we really liked the combination of chill and aggressive tones in the song.
(Photo from Isagani's Feature in garage magazine)
One of the biggest challenges was recording the vocals. We didn't have a soundproof room. We couldn't go to a studio and we didn't have very professional equipment. But Benjo has a decent enough mic and I had a lot of thick childhood blankets! So we got to work. We covered the door with one of my old "The Incredibles" blankets and used Benjo's room as our recording booth, in true garage band style except it's more like a bedroom band. It took us 3 days to finalize the vocal tracks and those three days were spread out into 2 weeks. Benjo had wet wipes which we practically finished, to disinfect the microphone whenever we'd switch do he could record. We very loosely succeeded at make a "crowd" vibe by screaming into the microphone at a distance multiple times. Once we managed to put all the harmonies together, the last step was mixing and mastering. This was the one thing we were so sure about. We knew we wanted my brother Isagani Palabyab to be the one to Mix and Master it. For our OG supporters out there, you all know that our first official release, "Another Forever" was recorded, mixed and mastered at CDM Studios (which unfortunately had to close down due to the Pandemic). The own of this studio is my brother and he made it sound from 0 to 1000000. He understands our sound but he also understands the craft so well, it's almost impossible for him to suggest something we don't like. He also mixed and mastered our most popular song on Spotify, Ripples in the Sky, so we knew we couldn't go wrong with having him as our mixing and mastering officer. In truth, the audio and the mix we had before handing it to Gani (nickname of Isagani) was very raw and nowhere near up to par to our standards as musicians. After Gani did his work, we were speechless beyond belief.
(Artwork by Jove Calalo)
All we want to leave with you after reading this really long rant and eventless kwento, is that you can make it. You can bring out the best in yourself as a musician even in a Pandemic. But the easiest way to make my words a reality is to never handle it alone. Had I not sucked up my pride and shared the song I thought of to the band, I'm not sure how long it would have been before we released a new single. So never give up! and if you get knocked down, then aim for their feet!
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