09.21.2007
BIG HOWEVER: SONGS FOR ANY WEATHER
THIS MOSTLY NAGA-BASED BAND MELDS POETRY, POP, FOLK AND ROCK TO MAKE SOME OF THE MOST PROMISING MUSIC YOU HAVE YET TO HEAR
New bands come and go, and it can be hard sometimes to distinguish between them, particularly if they’re all following certain templates: whether they’re showbands-in-the-making or pogi-rock lemmings, sometimes your ears just want to weep, “Enough. Enough.”
Big However is refreshing for a number of reasons. First, of course, there’s the music itself: ranging from gently soothing to heart-pumpingly soaring, sometimes within the same song, it recalls 90s influences, and could very well put you in mind of a more stripped-down 10,000 Maniacs, with faint echoes of Juliana Hatfield and other identified-with-the-90s female rockers here and there. At first, I assumed the band name itself was meant to evoke 90s indifference—it was, after all, the era of “well, whatever, never mind”—but there’s a better reason for it, as I soon learned.
Second: if you listen carefully, and especially if you were once upon a time an enthusiastic student of literature, something about the lyrics might strike you: the word-choices, the turns of phrase, the imagery, are all a little better than you might expect from your usual pop-rock fare. And you might notice that two of Big However’s songs so far are adaptations of pre-existing poetry: Beni Santos’ “Bago ang Wakas”—transformed into a song called “Katahimikan”; and Emmanuel Lacaba's “Kundiman.” There are good reasons for these qualities as well.
Three-fourths of Big However—Don Alanis on lead guitar, David Naguna on bass guitar, and Don Salvani on drums—are based in Naga. The final member, a Manileño named Mookie Katigbak, is both their vocalist and their not-so-secret weapon.
Mookie is a familiar face on the local literary scene, widely acknowledged as one of the best young poets in the country. She attended the National Writers Workshop in Dumaguete in 2002, earned her MFA from the New School University in New York City, wrote the libretto for an original musical, won a Palanca Award in 2005, and recently took home this year’s grand prize for poetry at the Philippines Free Press Literary Awards. We talked to her about her band, their influences, and the distance, or lack thereof, between poetry and pop music.
PULSE.PH: When, where, how and why did Big However first form?
MOOKIE: The band formed accidentally in 2005 when I met Don Alanis in Naga City. I was visiting my sister who was based in Ateneo de Naga. Don was the husband of a friend of hers and a really good guitarist. We decided to jam. He lent me his guitar and the only song I knew how to play was Dylan's "Most of the Time." He complimented me on my singing (not my guitar playing) and gave me songs he and his band had been working on on-and-off for the past ten years. The only thing they needed were lyrics. I was happy to comply.
Where did the band's name come from?
The name comes from an old writing workshop strategy wherein a literary giant would begin a session by complimenting the good parts of a story—say, its plot and characters—and then go into hardy, often wincing critique by saying "The story was good, etc. ... However..." That, in workshop lore, has come to be known as the Big However. [smiles]
Name some of the band's inspirations/influences, and what you think they have contributed to the sound of the band.
For Don, it's Led Zep, Soundgarden and the Beatles. I'm a Dylan and Joni Mitchell fan. All influences have allowed a folk-meets-rock sensibility.
How does being a poet affect your lyric-writing for the band? Do you feel that poets have a harder or an easier time writing song lyrics? Why?
I do it for levity. Poetry is serious stuff. When I write a song, rhythm and rhyme come out entirely unplanned. I think I get that from my training in poetry. Poets should have an easier time of it—if they let go and see what happens.
Describe the first time you guys played before an audience composed mostly of strangers.
Well, I think it was raining, the amp was busted, the audience was a Catholic high school crowd in Naga City. And I did not do the happy jig when the gig was over. [smiles]
Tell us about the Big However's song-adaptations of poems. Describe the process of choosing/adapting.
Sometimes I would listen to the music and they would recall certain lines that I'd memorized from poems. So it would be a matter of the music choosing the lines.
Tell us about the inspiration behind some of the band's originals—particularly "Ballad for Any Weather" and "Autopilot."
Autopilot was my "I refuse to think" song. It came at a time when I was overthinking everything—poetry and art and life. "Ballad" was a kind of homage to New York because I spent a couple of years there. So it's about wanting something familiar in a strange place—like wanting a letter from the only person in the world who really knows you, or some such 22-year-old sentiment.
What, for you, are the band's most memorable moments/achievements thus far?
Being a successful creative team just because it never occurred to us that we couldn't make solid songs. Don was always a great musician but I had never written a song prior to our meeting. It didn't occur to me to say no.
Also, when we finally did a professional recording, Don did these great improvs for "Ballad" that gave us all goosebumps. And I think that happened because his melody complemented the lyrics and vice versa. The music became expressionistic in the best and least-pretentious sense of the word.
Another great achievement is being fed well after a gig... for free!
Soon after this interview was conducted, Big However opened for Bamboo at a gig in Naga. “It was wild!” Mookie recounts. ”First time I’d ever seen a crowd that massive, or a real Pinoy rock star. I’m trying to get the band over here so we can do Manila gigs soon.” That’s certainly something to look forward to.
Photos provided by the band. Many thanks to Sarge Lacuesta.
TAGS: big however pinoy rock
