12.10.2007
THE RETURN OF THE PURPLECHICKENS
THIS CRITICALLY-ACCLAIMED INDEPENDENT ROCK BAND IS BACK, WITH A NEW ALBUM THAT’S ALL ABOUT GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS
Hard to believe that The Purplechickens have been around for ten years. Those of us who’ve known about them since the beginning, when they were a college band from UP Diliman, have come to expect certain things from this oddly-named independent act: excellent, imaginative songwriting, spirited live gigs, and what I once described as “some of the best lyrics ever to grace a rock song.” When they launched their debut album Here’s Plan B in 2003, it garnered enthusiastic notices from critics, and comparisons to such bands as Radiohead and R.E.M. It’s taken them a while, and they’ve undergone some changes, but they’re back with a new album—Girls, Et Cetera. Reports say that they are better live performers than ever now, and that the new material rocks like you wouldn’t believe.
PULSE.PH: What is the current Purplechickens lineup? How have the changes in the lineup affected how the band works?
MARCO HARDER: The Purplechickens are composed of Aldus Santos on guitar and vocal duties, Marco Harder on guitar, Mikey Abola on bass, and Zig Rabara on drums.
ZIG RABARA: Mikey’s new to the band—we were orgmates in college—and he’s the youngest member. But let’s not get into age talk, for comfort reasons. Haha. Aldus, Marco, and I have stayed on from the “old” (Here’s Plan B) lineup. Mayo Martin is in Singapore and is an in-absentia manok. Aids Arcega left earlier this year so he could do his own stuff.
MIKEY ABOLA: I don’t want to come off as a cheap-ass brown-noser. But the truth is, I started off as a fan of the band. Much of an ego boost, when the rest of the guys asked me to join full-time. I can’t really speak about how things have changed, given that I’m part of the change—haha! How messianic! All I know is that it really pays to be surrounded by people who can from time to time inspire you. Playing with the band is such a treat for me. There’s this inherent happiness in being part of something you don’t have full control over. It’s nice to get tossed here and there once in a while.
MARCO: The band’s dynamics have changed drastically since these personnel changes have happened, the most obvious of which would be the live element. Songs from Here’s Plan B had to be rearranged to better suit the new instrumentation. Individually, it affected us as instrumentalists as well: Aldus had to get used to playing the guitar while singing, while I had to focus on non-rhythmic elements.
ALDUS SANTOS: I mean, I’ve always been a guitar player and I’ve written all these songs on guitar but, coming in now on hard-line guitar duty, it’s like I’m a new member, a new mathematical factor—and I can either be a good factor, or a hole-in-the-head kind of utterly useless one. Gladly, we’re having fun playing live. We’re utilizing more basic guitar tones, but, composition-wise, we’re more complex now, I’d like to believe.
ZIG: I think the band is a little more efficient now as a quartet. First of all, there’s one less person’s schedule to juggle. We can all now fit into one cab when going to gigs. Haha. We’ve also started trying to gig as a trio, in case Marco’s work schedule makes it challenging for him to gig.
ALDUS: The band communicates better now, I think; and by that, I don’t mean absolute non-conflict or a state of perennial agreeability.
MARCO: From a recording standpoint, the sense of urgency to finish the album before 2007 ended was heightened particularly when that other lineup change ensued. We rushed to Skunk Productions and Sugar Mountain Audio in mid-August to record all 12 songs in Girls, Et Cetera and finished in October.
ALDUS: We basically started making this record at Shinji Tanaka’s studio (January, 2007) a different band, and we ended it as a different band in Skunk, Sugar Mountain, and Zach Lucero’s mastering studio. So, yeah, we kind of planned a lot of things which not everyone ended up participated in achieving. The good thing was we were able to fill the gaps pretty well—personally and musically.
This is the Purplechickens’ second full-length release, and apparently, it’s a concept album. Tell us about the concept, and how it came about.
ALDUS: During the launch night of Here’s Plan B, we played, as our last song, what would become the opening track to Girls, Et Cetera: a song called “Girl in Bathtub.” I was amused by that title, and thought of further situating different girl-personas in different milieus. Yes, this is one of those stories: like a pre-named baby. Only, we didn’t have the benefit of having a “second-CD ultrasound.” Basically, I problematized how titles sometimes give away too much—or too little, for that matter—and how these presumptions can be some people’s only interaction with your work. Girls, Et Cetera, in a nutshell, is a disc-long lament for the muses of all art in general: girls. There.
Your first album came out with an accompanying limited-run EP for people who had prepaid for the album. I remember liking one track in particular on the EP and wondering out loud why it hadn’t been included in the album proper, and being told by one of the Purplechickens (I forget who) that it was “too cock-rock.” And yet people who have heard the new material say that it sounds… well, cock-rocky. Is this true? If so, please explain.
ZIG: As a rhythm section guy, I have a favorite expression: “Dapat may bayag.” Yeah, the songs are “ballsier” (if that’s even a word) and have got more attitude. It might be a reflection of things we went through as individuals and as a group. Or it might simply be us getting older. You could probably even call it a nod to our heavier influences, but it’s a reflection of change. And change is good. Of course the wimpy songs in 6-8 [time signature] are still there (and are beautiful) but the other songs have a heavier edge to them. Balls, if you will.
ALDUS: The new songs are cocky, yes, but not in the Kurt Cobain, “distortion,” Pete Townshend-destroy-mode kind of sense. It’s “cocky” in that the nakedness of the songs—as close to the live performances, or as close to “warm” renditions as possible—is kind of bold and brave. We didn’t feel the need to over-layer the songs to make up for whatever insecurities there were, if any—musical or otherwise.
MARCO: If you mean aggressive by “cock-rocky” then I’d have to agree with you. But what I do not agree with is the fact some people seem to think that songs that reek of cock-rockiness do not have any significant musical merit. The songs in Girls, Et Cetera have cock-rockinesses in them simply because the musical intentions necessitated the appearance of those elements, but it is the factor that moved the band to use other elements as well—both in HPB and Girls, Et Cetera.
MIKEY: Honestly, I don’t know. For sure, we didn’t record this album thinking, “Ah! Now’s the time to go all cock-rocky on people’s asses!” I guess we just recorded whatever came out.
Could you give us a track-by-track account of the inspiration behind (and, if possible, a brief description of) each song?
ALDUS: Okay, in order of appearance in the album…
“Girl in Bathtub.” The oldest song from the bunch. We played it, like I said, as the closing song at the launch of our first CD. This sort of sets the chordal mood for Girls. HPB was mostly in D-minor; this one’s mostly on E-minor. The odd breaks were inspired by—among other things—the Itchyworms’ early live performances of the song “Salapi.” Harder and I arranged the said portion on acoustic guitars, while in transit to Cavite in a moving van with Stonefree. It’s a stalk-ish song with quotations from Lorca and what-not. A discordant synth rethinking of “Dream Systems” (from HPB), courtesy of Harder, opens this track.
“Girl Discovers Speech.” This, I think, is a girl-power song, with the main persona repeatedly shushing, “Silence, sir.” Zig’s drumming sets up the doom-laden feel, vaguely reminiscent of Radiohead’s “There, There.” Also something to watch out for is the somewhat disembodied second movement of the song, with allusions to pearl-divers.
“Girl Orders Drink.” Penned by the now-Singapore-based Mayo Martin. He wrote the words on a piece of paper, gave it to me, and I lost it. Most words here are actually my attempts at recalling Mayo’s original. “Orders” is like the pent-up conclusion of a three-song suite, replete with group-screaming and circular riffing—“She kills! She maims!” The thesis: girls, more than being lovely people, are really terrifying, too.
“Girl is Reminded of War.” The calm after the storm, so to speak. Joon Guillen [Outerhope, Musings], a former Manox bassist, helped arrange the second movement. People who loved “Pickle” from our first record will perhaps like this. This is also the last of the four tracks Mayo played bass on.
“Lagnat (Girl in Bus Stop).” I specifically wanted to have more Pinoy songs in this record, and this was the first one that came out. A sore thumb in that it’s pop, yes. We’re proud that we can handle pop somehow, though. The subject is a screwy kind of love: “Ako’y nananalig/na patuloy lang ang ligalig/at habambuhay ka sa ‘king tabi.” Translated: “I pray you stay troubled and effed-up so you’d never leave me.”
“Girl Checks Out.” A couple packing to leave on a trip—the man feeling it’s a vacation; the woman thinking it’s The End. The guys had the lovely idea of splitting the time signature again towards the end, to 7-8. It’s fun but my head begins to hurt after all the counting.
“Patihulog (Girl in Church).” Harder and I—along with our awesome mixing engineer Joe Hernandez—have always been fascinated with Neil Young’s backing band, Crazy Horse. They’re a bunch of guys who, as the critics say, “are all feel and no real technical skill”—but, really, they’re awesome! “Patihulog” became a great opportunity to do a Crazy Horse. Thematically, it’s about free-fall and gravity as metaphors for love.
“Girl in Emergency Landing.” An open letter to a dear friend who recently lost a loved one. Watch out for Ziggy’s odd solo in the bridge, as well as Harder’s lap-steel parts.
“Anumang Oras ay Hindi Mahalaga (Girl Asks for the Time).” I thought the E-Heads’ Carbon Stereoxide was a criminally underrated record. In my conversations with both Adoro and Buendia, as a matter of fact, they both refer to it as a creative peak somehow. “Anumang” is our personal approximation of the art of Stereoxide—melody, drop-tuned guitars, ambient soloing, and all.
“Girl by Windowpane.” “Hello, we are The Purplechickens and we play mid-tempo rock songs using basic soft-loud dynamics.” Well, more than that, actually.
“Girl of Frost.” Ladies and gentlemen, Miguel Abola has arrived. He jump-started this song, followed by Zig. Harder thought of most of the guitar parts and I threw in the idea of doing a Pixies-style “breakdown.” Also, jamming it the first time, I had to come up with lyrics fast; I grabbed a Robert Frost book from my backpack and sang this one line from “New Hampshire” over and over: “Choose what will you be? A prude? A puke?” Watch out for the four-part punk harmony as well.
“Girl Reveals Her Hand.” A breakup where the girl is saying: “Take a picture of this moment,” and the guy is saying: “You will never see me turn around; you will never hear me hit the ground.” Frozen clock. In the outro, portions of (HPB song) “A Break in a Prayer” were sung by Harder. The new guitar dynamics were also showcased here; a riotous punctuation to an otherwise “calculated” record.
[To ALDUS] As an active independent musician/music critic, what are your thoughts on the local music industry today?
ALDUS: It’s alive but the perennial threat of fads is there. The labels are getting more adventurous, however, and that’s good. On the other hand, bar culture has become our salvation, I think; bar gigging has been transformed into a private endeavor, like cinema. It’s no longer about communing; it’s become a haven for adventurous music-lovers to prowl in. The dichotomy used to be CD-buyers and gig-goers; now you have just one big social group—responsible music fans who are not myopic at all, who don’t mind digging in the dirt to unearth good music. Indie still persists though it’s not “in” anymore, which I think is for the better.
Band photos by Grace Mirandilla. Album cover photography by Ian Rica Roxas. Cover graphics and T-shirt designs (Umbrella, Man-Chicken) by Gelo Lagasca of Shrapnel Shirts. Visit the Manox online here.
The Purplechickens’ second album, Girls, Et Cetera, will be launched on December 13, 2007, at Club Dredd in Eastwood. Supporting the band that night are The Lowtechs, Duster, and Imago. Admission is absolutely free.
TAGS: purplechickens
