The boys from V

MANILA, Philippines - To mangle a line from Meat Loaf, two out of five ain’t bad. Two guys from V Factory joined us for a bit of a chat at Hotel Sofitel’s Spiral: Jared Murillo and Nick “Nicky T” Teti.

The two — along with their mates Nathaniel Flatt, Wesley Quinn and Asher Book — were recently in Manila to perform at the “Then & Now: Massive Music Festival 2010” concert at the SM Mall of Asia concert grounds. Featured are performers such as JoJo, Diana King, Frankie J, Baby Bash, PM Dawn, SWV, All-4-One, TQ, and V Factory.

Uh, V-what?

V Factory is a boy band that purveys hip-hop, urban pop music with a dash of R&B vibe going on — as attested by their upcoming album under Warner Bros. Nicky T explained, “Our name came from a night club in (Chelsea) New York called the Sound Factory, where Madonna and other big artists got their start. The ‘V’ was added later. Jared and Asher came up with it. It has a hidden meaning. It can be interpreted in different ways. We let people kind of run around with it.”

Jared expounded. “‘V’ is symbolic in a way. It is the Roman numeral for five.” An all-for-five kind of thing, perhaps.

All five come from different backgrounds. Nicky T was born in Philly. He did musical theater for a while. Got into dancing at 18. Danced with a Filipino performer. Moved to Los Angeles. Auditioned for the V Factory handled by former pop star Tommy Page (remember I’ll Be Your Everything?). He said, “And everything else took its own path from there.”

Jared Murillo was born in Hawaii. Moved to Utah where he got his training in the performing arts. Moved out to California. Won several dancing titles. Auditioned for movie that (lo and behold!) turned out to be High School Musical. Got involved in the sequel. Went on the South American tour of HSM. Tommy Page approached him about a group he was thinking of forming.

The rest is Factory.

Like in the Beatles, KISS, New Kids On The Block, or in any other group, there is a lot of role-playing involved, some sort of characterization shtick. There is the Quiet Beatle. There’s Space Ace. In V Factory, there is The Weird One. 

Nicky admitted, “I’m the weird, quirky, comic one (laughs). Jared would be the shy, laid-back one. He’s very relaxed. Wes, since he’s the youngest, is the attention-grabber (laughs).”

Jared interjected, “Asher is the antagonist (laughs).”

“And Nathaniel is the male model (laughs). We call him that.”

The guys tried to play down the comparisons with other boy-bands such as ’N Sync or the Backstreet Boys. 

“Our difference with other groups is that we like to have an edginess in our music,” Jared said. “We have a pop/R&B feel, and we kind of play around with high-energy dance music.” 

Nicky T agreed. “Tommy Page put us together. I (think) we are more of a modern-day version of New Kids On The Block than the other two (’N Sync and the Backstreet Boys). All of them are dancers, and they were all about showmanship.” 

He added that their own brand of music is more of an amalgam of various influences — Justin Timberlake, the Neptunes, James Brown, Michael Jackson, house, dance music. Nicky T even cited Muse as his favorite band.

“We’ve always thought of how music now is a bunch of different things,” Nicky T concluded. “It’s not just hip-hop or R&B anymore. You can have hip-hop songs with R&B vocals to them and rock riffs. Just like us in V Factory, our music is a nice eclectic mix of everything.”