Last night, I was with a couple of friends in Makati, watching some bands perform. The best band of the night was this act called SunDownMuse — their sound is a meld of jazz and rock and blues, cool yet urgent, that sounds vaguely ‘70s but has lyrics that evoke the angst of the ‘90s. They’re really good.”
That’s an excerpt from a letter I wrote to a friend. The strange thing about it is: it’s dated April 22, 2004. A little over eight years after I first watched them perform live, SunDownMuse finally released their first album, entitled “Apathy is the Cure,” a couple of weeks ago at ‘70s Bistro.
So, the first and most obvious question is: What took so long?
“We were lazy,” says Briggs, their guitarist and lead vocalist. “’Rock and roll all night and party every day’ ethos,” she adds. Percussionist Aldous Castro says: “As much as we love music, there were really other priorities in terms of work and family. Some lineup changes also pushed back the release of the album.” When the decision was made “to salvage previously recorded tracks and record other songs with the current lineup,” things moved pretty quickly.
“We just continue doing what we want to do, play what we want to play,” says guitarist Gigo Cosme when asked about keeping up with current sounds or musical trends. “While it is a compliment if people actually say we are ‘different,’ there is really no effort whatsoever to defy conventions,” says drummer Andrew Contreras. “Our music is just a product of whoever we listen to, and that’s Steely Dan, Jeff Buckley, Sting, and so on. As far as current influences are concerned, there aren’t many. Music today isn’t just the same as it was before. Then, you could make a hit out of songs like Sting’s Fragile. Nowadays, you have to have a gimmick. SunDownMuse is just straightforward music; no gimmicks here, as we aren’t in it for the fame nor are we here for the fortune.”
As for the songs themselves, Briggs shared some thoughts about some on their six-track release that are particularly significant to her. “Swinging Both Ways is about sexual identity, fighting it back and getting reeled back in. Burned reeks of heartbreak without your literal and dare I say ‘Di ko alam ang gagawin ko pag wala ka’ cheesiness. Quarter Life Crash is about finding your niche, finding a sense of purpose. It’s mid-20s angst that can transcend to any space in your life where ‘you want to be put out of your misery.’”
On their songwriting process, Gigo Cosme says: “I don’t really know where it begins and how it ends. But I do know that there’s always a lot of alcohol involved.”
“Truthfully, I still can’t write on the spot, so to speak,” says Briggs. “Or write like fiction writers do. There still has to be some external factor that grabs you by the balls — ahem, in my case, figurative balls — and moves you. Could be some other line that you read somewhere, that you wish you wrote. Winterson and Gaiman still affect me that way — or, recently, a Frida Kahlo painting that moved me so much, tears threatened to roll down my cheeks. Emo, I know.”
What keeps the band going, after all these years? “Music will always be on our side as long as we’re alive,” says bassist Lawrence Chuapoco. “For some of us, it’s an addiction. During our hiatus, we recognized that something was missing in our lives. As weeks turned into years, there was this itching feeling that we needed to gig… We needed a fix. No drug can take you higher than a live onstage fix.”
That need is probably what accounts for the intensity and virtuosity of their live sets, which are something to behold. As much as Briggs likes to make jokes about them sounding better the more you drink, the band is a testament to the face-melting power that a combination of passion and experience imparts, whether you’re stone cold sober or not.
And as for the years to come: Cosme figures they have about “three or four albums” more, “before the arthritis sets in.” Contreras says: “I don’t really know and don’t really want to know. That’s what keeps it exciting. And, as long as we are still excited and passionate, those years will come.”
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“Apathy is the Cure” will be available in select Odyssey stores and at Fully Booked (Rockwell and The Fort) by August. It will also be available at gigs. And “We’re working on getting it up on iTunes.” Check out the band online at sundownmuse.blogspot.com and www.facebook.com/SunDownMuse.