NU Rock Awards 2006 recently awarded Up Dharma Down with Best New Artist and Best Female Rock Icon for vocalist, Armi Millare. The Hindu word dharma, meaning “the way of life,” inspired the name of the band, Up Dharma Down.
Paul Yap, the band’s bassist, explains that their name means “the interconnectivity of things wherein the music has different influences and the ideas are unbalanced.
It also pertains to the ups and downs of life.” They did not want meaningless names to go with their band. The name Up Dharma Down became their band name because it coincides with their music.
It was destiny for the four members of the band: Millare [keyboards, vocals, rhythm guitars]; Carlos Tañada [lead guitars]; Ean Mayor [drums, rhythms and loops]; and Paul Yap [bass], to meet each other and form their band. It took one year before they finally reaped success on the local music scene. It was not smooth sailing to success, though.
They had problems with gigs, overlapping schedules because of schools, strict parents and Ean’s trip to Hong Kong.
Luckily, Toti Dalmacion, band manager of Terno Recordings, spotted them during their gig at Miriam College and he gave them his card. Upon hearing horror stories from other uprising bands, they researched before calling Dalmacion because they wanted to make sure they would be placed in good hands.
They were almost giving up when the wonderful opportunity came. After two weeks, Dalmacion called him and as they say, the rest is history.
Their music is unlike other bands where the genre can be defined, giving Up Dharma Down the edge among other bands.
Its genre is closest to post modern rock. “There are no rules being followed,” Paul Yap says. Although for Millare, Post Rock may be the ‘closest approximate’ to their music, but Post Rock doesn’t have lyrics, while she sings their songs.
“We plan that way wherein we cannot put a finger on the type of music because our goal will get lost if we did,” Millare says.
Besides the genre, their instruments as well as their young age differentiate them from other bands. Most people are surprise to see that they are only in their early twenties since their music have a mature sound.
Up Dharma Down’s music is ‘easy listening, but it ignites deep thinking also.’
Before joining the band, Millare and Mayor used to play hip-hop and old-soul music. While Carlos and Paul were writing seventies’ music, which progressed to the eighties, inspired by their manager and now, they are into the nineties’ music.
Inspirations came from seventies’ songs from Black Sabbath, eighties’ music from Led Zeppelin and nineties’ music from Nirvana.
Their musical influences vary from local to foreign artists. Songwriter Kevin Roy is Yap’s musical influence because of his colorful, deep, poetic and dramatic, though angry writing-style.
Mayor is influenced by Raymond Marasigan’s punk rock-style. For Millare, it is Dong Abay and Stevie Nicks, while Carlos is influenced by Tom Merello (Rage Against the Machine guitarist) and bands like Incubus.
Their song “Oo” gained popularity over fans.
The song does not exactly include the word “Oo” in the lyrics. According to Millare, who wrote this song, “Actually, the truth is when I wrote the song, I did not think of Oo as the title, but when I thought of it, it just fits together. Since it was a song everybody can relate to, it is a situation everybody wants to be in.
Everybody wants a yes, nobody wants a no. That’is the most universal song I have written. The universal wish, which is yes.
”
When asked about their favorite song, Mayor says all their songs are his favorites because whenever he listens to their songs it takes him back to the memories when they were just beginning. Every song they have written has various stories in them that are significant to them. “Hiwaga” was a surprised for the band.
It was a song created individually. When they went to the recording studio, everything just went in sync with each other. This is the reason why Millare loves “Hiwaga.
” For Yap, it is Sleep Talk because of the ‘content’ and the ‘baseline,’ which he experimented.
They have done a lot of gigs in the country. They performed for big events like MYX Rock Concert 2006 and the 13th NU Rock Awards this year.
But the most memorable and most fun gigs are the small events like bar gigs, free performances and of course, provincial gigs. The provincial tours in UP Los Baños, Baguio, Cebu and Davao had very receptive crowds who gave them the warmest welcome and the most sincerity of all.
Fans are one of the reasons why a band stays in the music industry.
Many artists experience crazy antics from fans. For Up Dharma Down, crazy is not the right word, but sweet. Fans gave them stuff toys (one stuff toy was even named Rambo by Millare), written them poems, and even draw them.
However, there was one weird occasion wherein someone pretended to be somebody just to talk to Yap. Now that is weird!
Its success led them to be first Filipino band to be featured on MTV’s “Advanced Warning,” QTV Channel 11 show Ang Pinaka’s list of top 15 Philippine bands today and in Mark Coles’ BBC Radio Show.
It was a coincidence when Mark Coles’ BBC Radio Show was looking for bands in the Philippines. They were able to hear its demo and they loved its music. It was very fortunate to be included in the radio show as the next big thing on the music scene in the Philippines.
Up Dharma Down is a hip band that has inspired new bands trying to break into the music industry. It helped fans open their taste to various types of music, or for them, having no specific genre with their music. Remedios Lucio Text back your reaction to this article using your Globe, Touch Mobile, Smart, Talk n' Text, Sun and Addict, cellphone by and commercial messages.
News RSS