Cars, pirates, Wolfgang

Quixotic cars and successful rockers go together like coffee and cream, vodka and 7-Up, the Abu Sayyaf and ransom payments.

They paint a strangely congruous portrait of both dangerous beauty and excess. Who the hell cares about gas economy when you look so damn fine speeding in your set of wheels? When you’re filthy rich, you can afford not to care — not even about your own mortality. Think James Dean in his silver Porsche Spyder slamming into a tree on September 30, 1955.

In this issue, hard-rocking band Wolfgang provides the aural danger and faces off with a descendant of the car that killed the Rebel Without a Cause. Well, sorta. It’s just smoke and mirrors. Just a production number we’ve cooked up for this issue.

For despite their success and longevity in the unforgiving world of the music industry, the dudes of Wolfgang insist there is no high-rolling in the their rocking. Lead vocalist Basti Artadi says that the royalty checks are only enough to buy drinks. Perish the thought of raking in the moolah on percentages alone. Basti derisively says that he wishes for the day they could actually buy Porsches as opposed to just posing with them.

Wolfgang has gone a long way from its days at the Atrium’s Weekends Live. Back then, they were making waves and drawing raves while earning a coño tag that continues to puzzle them. But as guitarist Manuel Legarda says, people can just kiss their ass.

It was a bittersweet victory when they were signed up by a major record company (Ivory, via its Tone Def label). On one hand, the guys now had an album tucked under their belt. But the support from the label was lamentably absent, and reflected a neanderthal obstinacy that explained stunted the growth of the music industry.

Five albums later, the musicians are seemingly a more angry lot. Thankful (they managed to get out of their untenable situation at Ivory and switch camps to Sony), but still angry. You’d think that they’d be happy with the status quo, but nooo. And why not? There are still things to be angry about. They still wake up to a narrow-minded industry (now afflicted by a disease called piracy) that is still dominated by the same generic pop crap, and a mafia of obstinate execs who refuse to deviate from the common. Manuel keeps talking about castrating the male pirates and applying the pineapple treatment to female bootleggers.

It’s a hot day today outside, but the BMWs and Porsches at PGA Cars’ EDSA showroom must be comfy in their airconditioned surroundings.

Wolfgang is having lunch in the second-floor Carrera M Café — well, at least the three of them. Bassist Mon Legaspi is getting impatient about the chicken he ordered, which takes an eternity to arrive. When asked about what he’d be into if he wasn’t in a band. "Poultry." His three bandmates laugh. Manuel sees himself farming in Bukidnon, but he’d definitely be strumming his musical instrument. Incidentally, this afternoon, he’s lovingly fondling his new Ibanez acoustic six stringer — his seventh axe overall. "You really have seven?" gasps Basti.

Woe to you who don’t know that Basti has another job aside from being Jesus in the local production of Jesus Christ Superstar a few years ago. "I dunno. Something to do with the arts," he shrugs. Repertory Philippines, perchance? "F__k that!" comes the answer. Drummer Wolf Gemora envisions himself as a concert promotor who would discover a band that "kicks so much ass."

But they’re not all that right now.

The boys make up one of the most successful bands in the local scene. So, f__k that. Wolfgang is still here. Now shut up and listen.

Excerpts from the YS interview:

YOUNG STAR: Was there a time that you wanted to call it quits when you were signed up but weren’t being promoted sufficiently?

Wolf Gemora: We didn’t want to call it off. It made us want to work harder. It just pissed us off. If no one was going to help us we might as well help ourselves. It was only when the sales of that album picked up that that record company said, "Hey, we should make a poster."

Basti Artadi: It was a small poster at that.

Don’t you think it’s self-defeating for a record label to sign up a band and not promote it?

Wolf: Yes, it was ridiculous.

Do you think that the mindset in the industry has changed since those days? Or are record executives in it for purely commercial considerations — no art whatsoever?

Basti: At the end of the day, it’s still a record company. It’s called a company; it’s there to make money. The thing that has changed is that they’re more willing to take chances now. They come up with gimmicks and stuff nowadays to promote the album — not just putting the band on game shows and stuff.

How do you see the music scene now compared to when you first started? Are bands better now? Are fans more discriminating? Do they know what’s good or not; what’s sloppy, what’s not?

Basti: Yeah, man. I think bands now are better. The good thing that happened was that there was a lot of music that was able to get into the country with MTV and Channel V. People were tuned into more stuff. It was reflected in what they played. Not just three chords anymore. Lots of bands are trying new stuff. More people than before are discriminating. They want their music to be good. But of course it’s not the majority. The majority doesn’t give a s__t.

Wolf: They still want their Linkin Park, Limp Bizkit, Aiza Seguerra...

What keeps the mainstream listeners that way? Why do they refuse to listen to something that’s different?

Wolf: It’s not really that they refuse to listen, but they’re not exposed to it. There’s MTV, Myx and Channel V — which is great because you get to watch videos from other countries, but then they’re also controlled. You don’t see a Nine Inch Nails video on MTV every hour, but you see a Linkin Park video every 30 minutes. Same with radio. Even the rock stations only play little in the mountain of rock.

Why is the industry that way?

Wolf: I have no idea why they’re like that.

Manuel Legarda: Money. Because people will only listen to what they’re familiar with, and radio stations don’t have the balls to play real rock.

They’re going with what sells, too?

Manuel: They’ll go for the mainstream underground. They’ll go like: "This is a cool band... Husker Du — let’s play them."

Wolf: If you’re gonna play that, might as well play everything.

Manuel: Play the whole spectrum of rock. Going to the other stations, NU’s NU but all the other stations are just like the other stations. In one hour, you’ll hear one song in 20 stations. They’re like showbands that have basically the same set list.

Basti: Play that Funky Music, White Boy

Manuel: Exactly. The DJs may be very good, but their hands are tied by management.

Is there hope? What’s going to change all of this?

Wolf: A nuclear explosion.

Manuel: Give us a radio station.

Wolf: But what’s good is that at least the bands that are still around, those that are part of our batch, they’re still making albums. And there is still a chance for younger bands to be signed up.

What does it take for a band to succeed here?

Basti: Determination and balls of steel.

Wolf: Their own sound. I heard this technically good band once, but their singer sounded like — and I mean sounded like — Zack dela Rocha, Maynard James Keenan and someone else rolled into one. Sayang. It’s about time that Filipinos tried to sing in their own voice. You can steal stuff from everyone, pero wag masyadong obvious. You’re sacrificing your own identity.

Basti: But then again, you have to give young people time to find themselves. I think everybody’s first album sounds a lot like the person or band they admire.

If you say that, which band do you think you sounded like on the first album?

Basti: S__t, man. Me and my big mouth.

Wolf: Yeah.

Manuel: You said that.

Basti: The thing with us is that we were into different bands when we started.

Wolf: Mon liked jazz, Basti liked the newer stuff, then me and Manuel were into classic rock. That’s another thing about these new bands, they only go so far into listening stuff. They’re only listening to what their generation is listening to.

Mon: Mahirap yun sigaw ka lang ng sigaw.

Manuel: If you listen to one thing only, that’s your one ingredient. That’s why if you write based on that, iisa lang ang lalabas. But if you listen to two or three different things you can mix those and come up with something your own.

Basti: Very good answers from Manuel today, man.

Wolf: Na-limit na yung artistic bands with their own sound because record companies need bands that are easy to promote. When you listen to their songs, 50 to 60 percent could be played on the radio — like Parokya. If a band like us came along again with music na medyo hindi conventional, they’d think twice or thrice about signing them up. They would need extra money to promote them.

Manuel: A big part of the problem is piracy.

Has it affected you guys?

Manuel: Well, I’ve seen our greatest hits album which doesn’t exist officially, but in the sidewalk you find it.

What do you do when you see that?

Manuel: I wanna burn it. I wanna smash the stands.

Do you report it?

Manuel: It’s gonna fall on deaf ears. My girlfriend works on Pasong Tamo and she sees vendors there by the MRT station. She was walking one day and saw all these cops destroying the stands and smashing the CDs. The next day, the vendors were back and the cops weren’t there.

Are record companies doing enough to stop this?

Starting a month ago, they finally spoke out to the media that this is a serious problem. There is a law against piracy, but the penalty is light.

Manuel: It should be castration then death.

Wolf: Then ooga-booga.

Okay then, what are your dream cars?

Wolf: The ’67 Mustang and the Porsche ’98.

Basti: I like the new James Bond car: the Aston Martin, and also the ’67 Mustang — the one that James Hetfield drove.

Mon: Hummer. Para di ka ginigitgit.

Manuel: Lotus Elise. It’s a small car with a small engine, but it’s got the performance to be on a race track.