Thanks so much to Ryan Marquez for the interview! Many of us know Ryan’s bands in the US like the super Apple Orchard who graced an early Cloudberry 3″ CD and nowadays the band Golden Teardrops who are releasing a new record. But before all that, back in the Philippines he was involved with a band called Sodajerk that was heavily influenced by Scottish Pop! They didn’t release much but they have put most of their recordings up on Bandcamp. And because of that I thought it was a great opportunity to learn more about Sodajerk and Ryan too!
++ Hi Ryan! Thanks so much for being up for this interview! How are you? We met many years ago thanks to your band The Apple Orchard. What happened to the band? Still going?
Hey Roque! Yes it seems so long ago! We met at the NYC Popfest 2010, was it? Hope you’re doing good. Apple Orchard is currently on hiatus. Dale and I haven’t really called it quits. We’re just not writing material for it.
++ I noticed that you have just released a new record with your new band Golden Teardrops, care telling me a bit about it?
I actually recorded a demo in 2005 with my then girlfriend (now wife) called “A Summer Escape”. I always wanted to do something like it, like a mix of 60s pop and indiepop. Then in around 2014, I wrote a couple of songs which we liked, and that’s when the idea of recording an album came about.
++ You’ve been in many bands but of course, I wanted to interview you about Sodajerk, hopefully in the future we can talk about the rest of the bands! But let’s talk about your 90s, early 2000s, band! You must have been very young when you started Sodajerk, right? Was it your first band or had you been involved in other bands before being in Sodajerk?
I was 19 years old when Sodajerk formed. It was my second band. My first band was Go Figure? (yes, with a question mark), which was only a few months prior to Sodajerk. Go Figure? was a Pavement-cover band when I joined, and I had a Pavement-phase during those years. I was the guitar player there for a while. I only lasted a few months (totalling less than 10 gigs). It didn’t work out because I live far from the rest of my bandmates, and that I had to come back to the States for a few months. They also wanted me to “rock out” because I just stood whenever I play the guitar. I do not remember if I got fired. They’re really good musicians though and I learned a lot from them, like drop D tuning and stuff.
++ And what about the rest of Sodajerk? Have they been involved in other bands?
Ronald (bass) and John (guitar) were in a band called Noise Behavior. I saw their band once, and they covered songs by Seam, and Superchunk. Manny used to be in a Black Sabbath cover band!
++ Let’s start from the beginning. What are your first music memories? Do you remember what was your first instrument? How did you learn to play it? What sort of music did you listen at home while growing up?
My first music memory was my grandfather listening to this radio station that played 50’s music. He listened to it every afternoonand played the music really loud! He also played cassette tapes of Elvis and Nat King Cole. He had records too but his record player broke, so cassette tapes were big in the family then.
The first instrument I played was keyboards. I was probably 12 or 13. My brother and sister took piano lessons, but I didn’t. My brother taught me the basic piano chords like D, G, and A, and I wrote my first song on a small electric keyboard, but I never really liked playing it. My dad bought me my first guitar when I was 15 loved it! I studied “The Beatles Songbook” with the help of a chord chart and that’s how I learned to play the guitar.
When I was about 10 years old, my brother Dale, who’s 4 years older than me, introduced me to New Wave and all that, and I got into The Cure. I remember getting “The Head On The Door” on cassette. He used to buy these compilation tapes, andvinyl. I remember hearing The Pale Fountains and The Lotus Eaters on one compilation LP called “London Calling”, where they have 2 or 3 songs each. I think The Blue Nile was in there as well. I also bought cassette compilations whenever I have money, so I can discover more bands. So yeah growing up, I listened to whatever my brother was listening to: New Order, The Smiths, Echo And The Bunnymen, China Crisis, Aztec Camera. I remember at a young age, being obssessed to Aztec Camera’s “We Could Send Letters”. I still love that song up to now.
++ You were based in Valenzuela City in the Philippines. Were all of you originally from there?
Three of us were originally from Valenzuela City. Ronald (bass) grew up in Tarlac City then moved to Valenzuela after high school.
++ How was around Manila back then? Were there any bands that you liked? What were the good record stores? Or what about the pubs or venues to go check out up and coming bands?
I learned about the Manila Indie scene from Dale. He was in a band already (Sonnet LVIII), and they had been playing at a place called Club Dredd. This was probably early ’94. Sonnett LVIII was a very good live band, and was starting to make a name for themselves. I’ve seen plenty of local bands around that time, but I particularly liked Bad Days For Mary, Smashed Little Creatures, and Aspirin was pretty good too. The mid to late 90s spawned more good bands like Fingernail Cocktail, Uranus, Soft Pillow Kisses, Smile Plenty… Most of these bands have no recorded output. It’s just that it’s hard for an indie band to get signed those days, and studios cost a lot to record.
As for record stores, there was a place called Groove Nation, where you can order stuff. Later on it was Tower Records. There was another place, but I forgot the name, CD Warehouse or something, where you can place an order then pick it up after a couple of months!
Club Dredd was the best venue to see bands during those years. They had this horrible “ticket selling” process there where smaller bands had to sell a certain amount of tickets in order to play. We used to pay for those tickets ourselves just to play. Dumb, right? But we were young, and all that mattered was playing live. There’s another club called Mayric’s that became home to a lot of indie/indiepop bands. They scrapped that “ticket selling” thing over there, which was a relief!
++ When and how did the band start? How did you all meet? How was the recruiting process?
One afternoon, I had a visit from Ron Cajayon, the guitar player from Sonnet LVIII, who is a friend of my brother, and I knew him since I was little. He asked me to form a band with a couple of guys he knew, and that he’s willing to play the drums. I just left Go Figure?, and have been frequenting Sonnet LVIII rehearsals, and even did a guest guitarist spot on one of their shows. I wanted to start a band with a friend of mine but he moved out of town. Ron then set up a meeting at his place, where I met John and Ronald. This was the second time I met them actually, because I saw their band Noise Behavior previously, and we had a quick chat then, and I told them that I liked the Superchunk cover they did, and they recognized me from Go Figure? They were really cool and funny guys, and they like Teenage Fanclub, too, so we hit it off right away.
++ Why the name Sodajerk?
Sodajerk was suggested by our bass player, Ronald. We were a couple of weeks away from our first gig, and we didn’t have a name yet. We had a discussion about band names, and I asked Ronald about this recently, and he said we considered names like Lube and Fuel, because our drummer’s house have these boxes of Lube and Fuel stacked somewhere inside the house. So we were looking around and Ronald had a mixtape with him with the song Sodajerk by Buffalo Tom. We all thought it was a good name, though none of us were huge Buffalo Tom fans.
++ How was the creative process for you? Where did you usually practice?
Usually, one of us had a song written, but all of us contributed in arranging the songs during rehearsals. It just happened that I wrote more songs, but it was more of a collective effort.
We were more of a live band so we used to practice once a week, and more than that when we were starting out. In the beginning, we used to practice at Ron’s (our first drummer) house, as early as 9 in the morning. Then later when Manny joined as the drummer, we practiced at several rehearsal studios, for 2 hours a week, and sometimes more. At times, we would rehearse at Ronald’s brother’s apartment.
++ Did you ever sang or considered singing in Tagalog at all?
We never wrote a song in Tagalog. I don’t think we even discussed it. It’s because of the style of music we’re interested in. We like Scottish Pop! In the Philippines, most of the hits were in Tagalog, of course, so we might have had a hit if we had a Tagalog song!
++ And who would you say were influences in the sound of the band?
We all had mutual fondness for Teenage Fanclub. Then later on, we discovered these bands who are somewhat connected to the Fannies, like BMX Bandits, Eugenius, Superstar, Speedboat, and The Pastels, and tried to incorporate a little bit of each to our own sound.
++ I only know of one release by Sodajerk, a tape on the Italian label Best Kept Secret titled “Pop On!”. Was this the only ever release by the band? Or have there been any other releases?
Aside from that tape, we released a split CDEP with Carnival Park titled “That Happy Glow” on Dorothy Records in early 2000.
++ Also this tape came out in 2004, was the band still going at the time? And how did you end up releasing with this Italian label, I suppose you never met the label people?
This tape came out around the time I permanently moved to the States. So, Sodajerk was put on hold. I knew Alessandro of Best Kept Secret through Myspace. He included an Apple Orchard song in one of his compilation tapes prior to hearing Sodajerk. I’ve uploaded a few Sodajerk songs in Myspace, and he heard it and wanted to release an album. Since we did not have enough songs for an album, it became a compilation.
++ There’s a song called “Weekend Make-Up” on this tape that is said to be recorded live on the Fridge Radio session. What was that session about? What is Fridge Radio?
The Fridge was a radio show, mostly dedicated to indie/indiepop music. They also did guestings of indie bands, where the band members play their favorite songs during the show, along with a live performance. I think we played 4 songs there. It was a really cool short-lived radio show.
++ You did appear on a few compilations in the early 2000s. For example “Training Wheels” appeared on Factory Girl Records’ “Working Titles” comp. Who were behind this label? This comp has a terrific tracklist!
A guy named Mario Serrano was behind Factory Girl. There might be another person involved but I forgot who. Mario was also one of the hosts in The Fridge radio show, and was one of the producers of the indie compilation, “Mutual Admiration Society”.
++ Also “Things You Say” appeared on Dorothy Records’ “Dashboard Teddy Version 1.0”. I always think of Dorothy as the main Filipino label. I don’t know much about them, so perhaps you could tell me about them a bit?
Dorothy Records was ran by a friend of mine, Mike Dy. It was a CDr label. He released the aforementioned Sodajerk/Carnival Park EP, and re-released Carnival Park’s “Her Kindercrush”, as well as Creamy Bicycle’s one and only album, before they switched their name to Spring Boutique (their singer is my wife). Later on, Dorothy co-released a Balloon Derby 7” with Apple Crumble in Japan. I may be missing a few releases, but yeah, it might be the main indie Filipino label!
++ And I have found out on Bandcamp that just a few days ago you uploaded a sort of Sodajerk retrospective called “My Sweet Dream”. I wonder if there is any intention of putting out in a physical format?
I have been talking to the rest of the guys in Sodajerk for a while now, and I realized that we do not have anything available online. There used to be songs on Myspace but I’m not sure if they’re still there. I just rediscovered Bandcamp, and I wanted to document the songs for ourselves. Unfortunately, there’d be no physical format for the release. I don’t think I have the energy in self-releasing things these days. It’s so hard!
++ And are these all the recordings ever made by Sodajerk o are there more unreleased songs by the band?
We had a few more demos that were not included on the Bandcamp release, but unfortunately I lost the tapes!
++ Was there any interest from labels to put your music out?
In Manila, there was no interest at all! During that time, you can never get signed unless you have hit potential. I do not know of any indie labels at that time. Maybe just bands self-releasing their own. I don’t think we were playing just to get signed. My thought was, if we’re able to record something, we can put it out ourselves. As I mentioned previously, we did get to release something on Dorothy Records. Mike from Dorothy had always been a fan of Sodajerk. Aside from Dorothy, Best Kept Secret was the only other label that was semi-enthusiatic about the Sodajerk songs.
++ You made covers by BMX Bandits and Teenage Fanclub, what other bands would you have loved to cover? Or perhaps you did when playing live?
We’ve done a lot of Teenage Fanclub covers in the early years, but later on, we began excluding covers to focus on the originals. We did “Million Tears” by The Pastels, which was the most indiepop we could get. We always threw in “Cut Your Hair” by Pavement in our last days, because we all loved that song. I always wanted to cover The Pastels’ “Classic Line-up” and Teenage Fanclub’s “Radio”, but we never got to them.
++ I read you formed in 1995 but your first recordings seem to be from 1997. What happened in between?
We had a 3 song demo in early 1996, recorded on cassette at our former drummer’s house. I lost the tape though. Around this time, we were always looking to play live.
++ The song “Jackpot Queen” was recorded live. Live where?
That song was recorded live in Ronald’s brother’s apartment during a rehearsal. We used one karaoke mic!
++ For me it is hard to pick a song, but I usually ask a band to tell me the story behind one or two of their songs, usually the ones that are my favourites! So maybe I will ask if you can tell me the story behind “Honeysuckle” and “Heartcrusher”? What inspired them?
For “Honeysuckle”, I got the idea for the song when I saw an air freshener with a “Honeysuckle” scent near the supermarket counters where I was buying food. I already had a riff in mind. I was still young when I wrote this, so the lyrics were just play on words. Musically, it was a very different sound for us because of the chord progressions. We used to just write repetitive chord patterns. Our bassist, Ronald, told me once that it was the song that turned it around for us, music-wise.
For “Heartcrusher”, it was inspired by the song “That Kind Of Girl”, by a BMX Bandits-related band called Cheeky Monkey. It was a very jangly song for us. Around this time, we were trying to stay away from the distortion pedals. There’s a lot of love-related angst in that song.
++ And where do you usually record your songs? Who produced them?
For the Bandcamp songs, the 1997 demo was produced by our former drummer and recorded in a church where all the instruments were plugged directly to a soundboard. We recorded & self-produced “Honeysuckle”, “Deadstopper”, “Training Wheels”, “Heartcrusher” and “The Things You Say” in an old studio with a worn out Reel-to-Reel analogue recorder. The engineer was probably 70 years old. I was telling him to make the vocals sound like it was recorded in the 60s, but he was like, “I don’t know how to do that!”. We recorded the songs live with minimal overdubs, and ignored the mistakes to save money. Then we self-produced “My Sweet Dream” and “Weekend Makeup” in a digital studio. The engineer accidentally deleted some of my guitar parts at the end of “My Sweet Dream”. Some of the other songs in the Bandcamp release were solo 4-track tape to digital recordings.
++ On Youtube there is a video for the song “Weekend Make-Up“. Who made it? And how was the experience of making the video?
I made this video using the clips of the TV guesting we had. I always liked that song by John.
++ Did you play many gigs in total? All over the Philippines?
I am not sure. It felt like it was close to 50, or even close to a hundred…I don’t know, really. Most of the gigs were in Manila. We only had a few out of town shows.
++ And were there any bad gigs at all?
Yes, there were. We had some line-up issues over the years. In one show, both John and Manny were unavailable. We had a different set up, we asked Ronald’s cousin to fill in with the drums, and we asked someone to play keyboards for us. He was not really a keyboard player, but he was good during practice. At the time of the show, he completely forgot all his lines, and everything came crashing down. There was another time when my leg got dipped in a puddle of really dark mud after the gig which kind of summed up my feelings about the show!
++ When and why did Sodajerk stop making music?
It was 2002 when I moved to California for good. That was beginning of the end of the band. When I visited Manila in 2004, we got back to record a few songs. I think they were all married by then. So that, and me living in another country were the reasons why we stopped. We had a couple of reunion shows in 2005, and the last one in 2012.
++ After the demise of Sodajerk, what band did you start? Apple Orchard? Trying to put together a chronology!
I was involved in a lot of bands while playing with Sodajerk. At different points, I played bass for Supergloo, Dorian Of Juniper Bells, and Carnival Park, and also played guitar for Mono Workshop, then there was this short-lived band called Wadaiko, where I was the singer, and a couple of one-gig bands. Apple Orchard was already a side project when Sodajerk was still around. After Sodajerk, I concentrated more on Apple Orchard.
++ Did you get much attention from the radio or press?
Very minimal. We did a couple of radio guesting at this show called “In The Raw” in a station called NU107, although it was only me and Ronald who showed up for both. The host liked us, and he played our songs, and even invited us to do a video shoot for the TV version of “In The Raw”. The only press writeup we had was a review of the Sodajerk/Carnival Park split EP…It was in the music section of a newspaper though, not a music magazine, and that doesn’t happen often to an indie band, so we were proud of that.
++ What about from fanzines?
There were a few fanzines back then. Scenester and Nine (or 9ine) I think. I am unsure if we were even featured in one of them. I was a contributor in a fanzine called “Taste Like Tea”, which was Mike Dy’s (of Dorothy Records) idea, and we made sure we mentioned our own bands! Haha!
++ You still enjoy indiepop, that’s clear, and still follow it. What are the last records you have enjoyed?
Yes, I still enjoy Indiepop, although I am mostly unaware of the younger bands that are coming out. Some records that I have been playing recently are:
1. Overgrown Path By Chris Cohen
2. Adiós Señor Pussycat by Michael Head and The Red Elastic Band
3. Fragments & Curiosities by Armstrong
4. Love is Enough by Lia Pamina
5. Tracyanne & Danny by Tracyanne & Danny
++ And today, aside from music, what other hobbies do you have?
I just got interested in gardening. We have a small garden so I think I can manage.
++ Looking back in retrospective, what would you say was the biggest highlight for the band?
When our split CDEP was reviewed in the paper. I couldn’t believe it. It wasn’t really a big deal but it was pretty cool.
++ Never visited Manila, would love to go to the Philippines some day. So maybe I can ask for some suggestions? Like what are the sights I shouldn’t miss? Or the traditional food or drinks that you love that I should try?
I am probably not the best tour guide there, but I recommend you visit Jollibee, and try the Filipino spaghetti! You should also try halo-halo, which is kind of like a dessert/drink with fruits, milk, flan, purple yam etc., over shaved ice. I hear there are some good record shops there now, and I see some postings of DJ nights occasionally.
++ And I must say I’ve liked most of the filipino indiepop bands I’ve heard. But maybe you can recommend me a few that I might have never heard before?
There are so many! Just on the top of my head: Archaster, Balloon Derby, Bubble Based Boy, Under Shooting Stars, Spring Boutique, The Gentle Isolation, Sunday Picnic Love Affair, Outerhope, The Wentletraps, Popular Days.
++ Thanks again Ryan! Is there anything else you’d like to add?
Thanks Roque! I had a lot of fun strolling back down memory lane!
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Listen
Sodajerk – Heartcrusher
