Razorback has been around for the past 16 years and to this day many of the fans and friends of the band still do not know how it came to be. Many think we really started when Kevin Roy became singer for the band in 1991, but in all actuality, the mayhem started way before then...
Here it is in black and white for all to read and learn from (I am keeping out the juiciest details for later):
I had met Tirso Ripoll around 1982 when I became classmates with his cousin Mike Ripoll in LSGH. Mike was my 7th Grade classmate and we started going to each others birthday parties during our pre teens. Mike is still my best friend. Kumpare ko yan. At one of these events at the Ripoll home in San Juan, Tirso walked in with his younger brother Roman (former owner of "Peligro" Bar) and he had the loudest, big mouth, I had heard! Dang! I thought to myself, "Who the F**k is this guy?" Eventually we all found out we shared the same passion for Rock music, so we hung out with each other a lot more, and into our college days we would frequent the Ripoll Beach house in Nasugbu, Batangas, as often as we could.
Even then, around 1985, we were already forming our fantasy band lineups, with Tirso and I on guitars, and various friends on the other instruments. Of course, it never came to be at the time but I had already taken guitar lessons cause I was adamant about it. I sucked on guitar, big time! My fingers were too big to fret. It never bothered me though cause I knew you did not need a lot of talent to be like "The Ramones" or "The Sex Pistols" and to me that would have been just fine. So I learned my basic chords and quit the Yamaha School of Music. Benjie Zialcita (head instructor at said school) kept trying to influence me in the right direction but somehow someway I just wanted to Rock! I did not care to learn "Romansa de Amor" but would rather shred out "Smoke on the Water". Tirso, Dave, and Louie all learned under Benj at different times. Benjie Zialcita was an awesome influence to us all as well. He played "The KKK Took My Baby Away" with Paul Horrigan and Inaki Martinez at our school gazebo for some program in my 3rd High School year and I ran out of my remedial test to see them when I heard the noise from my classroom. F**k the test! I had to see who was playing! The beat of the live drum drove me mad!
My brother David Aguirre was growing up at the time from childhood to his high school years and at first was influenced by his mothers' musical tastes which I felt were out of date. He was into Elvis and Hermans Hermits! One day, he had just gotten home from school when I popped in this "Twisted Sister" live concert video and he just flipped for Dee Snyder screaming out profanity in front of a mad, MAD California Arena audience. He said stuff like "We're filming here in Cali-f*kin'-fornia man, so don't touch the cameramen, don't hit the cameramen, and most especially, don't f**k the cameramen." Wow!!! What an impact that made on this kid’s life! From that day, Dave was attached to my record collection. He researched everything backwards, like most of you out there, and discovered the best of the best Rock n' Roll out there available to us.
Dave would ask his mom to show him some guitar chords on her acoustic guitar (played lefty but strung righty like Hendrix) and he was strumming away from that time on. That must have been at our 2nd Greenmeadows home around 1986. He was dying to get an electric guitar! Tirso on the other hand had already bought my first electric guitar, a Hondo Strat, Japan made, which I had given up on and sold him and he was learning from books and his older brother Junus. Tirso refused to start with an acoustic guitar.
At the Ripoll Beach house, Tirso came up with his first original compositions called "Hi Lo" and "May Patay sa Main Beach" which had true meaning since we once found a dead body floating up the main Tali beach and reported it to the authorities. These were mainly comedic or funny compositions but the writing was already there for Tirso. He always wrote of personal experiences...just listen to his songs and hear it for yourself.
It was at this time that I had met Pepe Smith, Sampaguita, Pepito Bosch (RIP), Billy Bonnevie, Edmund Fortuno (RIP) and many of the Pinoy Rock Legends and that really reinforced my dreams. I watched them pIay for the first time ever at Babes Romero's now defunct Electra Bar on Kalayaan Ave. in Makati with my broken leg in a cast in 1988. I wanted to be like them! It seemed at these events, everyone wanted to be with them, love them, or just say hello to these mighty Pinoy Rock Icons.
One day, when we got to talking about it, we decided we could do it, and so would have sleep-overs at my place while all the time playing our strings. Tirso and I still dreamt of the forth coming future for our fledgling band it seemed. We actually recorded our first instrumental in my room with Dave and Tirso exchanging lead guitars played on verses of chords where I played the bass over an electronic drum track. No, no one will ever hear that. It came out alright for our first experiment so we again made new decisions as to who would play what. My friend at the time had an older bro who was selling his drum kit from the 70's (which looked like the perfect "combo" kit...gold and sparkly) so I went to their place and pretty much took it from their bodega for free....with "thank you's" to Robin himself who allowed me to steal the kit...
That was that!
I set the drums up at home that Sunday and Dave started playing "Highway to Hell" by AC/DC which I was able to keep up with. I was playing the drums! From conceptualization to fruition it seemed I could play a steady enough beat! It seemed like heaven with just Dave and I. Our parents came home from church that night and we showed ‘em what we could do......they freaked! Politely, they said, "It was nice". After their blessing from church, we gave them some hell.
The next weekend it goes without saying that we 3 got together for some jamming and we asked Junus Ripoll to come on as our first bass player even though he could play much better lead guitar than either of my boys. We kept it that way cause we knew that at least the 3 of us could work together though we actually had different musical directions with Junus. We then recruited our mutual friend Isabel Lozano (
www.myspace.com/isabel) as lead singer after trying out numerous friends who thought they could sing and we finally had a garage band! We played our first official gig at the "Big Bang sa Alabang" and we were then known as "Outrider" along with some then unknowns who later made names for themselves as well. I remember the younger bro of a classmate of mine, Gino Evaristo, who was bitching that they had to go on later than their slot cause someone had cut his guitar strings. He went on to become "Color it Red's" guitar player on their first album. Sabotage is dirty business and some bands still do it today. Razorback always respected lineup scheds other than when we had "lagare" gigs which meant we had to be at another venue within a time frame. In those cases, we went on on time, or not at all.
We had our first big break when we submitted our audition tape consisting of "Stairway to Heaven" and some other classic rock songs to the Upsilon Sigma Phi- NU107 battle of the bands contest. We won over Aftermath (guitar player Sancho Sanchez of "Loquy") only because we had better song selection I think. Also, a prettier singer...hehe. Dude, they played "Can I Play With Madness" by Iron Maiden and I thought we had no chance. We got named winner and freaked! I'm sure the Upsilonians voted unanimously....
From that point, we thought that we were ready for the club scene, which at the time required three 1-hour sets. This was the show band scene we were attempting to break into so we had to be strong. We thought that with our draw of friends that we could fill up clubs but again it was the late 80's to early 90's and only "The Dawn" were filling up venues if they decided to play outside of San Miguel Beer arena events.
Isabel Lozano quit the band before we signed anything, which saved us a lawsuit, but we ended up playing at Kalye Bar on Palanca St. in Legazpi Village every Saturday with Jose Mari Cuervo for the first year and then, when we dropped him from the lineup, we continued on with Kevin Roy for the next three years. We also had many bass players from the time, Junus Ripoll was with us, to John Templo, Jody Valencia, and finally to the maestro, Louie Talan who stuck with the guys since he came into the band. It was hard but with the support of our friends we made a steady gig of it. From 1991-94 we played almost every Saturday there including Christmas holidays and Easter Breaks…. after the 1st year, we were playing about two long sets and, later, we whittled it down to 1 long-ass set at the end of the evening when the place was jam-packed. We invited our friends from other bands (The Youth, Gnash, etc…) to play warm up sets and get the jamming started in the early evening.
So, the line-up then till the recording of Hebigat Sounds Vol. 1, Razorback’s 1st album, was composed of Tirso Ripoll and David Aguirre on guitars, Louie Talan on bass, Kevin Roy on vocals and myself on drums. Those early days, the early ‘90’s, are irreplaceable and were the beginnings of the 2nd coming of the Pinoy Rock scene.
Hopefully the other guys in the band are lurkers here at Philmusic and they add on some stories to this post. That would be fun!
