Eraserheads: The Making of a Legend

Ely Buendia, Raymund Marasigan, Marcus Adoro, and Buddy Zabala. The Philippine Fab Four. The men that created and started one of the Philippines most influential bands. The Eraserheads. It started in University of the Philippines Diliman (they were still in college) when Ely Buendia posted an announcement that he was looking for new bandmates and coincidentally only the three showed up in the auditions. Raymund was the first to show up having jammed with Ely before and Buddy and Marcus next. Raymund was actually auditioning for bass and Buddy was for the drums. But through out the auditions they decided to switch places and then the band was formed. Ely was on the vocals, Marcus on the lead guitar, Buddy on bass, and Raymund on drums. They decided to call the band Eraserheads from the movie Eraserheads by David Lynch.

Because of Ely’s somehow unique voice which as of today no other vocalist has been able to imitate fully, his voice is something that you cannot easily forget, they were not successful in doing cover songs. Eventhough they are able to perform on gigs and in clubs in Metro Manila, they were not doing well so they decided to write their own songs. There songs had slowly gained popularity in the UP campus and steadily gained fans until its song was recognized outside the school. The song “Pare Ko” was the most popular one.

The popularity had pushed the band to record a demo and shopped it to record labels, radio stations, and clubs but was rejected. However, the songwriting of Ely was  noticed by the director of BMG Philippines in which Ely works as a partime copywriter. The songs of the band was reviewed and listend by Vic Valenciano, the director, and saw a promising light from it. And in 1992, the band Eraserheads was signed up. In 1993, the released their first album Ultraelectromagneticpop which became a huge success with the song, “PARE KO” featured in it.

And with the way they have revolutionized the new wave of OPM band, more new bands with their unique music had come to the stage. They are no doubt the most influential band in the history of Philippine Music. Truly a legend.

 

Eheads in their last concert

The song Toyang