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By Sylvia Santamaria Contributor
CARLO AQUINO is highly regarded
as a brilliant young actor by the local critics. He has shown
intensity and depth in the many performances he has essayed on the
big screen and on the boob tube, the most notable of which includes
his playing the son of Vilma Santos in Chito Roño’s Bata, Bata,
Paano Ka Ginawa? and his lead role in the dark film Sa Aking
Pagkakagising mula sa Pagkamulat. He has worked with the best actors
of this country and has been recognized by almost all the
award-giving bodies of the land.
In Aquino’s spare time, he goes
into his own private world where he plays Counterstrike for hours
and hours. He has also established close friendships with
non-showbiz youngsters in his passion for these games, friends who
realized that they all have a common passion for playing electronic
games and creating music. So they decided to form a band to explore
other possibilities.
But if you were to ask Aquino and
his bandmates — composed of Aldwin on drums, Aldo on bass, Edward
on guitars, Wai on keyboards (they’d rather not use their
surnames) — keeping the group together has proven quite the
challenge—their schedules collided so much that it inspired the
name for which the band is now known—Kollide.
From doing session work, Kollide
is finally breaking free from the shadows of their past and is
currently being groomed as the main attraction following the release
of their self-titled album under Viva Records recently.
Playing light alternative music,
Aldwin says, “Our initial target is to allow our listeners to get
to know who we are and the music we create and sing. Then eventually
siguro we can move on to a higher level of alternative, or if not,
to a more intellectual type of music.”
Indeed, with a good amount of
competition all vying for public attention, this approach to a
recording career seems to be most practical. But the real goal, as
vocalist Carlo insists, is, “We’d like to come up with songs
that will still be played and sung after ten or twenty years.” And
their carrier single, “Alaala” might just hit the jackpot and
stay long in the airwaves.
Produced by music veteran Sancho
Sanchez, and engineered by Shinji Tanaka, Kollide’s album has
given the band its initial foray into professional recording, an
experience that taught them a great deal.
“We really planned on releasing
the CD as an independent group, then dumating nga ’yung offer ng
Viva,” Carlo explains, adding, “Although it took a while since
we had to re-record the songs to make the album more commercial.”
But through it all, one thing
remains for these prolific songwriters. The titles they have now are
a collection of songs that bear the familiar thread of human
experience, and that alone would most likely make these songs sit
well with the listeners.
Kollide is obviously a band with
a plan—one that uses its music and its desire to tell stories as
ammunition to capture the hearts and minds of as many listeners as
possible. Like the many games they play, the band is truly on strike
mode, and its strategy might just win them a lot of fan base.
Let’s wait and listen.
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