Commentary by Darwin Fernandez
THE iconic Juan de la Cruz Band is regarded as one of the heroes of Filipino rock music. Decades after their first appearance—clad in punk leather, around 1968—two of its members have found themselves in hospital gowns. Seventy-year old Jose “Pepe” Smith recently underwent surgery for his gallbladder on September 17, while 69-year-old Wally Gonzalez had his colon surgery on September 24.
The past year, Smith’s Christmas present was to turn seven-decades strong despite his lifestyle choices, and carrying on with his music despite suffering from a stroke that left him with speech impairments. Gonzalez, on the other hand, has been dealing with diabetes behind the spotlight.
More than illnesses, the effects of success come with other symptoms that one wouldn’t expect from the glitz-and-glam of rock-star status, much less from icons.
Throughout their careers, the chances of the band making billions of pesos enough to make a Michael Jackson-like theme park were bleak.
Both the culture of their genre and the political climate during their band’s heydays was a hard mountain to conquer. The emergence of Pinoy rock was welcomed with both open arms and raised fists as it ushered-in a new age of OPM.
‘OFW’ musicians
THE band that is Juan de la Cruz, along with other composers, was branded as music of protests with their loud instrumentals and roaring vocals. Other rock groups were seen as innovative with the addition of folk elements to the music.
Originally a quintet, the band recorded its first album, “Up in Arms,” but did not receive as much commercial success as expected, and thus was not reissued.
Despite this, Juan de la Cruz continued, but no longer with the pieces it first came with. The new iteration was actually not born in the Philippines.
Before being immortals in the local music scene, they first made a contribution to the Japanese rock culture when the musician Shinki Chen gathered Smith, Gonzalez and Mike Hanopol to form the rock group Speed, Glue and Shinki. There, they had songs such as Take You Home and Blues Train.
Some shows and two albums later, the trio returned to the country.
‘Himig Natin’
THE most enduring of all their work, the 15-track album Himig Natin, was instrumental in establishing what we know now as “Pinoy rock.”
But for this to have been possible, a great sacrifice had to be made.
Rights to the album were sold to the band’s record label Vicor. The millions earned from the longevity of the compositions, however, never reached the members.
Today, that might be regarded as outright unfair. The era was just too rough for protest from the band. It was a harsh industry, and Juan de la Cruz, along with hundreds of other artists, had to settle for such contracts to have their music heard.
Beyond albums, the entertainment business has little regard for the heritage artists of Pinoy rock. Compared to their contemporaries the Beatles, the billions earned by their heirs from their songs would be almost impossible for any living Filipino musician to reach.
Other than piracy, which robs about 50 percent of an artist’s estimated earnings, the market itself holds back the musicians they admire.
Part of a musician’s career success is attributed to live shows. Sadly, many of the music lovers also find little value in watching concerts by a Filipino musician.
(An example would be Unique Salonga’s P800- to P4,000-concert tickets for a solo performance (which was answered with negative publicity and a long list of memes dedicated to him). Ironically, a foreign pop star would come to visit and fill an arena with prices starting at P5,000.)
With setbacks like the Rockfest 2018 and the shortcomings of his only solo album “Idiosyncrasies” to win the market, Smith and Gonzalez reflect how well musicians do after they get old: respected, but deeply under-valued.