PANDADEMIC
Mela Dua: Vocals/Keyboard
Zelle Lambert: Vocals/Keyboard/Guitar
Energyte ?Gyte? Baldonado: Guitar
Marlon ?Trini? Trinidad: Bass
Zito Purugganan: Drums
Genre: Rock/Electronic (but they insist, ?we?re simply good music?)

Pandademic is a group formed in 2007 whose music is a laboratory of electronic dance-pop with punk permutations.

Mela and Zelle both do vocal and keyboard duties and swap instruments between certain songs. Gyte is guitarist and band ?main man;? he gathered all the members into the current roster.

Zito is the drummer, sporting a cap with the Hellboy logo, and Marlon Trinidad is the press-shy bassist. ?He has Tourette?s syndrome,? Zelle says gravely. Then they crack up. ?Nah, he?s just shy.?

They rehearse at Blue Light Studio, Kamuning, where autographs and doodles by artists such as Sick Cycle Mind adorn the walls. During rehearsal, they laugh at missed cues and off-key high notes. They?re a close-knit buddy-buddy group, and they hope their music gets to be just as tight.

Does your band name have anything to do with swine flu?

Mela: [laughs] No, we came up with the name way before swine flu happened! Originally it was supposed to be ?Pandemic,? KASI infectious [makes spirit fingers]. We want to be infectious.

Zelle: Then, ?panda,? because I love pandas. So, ?Pandademic?!

How?d you all get together?

Gyte: Nakilala ko si Mel at Zelle sa isang party. Tapos may video sa party, at sa video kumakanta si Mel ng Paramore. I asked her if she wanted to sing for a band. Ayun! Si Trini [Marlon Trinidad] naman, bandwhore. Marami siyang band. Si Z naman, may dati kasi kaming drummer sa isa pang band before Pandademic. Our original drummer was from the south. So si Z (Zito) pumalit.

Zito: Mas malapit kasi ako [band laughs].

So you guys are really good friends?

Mela: Yep, we?re all friends. Pati manager namin, si Red [Fabian ?Red? Lelay], was our friend, then he became a fan, and then manager. He?s our ?Panda-ger?!

Red: [aside] Tsaka, well, girlfriend ko sister ni Mel.

All: Uuuuy!

Tell us about yourselves.

Gyte: I?m a certified lawyer, I graduated from Ateneo law school.

Zito:I?m also a lawyer, graduated from Arellano. We?re all lawyers here [laughs].

Mela: I graduated from UST in nursing. Trini is our sound adviser slash audiophile.

Zelle: I?m in DLSU, third year Psych. My dad?s formerly from a jazz band, my mom?s a dancer, and my brother plays in a jazz band. So yeah. [laughs]

Who are your influences, and how would you describe your sound?

Gyte: We all came in with multiple musical influences, and we all put them together into our sound. We?re electronic, punk, rock, metal, lahat iyan.

Mela: We don?t have just one genre. Iyung description nga [ng band] sa Facebook di ko magawa e [laughs].

Zelle: We try not to be too mainstream; we want to be something different.

When I heard you guys jamming, the first band I thought of was The Ting-Tings.

Mela: Actually! We used to cover the Ting-Tings, back when they still weren?t big. We were among the first to cover them. They just sounded so different, so when people heard us playing them, they asked, ?Ano ?to?? Bago ?to a!?

Zelle: I think the closest band we sound like is Cansei de Ser Sexy.
Mela: [humming] ?Music is my boyfriend!?

I listened to you rehearsing. Were you really singing, ?Vomit, vomit, vomit??

[band laughs] Mel: Yep!

Is it about hard partying?

Mela: [laughs] No, it isn?t. It?s entitled ?We Can?t Help It?.

Zelle: It was originally titled ?Lover?s Quarrel.? And it?s based on... [grins]

Mela: [sighs] Yeah, it?s based on my own experience. Do you know how, during an LQ you feel so bad that you end up saying anything, just to hurt the other person? The song is about that. You?re filled with so much anger, you just end up... [mimes throwing up] vomiting whatever you think of saying.

Now those are interesting lyrics. Who writes the lyrics to your songs?

Gyte: Mel and Zelle write the songs, we play the music. I mix the tracks in my house?

Mela: ?ang dami niyang gamit sa bahay.

Gyte: ?parang studio namin diyan [chuckles].

What events in life have inspired your music?

Mela: Random inspirations. I have ?song sickness??every time I?m inspired, I have to write a song. We have one entitled ?Haliparot?. It?s based on someone I knew na sobrang landi. Kasi I had a stint teaching Koreans, and one student hit on a teacher. Now this teacher had a boyfriend, but she still hooked up with the student. Nung umuwi ng Korea iyung student, ayan, nawala sila.

Zito: I wrote a song about garlic sauce. [band laughs] No kidding! One time I was having Persian food with garlic sauce, and it was so good I had to write a song about it.

Mela: Lovers? quarrels, Persian food, even Neil Gaiman. Random inspirations!

How do you compare your band?s emergence with electronic music?s emergence in the Philippines?

Gyte: I think we?re well-timed, marami na kasing band na ganyan iyung nire-reach na genre, like Pedicab and Up Dharma Down.

Which direction do you see yourselves taking your music?

Mela: We hope to be playing our music for a long, long time!

Zelle: We want to be as tight as Urbandub.

Gyte: Yeah! Urbandub. Magaling sila. Sa electronica, di ka tali sa isang genre. It?s studio-produced, so there?s a lot of mixing and gadgets. Puwedeng experimentahan.

Zito: Our original plan is not to have two songs sound alike.

Mela: We just want people to have fun.

Any music videos in the future?

Mela: We already have it in our heads: in our first video?

Zelle: ?we?ll all be wearing panda suits!

Gyte: And luchador masks! [band laughs].

Mela: We already have a name for our EP too. It?ll be called ?Dance, Panda Dance"-

Zelle: ?"and Sing too?!

Mela: Yep. ?Dance, Panda, Dance, and Sing too?!

Gyte?s phone rings?his ring tone is ?Mercury? by Bloc Party. If there was any indication the members were really into good electronic music, that was it.

The interview ends, and the band packs up to head to a Persian restaurant in Xavierville. Their parting shot: ?We?re not here to change the world, we just want people to feel good!?

Pandademic plays at Freedom Bar, Ortigas, every Thursday this month, starting July 9. Think you?re Young, Loud and Upcoming? E-mail jedqsegovia@yahoo.com