Asked how to describe their group, glam pop, rock, alternative and soul band, The Juans, are one in saying that this is “not your typical boy band.” For sure this 5-man combo are looking more and more like a boy band when they're on stage, but what really sets this “boy group” apart is their musicality. They can actually play their instruments and are pretty good at it.
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| The Juans Band |
Singer, keyboardist Carl Guevarra says “it's what we've discovered about one another ever since the start. We can actually play music and that set the tone for what we want to be since day one.” And that one-visioned direction is to play heartfelt, energetic and fun, live music.
The Juans are Guevarra, bassist-singer Jason De Mesa, guitarists-singers vocalist Japs Mendoza and Jiad Arroyo and drummer-singer Daniel Grospe. Originally conceived as a sing and dance act, the group quickly morphed into a tight music making unit upon discovering each other's propensity for making music.
“We were originally built to be in the mold of all these famous foreign boybands. And for a very short time that's who we were,” Guevarra shared. “But then we realized: it would be more fun for us if we can play our own music live, rather than singing along to a minus-one.” Soon enough, the group completely ditched the pure, pa-pogi group route and went to work at their sound.
“There was a season in our lives as a band, that we lived together. We all believed that was the way to be better musicians. We all thought: Ok let's do this, we are going to rehearse our stuff every waking hours of the day. That would be our commitment to The Juans as a group and to the music,” Guevarra added.
The Juans were practicing during the day in a studio right beside their apartment, and to support themselves, were auditioning for gigs in the evenings. “That was a hard life,” says Grospe, “we were living as full-time musicians during the early days when gigs are hard to come by. But we stuck to it because we believed in The Juans.”
All that perseverance and sacrifice did its work. These days, The Juans are one of the more energetic and entertaining bands out there plying the live gig circuit. Their setlists are a solid mix of Top 40 current pop, some classics, and sing along rock tunes. The Juans must be doing something right in their nightly gigs because so far, just by word-of-mouth, the group has amassed twenty thousand-plus likers on their facebook page. “We're proud of that,” Guevarra stated, “that's one 'like' per audience that we met on our gigs and that's fifteen thousand people reached during the last year and a half of our gigging lives.”
The Juans are also writing their own music. Some of those songs reached Viva Records during one of their shows, and that convinced the long-standing record label to sign them to an exclusive recording contract. “We feel like all the hard work is paying off. Signing with Viva Records is just the start and it's all going to be good from here on. We're all excited,” Guevara confidently shared.
Of course it's going to be all good from hereon. After all, nothing is impossible if you're willing to put in the work. Especially for these boys: “mga simpleng Juan na may pangarap sa buhay.” The Juans’ EP album is scheduled to be released this August 2015.
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