Musician Dan Gil has literally been accused of stifling the growth of his band, Chillitees. He protests, of course. And does right by lovers of good, tasteful music everywhere, especially by fans of the band’s sophisticated sound.
Growth in the pop world, you see, does not necessarily mean artistic growth. Mostly it’s about the business of bigness – hooks, charts, audiences. Indie fave Chillitees, with its cool, subtle grooves, velveteen sound textures, and, in many tracks from their acclaimed debut album Extra Rice, its frequent calls for escaping into forgetfulness and oblivion is mostly about the business of intimacy.
“I just want to be true to what Chillitees is about, [and to] the way it started,” Gil says in the interview for this write-up, held during an indefinite break from the production of the band’s second album.
The interruption was precipitated by the “politically unstable” situation that the group found itself in following the departure of their manager over creative differences with Gil. “I was getting pressure to be big,” the band’s founder, chief songwriter and main creative driving force notes. “But I thought we were already big. We were featured in a rock magazine, which for me is a feat since we’re a pop band, and one that plays Tagalog songs to boot. Masaya na ako dun.”
The manager was thinking, well, bigger. Too bad that it entailed the very thing that moved Gil to form Chillitees in the first place. “It was a thesis to prove something,” he notes. A reaction to the novelty craze that swept the local pop world a few years back, the thesis was that Filipino musicians can also do class, and not just crass.
Chilltees has proven it once. They’re dead set in proving it again with their groovier, funkier new album. In the gospel according to Dan Gil, that’s growth. – Eric Cabahug
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