Enter The Nuthouse

Hilera on youth, independence, handling criticisms, growing up with their

heroes, growing up in this nuthouse, and other serious stuff I swear you'll
never hear from them on stage. Sounds too heavy for you? This is Hilera as
you've never heard them before.

This room I'm about to describe to you would be small and crowded. Its lights are
dimmed, posters from eras unknown rip the walls, the floor reeks of spilt liquor and who
knows what. The air? Of perspiration and old cologne. On a corner sits a stage with
lonely instruments. A top hat is hanging loose on the mic stand. An upright bass stands
humble, casting a fat shadow on a set of drums pushed back to the wall. A jukebox fills
the room with "Tommy Gun" and "Lost in the Supermarket" consecutively, but nobody
is listening. The crowd sighs as the lights flicker. A drunk man picks a fellow drunk man
off his feet, flings him into the jukebox. The music dies. The man leaves hurt, swears
never to come back to this nuthouse again. Nobody. Nobody seems to care.

Enter Hilera. If I were to rewrite history, Chris would be a gang lord convincing all that
he is only 23 years old. His weapons? A guitar, his signature hat, metaphors, poems, and
film quotes. Appearing by his side would be Ivan, 23, and Bobby, 20, pumped up with
more energy than ever, equipped with big strings and polished sticks, ready to strike at
Chris' command. They mean no harm. They just want to play.

The real history records that Bobby learned the drums to complete the line-up of Hilera.
Ivan had a previous band. Nikki (of Nyctinasty), who happens to be Ivan's old
drummer's sister, recommended Chris to do vocals. Bobby came in and Hilera was born.
Their career took off after they emerged as Nescafe Soundskool 2005's champions, a
success that granted them their first self-titled album, "Hilera" (under EMI Music).

The band is a fan of poetry, metaphors, irony, open-ended statements, stories, phrases
that stream into songs. More than a personal outlet, the band sees songwriting as a
collaborative tool that unites them with the rest of the world's experiences. One just
doesn't ask what "Pot of Gold" or "Define" is about. It means what you want it to. Chris,
the band's main songwriter, when he's not being a walking book of quotes, likes to write
on his own time. He sees people as experience channels, injecting in his writing his
personal take on matters. The band salutes Joe Strummer, John Lennon, Paul Weller,
Jack White, Brian Setzer, Bob Dylan, Lee Rocker, Scott Colley as their musical heroes.
They look up to these people as how presidents backtrack into the lives and works of his
or her predecessors in to become better at what they do.

Gigs then came easy. Poured forth fans and their creative ways of professing love for the
band ("Cross-stitches with our names on it!" says Ivan). Success seemed within an
arm's reach in this small room, until the lights grew even fainter.

For more than 4 years, Hilera has been serving us good ol' punk and rockabilly that
screamed go crazy, create riot, break stuff, take off your clot... No, I mean, dammit, the
typical Hilera gig air is as punk (allow me to use the word as an adjective) as it could
get, but there seems to be dissatisfaction in Chris as a songwriter. Chris, along with the
group, just had to write songs again. Words were playing themselves out in his head and
they just had to be written. And write he did.

"Nuthouse" is Hilera's independently produced 16-track album released in February of

2009, and is defined to be more "musically diverse" than the first album that came out in
2006. 3 years is a long time coming by anyone's standards, but the band explains the
delay. They took it to themselves to start a recording studio out of nothing but
perspiration and frustration. "Going indie" and "stripping down" gave them more
freedom, but it was naturally not easy. The hardest proved to be making band decisions
themselves, a task their previous label would usually make for them. I saw in the
members of the band the struggle to crawl out of their first album's shell to build a real
house wherein they are free to move as they please.

Chris describes the transition from the 1st album to the 2nd album as being cut off from
a mafia. If we were in an alternate universe, and the band needs your imagination here,
Hilera is Al Capone's thug deciding to return as a petty thug if only to regain freedom,
laying off the big guns and privileges that came with being in Al Capone's association.
Hilera was back to zero, or as you would blatantly put it, back to being nothing. And
from nothing, "Nuthouse" was built. The support of their fans, their manager, and of
course, Sonic Boom, made the transition bearable. Chris takes it from Alex Lim who
remained a constant adviser and friend since the beginning. Now, they continue to
establish their place in the Sonic Boom band roster as notorious lords, not petty thugs, in
their own rights while gaining the respect of fellow bands.

The title "Nuthouse" sprung out of a statement John Lennon made in reference to The
Beatles' Manila concert experience. The group shares the icon's dismay over the
country's situation then, which Chris impresses is true until now. Quoting Lennon, Chris
goes, "I'll just never go to another nuthouse again."

"Our music is from this nuthouse," proudly adds Chris, believing that something good
can still come out of this place.

Being in a punk band has associated words such as careless and inappropriate (Chris
swears a hell of a lot on stage when he's geared up, not that I disagree, I just feel like I
should point that out!) to Hilera's personalities. Really, Hilera did not seem like the band
who gave an inch about how the average person thought. Fact is, they do. The album
continues to receive positive feedback, but even the album cannot escape from
criticisms.

When asked what keeps them going despite challenges and changes, the group pulls off
a Dylan: "You have to be in a constant state of becoming." Explaining further, the only
thing that hinders one from doing something great is his or her ego. I could not agree
more that this whole music-making business is an ongoing exercise that doesn't end after
one or two albums. One just keeps playing. Passion for the craft keeps them alive, their
music to relive them once their time passes.

Hilera has both matured and stayed young, savoring the present while contemplating the
future with might. Now, while the privilege is theirs, they take advantage of their youth
to make music and entertain. In the future, they only want to be known as icons of self-
expression and remembered as "a good band who inspired, dot, dot, dot (...)"

You'd think swearing and being altogether careless is all there is to them. I would like to
prove you otherwise. I close by saying that, if anything, Hilera is understated and
miscalculated. They are the walking examples of independence. I would be doing great
disservice to the band if I didn't end this piece with the proper punctuation. For this
band, all things must only end in question marks or ellipses. Question marks spring not
from uncertainty; ellipses aren't padlocks to unachieved goals. Both spring from the
band's belief that all things must be left to their ever-evolving, ever-becoming nature in
order to truly stand out in their own.

Chris' hat, guitar, and mic? They're on. Ivan's bass guitars? Planted firmly on stage.
Bobby's sticks? Suspended in mid-air, two seconds into meeting the percussion, waiting
to be brutalized. They're more than ready to conquer the nuthouse, but are you?

-K