Asian Journal- The Filipino-American Community Newspaper

Music industry’s most enduring group is set to do a series of concert until May

When it comes to a group’s longevity in the music industry, perhaps there is no better group to write a book on the subject than APO Hiking Society. The group, astoundingly, is now on its 41st year, and during those years, has released close to 20 full-length albums and about 30 chart-topping original songs, did hundreds of concerts and countless shows and specials on TV. With all of those, heck, they could write a whole series about longevity in the music industry. However, showbiz is sometimes tricky. In real life, there is a clearly defined law when a person must hang up his boots. In showbiz, it is for you to decide when it’s time, and making that decision is never easy. It involves a lot of assessment, a lot of consideration, and oftentimes a lot of tears and laughter.

When APO Hiking Society announced that they were officially quitting the music industry as a group early January this year and that they are slated to do a series of farewell concerts all throughout the US and the Philippines until May this year, the news was met with shock and sadness. After all, no group has lasted this long—intact—and had the same success as they did. Simply put, if the Philippines had its own Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, APO Hiking Society will be the first on the list.

However, the group insists, as they shared with the Asian Journal during an exclusive interview as they prepare for their farewell concerts, that it wasn’t always roses and peaches for them as they faced challenges along the way (such as the dreaded disco ‘70s era and the occasional creative disagreements), but all throughout, they managed to overcome all because as they sing in one of their hit songs,"Iba na nga ang may pinagsamahan."

Jim Paredes: Well... (pauses)... With great difficulty.

Buboy Garovillo: We decided on it last year actually. We were talking about it. We’ve been a group for 41 years now.

JP: It’s pretty much been there, done that.

BG: APO grew up together. We were writing songs. We were doing recordings. We go to studios. And we just realized in the past few years that we were not doing all those things anymore. We were just doing concerts. We realized that we just get together for concerts. We’re also trying to do things on our own. Individually, our horizons were expanding. So we were thinking, are we gonna do this until we fizzle out or fade away.? No, we thought, we might as well put a closure on it. It’s like when you have friends. That’s how we we are in relation with our audience. And it wouldn’t be fair to just disappear and fade away without them knowing it, di ba? So sabi namin, we have to say goodbye properly to everybody.

JP: So this is a Filipino leave, matagal ang goodbye. (Laughs)

Danny Javier: Personally, with me, as a performer, as an artist, you would never stop. You will proceed with your craft, with your gift. But as performers, the best time to go is when you’re at your peak. As a performer, you always end at a high. So we have the very fortunate past years that propelled us to the point that we hit 40. Who would expect a group to last 40 years together without changing membership and no blood relations?.

DJ: The performance.

JP: Concerts. The concerts have always been great times.

BG: Because when we do concerts, we have fun with each other. We fool around with each other. And the audience are there to watch us play and be amused. The feeling is like that.

JP: You’re being creative amidst an adrenaline rush. And it’s really great. We really feel powerful as a performer because you’re singing your own songs and the people are grooving to it. And you’re sharing your wild ideas and they’re picking it up.

BG: That’s what we really love—the creativity involved before every stage performance. Sometimes we work on the things we do right backstage. We do it on the show itself. And then within the next two hours, you get a response. Oftentimes we think that it’s great that we didn’t become actors. When it comes to films, you don’t know what’s happening. But with concerts, it’s clear. You get an instant reaction from the audience.

DJ: At the concert, that’s where the friendship is at its purest because all of the ties that bind us together exist on the stage. The presence of the audience, the music, the timing, the spontaneity of the enjoyment of what we have produced together. And this is what we will miss the most. Here’s more, the three of us as a group have lasted 40 years without any of us using details of our private lives as ammunition to create buzz to propel our career.

BG: But after this, I am going to have a sex change operation. (Laughs)

JP: But seriously, how many performers can make those claims?

DJ: We’ve managed to keep our private lives private.

JP: In effect, you might wanna say... I don’t want to say it because the song is bad luck, but we did it our way. Maraming namamatay dun eh. (Laughs)