Q: What did the drummer say just before he got fired?
A: Hey guys! Let’s try one of my songs.
Well, the stupid joke doesn’t apply here. Find out why...
The unlikely beginnings of Fontfroide are traced to a lousy Sunday in August 2008 when Karlo (Pineda, drums) and Gauvin (Ramirez, guitar/vocal) decided to kill the afternoon boredom by jamming in the former’s house. With Lo’s home set-up Ddrum kit and an acoustic guitar Gau brought, which, strangely, he had to borrow from his sister, the duo then jammed on some songs from yore (think Nirvana, Matchbox Twenty, Semisonic, etc.). For them, the experience was more than retrogressing and reliving as it was actually drawing in a breath of fresh (musical) air. (Word to the wise: Emo is today’s hot shit.)
The arrangement worked very much like a bicycle—a simple machine running on two wheels—up until Lo and Gau thought of adding a “third wheel” to the mechanism: JC (Jaducana, bass), who resides just a village away from the two but is based in Bataan for work. The two confirmed with JC if he could soon join their musical meanderings, and from there, with a nod from JC, every Sunday saw the trio doing sessions in a certain hole-in-the-wall studio in Quezon City .
There are many bands which had their names christened after places. For instance, Bush, which is named after Shepherd’s Bush, a district of London. Conversely, Alter Bridge is named after a bridge on Alter Road in Detroit , Michigan . It’s the same case with Marcy Playground as the band’s name came after the playground of Marcy Open School in Minneapolis .
Taking that to consideration, the Lo-Gau-JC ensemble then settled with Fontfroide, a monastery in France where St. Anthony Mary Claret took his last breath. It was a fitting toast to their origins, particularly the place where they all first met: Claret School of Q.C. The three were batch mates in the U.P. Village-based school.
So Fontfroide it was: the deathbed of a saint, the birth moniker of his once innocent legions.
Only a months-old combo, Fontfroide has already shown much progress. Although currently limited to a handful of decent cover songs, the band has already come up with its own originals—three at the moment, with the fourth at the brink of liberation. Bulk of the songwriting goes to Lo, a copy editor and UST-Journalism graduate who had some of his poems published in the Philippine Graphic and Dapitan, the official literary folio of UST’s Faculty of Arts and Letters. He also writes for the Philippine Daily Inquirer. Meanwhile, Gau and JC, who, on the other hand, are electrical (UST alumnus) and chemical (Mapua alumnus) engineers respectively, contribute in laying out the arrangements of the songs.
From here, Fontfroide intends to continue the pursuit for the band’s fair share of the stage, both the usual and the Shakespearean.
UPDATE! UPDATE! UPDATE!After winning 3rd place in the “War Against Camaraderie,” a battle of the bands organized by Grin Department bassist Andrew Balatbat and company, Fontfroide is set to record some songs for a compilation album, which shall be released under Aeon Records, with Balatbat as the album’s producer. (We're crossing our fingers—and toes, man!)
It’s interesting to note that “War Against Camaraderie,” which was held at Makuhari Bar in Malate and was joined by 15 or so bands, doubled as Fontfroide’s first ever gig. The band, obviously wet behind the ears then (and now still!), was just three-months-old when they experienced this far-fetched milestone.
Fontfroide is now working on some new materials.
a la dave grohl :) hahaha ayaw mo ba nun?? haha 