Kaya Green Band: For love of music, football, and the 'green'

 

How the band started

“Nagsimula itong grupo just jamming after football training. We go to a friend's place, he has instruments, drums, ganyan,” Del Rosario recalls.

Asked to describe the sort of music that the band plays, he says, “I don't like identifying music forms because for me music is just one. You're using the same notes. But for convenience sake, I would say ‘world music’ because we play a lot of reggae.”

World music encompasses different genres – traditional, quasi-traditional, or a combination of different styles of music from around the world.

Del Rosario notes how the other band members are also somehow connected to football, including backup vocalist Remy Del Rosario, a football player from the University of Santo Tomas, and lead guitarist Lawrence Zamora, his fellow football coach at Poveda.

Both Del Rosario and Zamora teach kids to play football every weekend.

The other band members include bass guitarist Noel Mendez, drummer Ferdz Dapula, percussionist Ivo Cruz, flutist Paulo Rosero, guitarist Jules Batislao, and French keyboardist Emmanuel "Manu" Cadic.

According to the UFL website, the Kaya Football Club ranks fourth in the league after Stallion FC, Loyola Meralco Sparks, and Global FC. Kaya FC has played 17 games, winning eight.

The meaning behind the name

Why name the band and the football team "Kaya"?

Because, said Del Rosario, it means “we can.”

“But in the deeper meaning, the Alibata, yung symbolo ng Ka means togetherness or kapatiran. Kaya kasama, kapatid,” he adds.

“Tapos yung Ya, if you look at the shape of Ya – para siyang susi, so key to unity, susi ng kapatiran, yun yung deeper meaning ng what Kaya is all about,” he adds.

As for the “green” in the band's name, it refers to the football field—and the larger world of nature and the outdoors it belongs to.

“I think we have the responsibility of taking care of the Earth,” says Del Rosario.

Through the Kaya Green Band’s original compositions, they get to express their concern for the environment. And actually, both the band and the football club have an environmental cause.

“Our club plants trees every year. Every anniversary namin, we plant at least 100 trees up in Tanay, Rizal. Our friend has a huge piece of land there so every year, we go out, we plant, and we play music,” Del Rosario says.

Patriotic pride

Del Rosario says in a football team, just like in a band, the members have to be like family, “you have to be really close to each other to play well together.”

The band wrote its first song on June 12, 1998, the 100th year of Philippine Independence Day, in Barotac Nuevo, Iloilo.

“I was there playing in a tournament. I was invited by the army football team then my best friend, a co-founder of Kaya [Football Club], lived there,” Del Rosario explains.

“Ayun, gita-gitara kami,” he recalls.

He was trying to figure out the right chords for the song “Father and Son,” and when he couldn’t, he suggested, “Gawa na lang tayo ng kanta.”

“Araw ng Kalayaan” then became the Kaya Green Band’s first song.

For the 2010 Homeless World Cup, the Kaya Green Band composed the song “Bayani Ka.”
“We have a video on YouTube, it's called ‘Bayani Ka.” It shows the [Philippine] players from 2010 [Homeless World Cup] acting out their previous jobs as a sidecar driver, barker ng jeep, yung nagpupunas sa loob ng jeep, You'll see the video and they get transformed. It tells the story of what the program is actually,” Del Rosario explains.



Del Rosario has been the director and the head coach of the Homeless World Cup-Philippine Team since 2010.

In 2013, the Homeless World Cup-Philippine Team placed fifth in Poznan, Poland, ending their campaign 28th overall.

Some surprising facts about Kaya band members

Unlike other bands, the Kaya Green Band does not have a rigid rehearsal schedule because its members all have day jobs.

The band members who were at their recent gig at Sev’s Café in Manila earlier this month revealed some interesting personal information:

1. Backup vocalist Remy del Rosario: “Hindi kami magkapatid ni Rudy,” she says.
She says the group forms into another band that plays a different genre when the other Del Rosario (Rudy) is not available.

“That's a different genre, it's not world. It's more of a trip-hop kind of music, so medyo masayang groove siya and stuff,” explains Remy, a consultant for a company in Ortigas.

2. Drummer Ferdinand Dapula:  A survey aide for a construction company, Dapula came from “The Boss” (Amo) band. “Mag-aaral po ako ng music pero sa ngayon, hindi pa. Gusto namin makatulong sa kapwa. Tutugtog kami for a cause. Katulad ng pag may taong may sakit, tutugtog kami para yung kita sa kanila mapupunta,” he says.

Being a family man, Dapula says he always puts his family ahead of the band. As he is also a born-again Christian, he appreciates that his fellow band members are also religious and are not into vices.

“Inuman, kainan, tugtugan, and then ang bisyo, mag-football, yun lang,” Dapula adds.

3. Bassist Noel John Mendez: Only 22 years old, Mendez is a computer technology student who’s graduating next March from the Asian Institute.

Although he was into music even when he was in high school, Mendez says his dream is to get a job in Canada after he graduates. “Pero after po kasi ng graduation, mag-aaral po ulit ako,” he says, adding that he wants to study at TESDA to become a welder. “May idea naman po ako kaya balak ko rin po,” he adds.

4. Percussionist Matthew Cruz: From Mondays to Fridays, Cruz works as a civil engineer for the Department of Science and Technology. He's in the band, he says, “because I love music.”

“I believe I’m an artist, and ayun, jam lang, not much pressure sa banda, kung kailan ka pwede jam ka,” he says.

“I've been to bands na medyo na pressured ka, kailangan mo mag-attend ng practice. With Kaya, free flow lang yung jam, so yun yung kagandahan sa grupo namin,” he adds.

5. Lead guitarist Lawrence Zamora: A resident of Biñan, Laguna, Zamora says national hero Jose Rizal's descendants are their neighbors.

Asked if he had a full-time job, he says, “Wala, nag-aaral lang ako sa bahay, nagre-research, self-study.”

However, he also works as an assistant football coach when needed.

He says he met Del Rosario while serving in a church choir. “We play [music] at the Mass every morning,” Zamora says.

6. Flutist and saxophonist Paulo Enrique Rosero:  “I paint, I'm an artist,” says Rosero, who showed pictures of his work, which he loosely described as “abstract and stuff and sculptures.”

Rosero says he joined the band after meeting Del Rosario in an art exhibit. “We drank together and he invited me to the band,” he says.

7. Keyboardist Emmanuel Cadic: A mathematics teacher at the European International School, Cadic hails from Brittany in France.

“I just started jamming with them [Kaya Band] in June. Rudy, he introduced me to the band. So we used to play on Sunday afternoon and he asked me if I want to join them one night.”

Cadic has only been in the Philippines for a year. “Before that I lived three years in Senegal, Africa; then before that I lived two years in Paris, France,” he says.

“We are a people of travelers. We are sailors actually. It's quite like in the Philippines,” he adds.

He says his stay in the Philippines has so far been great. “It's not always easy when you’re a foreigner and you come in a new country. You have to discover, to adapt. It's not always easy. If you meet other people in the country, it’s easy,” he says. — BM, GMA News