Ebe Dancel's New Mini-Album Is Inspired by All the Weddings He's Performed At
Getting married is easily one of the most memorable events in a person’s life. The wedding itself is an affair where couples exchange vows in front of family and friends.
While different people have different ways of expressing their love in a marriage ceremony, one thing that most weddings wouldn’t go without is music. And love-themed music perfect for weddings is a specialty of veteran singer-songwriter Ebe Dancel.
Dancel is known for his songs with seminal band Sugarfree, as a solo artist, and as part of the troubadour-trio 3D (alongside Bullet Dumas and Johnoy Danao). At the height of the pandemic in 2020, Dancel was forced to stay at home like everyone else, and he used this time to write more songs with the help of original APO member Jim Paredes’ online songwriting class.
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"Music has saved me in so many ways." —Ebe Dancel
According to Dancel, he would often get up and write songs in the middle of the night. These songs would eventually end up on his highly anticipated mini-album titled Habang Buhay.
Tasha Tuazon, who co-owns Pasig-based independent record store Backspacer Records, expressed her excitement on behalf of their team in releasing the record.
“This is Ebe’s 3rd vinyl [under Backspacer Records],” she said. “We’re very happy this is a [collaborative project]. We’re happy that it’s finally here. We hope you like it, too.”
Dancel is launching the mini-album and will be having a special meet and greet with fans on Friday, October 14, at 123Block, with 48th Hope St opening the show.
Embossed on a hard cover 12-inch record, Habang Buhay is a product of Dancel’s musings for many of the weddings he was able to attend in the past two or so years.
“I’ve been doing a lot of weddings,” he chuckled. “Songs like ‘Bawat Daan’ has been used in a lot of same-day-edits, so sabi ko kay Rico (Blanco) ‘tayo na lang gumawa ng soundtrack ng kasal.’”
Dancel shared his experiences of attending and singing at weddings, which helped him write the songs in the album.
“Maraming maliit na bagay sa mga weddings ang napapansin ko kase palagi may surprise.” he explains, “I’m either in a van or in a room or in a very dark corner just observing everything din, from the bride or the groom. I got all sorts of reactions. One time i surprised the groom and he’s like six feet tall, he started sobbing. Also I've seen a lot of brides crying and I’ve seen a bride and she’s like ‘hmm…okay.’”
It was a challenge for Dancel to track all the needed instruments for each song in Habang Buhay, where almost every single had little to no clicktrack inserted. It was especially hard because he was at home having little real-life interaction with other musicians over the lockdown.
“That’s a real orchestra,” he pointed out while listening to one particular song. “We recorded this around one in the morning, some of them would record around 3 in the morning para tulog na yung aso, di pa gising mga bata, wala pang tricycle. I’d go to the studio and see Rico on the monitor, but listening to everything, it’s very fulfilling.”
Dancel went on to ask himself jokingly regarding the challenges of the recording, “If someone would ask me if i would do this in a heartbeat, I won’t.”
“I think it was therapeutic to write these songs,” he added. “There’s always one person in the audience who would love to see me [in these weddings]. Imagine during the first few months of the lockdown, EDSA was happy, that’s hard. Sabi ng kaibigan ko parang prime daw ako sa lockdown kase back when I was living in Los Baños, nobody really knew that I was there until I went out of the house, which was only to run, to bike or take care of something. But still, not being able to see my parents, my siblings, my nephews and my niece, that’s really difficult. Na-challenge ako sa pagsulat nitong 4 songs”
Dancel pointed at Blanco, the head honcho of Balcony Entertainment, who was present in the press conference of “Habang Buhay.” Blanco stood up all the way from the back and explained the finer details of the production, recording the orchestra, and the importance of songwriting.
“I think I just felt at that time, especially when we’re all at home, and living in this hard reality, I wanted to offer an escape and everyone was still at home using the computer,” Blanco said. “I think Ebe’s songs were asking for a certain grandness. Some scale. Of course the occasion calls for it. If you ask anyone at the wedding, at that point in their life, it is the biggest day of their life. I forced myself to commit to the strings even knowing that it’s kind of impossible to do that via Zoom, such as ‘Where do we get the musicians? How are they going to sound cohesive? Will it sound like an orchestra? There were all these questions back then. Of course, hearing the songs now, you wouldn’t think about these things. It was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be.”
Assembling was another headache in the recording process. Banco, however, didn’t mind putting the pieces all together. Dancel then went on to explain the odd requests he got when he played and sang in weddings.
“Minsan may nagrerequest na lola, “Hijo, will you play “The Way You Look Tonight?’” Dancel would just answer, ‘Po?’ in bewilderment.
But as Habang Buhay was playing in the background of the record store, Dancel revealed that his old band Sugarfree will be playing together in a special performance dedicated to a friend who will be married soon.
“At the end of the month, a good friend of mine is getting married so he kind of got the band back together, at least the two of us,” the former vocalist said. “Mitch Singson is going to do drums, Jazz Nicholas is on keys, Justin of Ciudad on guitar. And they sent me the setlist kanina and I said, ‘My gosh!’ Umabot na ‘ko sa point na nakalimutan ko yung kanta sa sobrang dami. That’s how i know I’m blessed to be here with you now, playing a record that we could all see and touch. Parang not a lot of people would get to do what I’m doing right now.”
Listen to Habang Buhay on Spotify.
