Why Zack Tabudlo Wants His Music to Sound a Little Broken

Rising Filipino R&B artist Zack Tabudlo has been hunkering down and cooking up sonic recipes in the studio as he enters a grittier and more raw style. He is almost weaponizing glitchy and otherworldly guitar tones to make his music convey vulnerability and authenticity that the local scene so desperately needs.

We are hearing the early fruits of his meticulous studio work through his recent singles "Naguguluhan" and his latest labor "For You," both of which embrace and fuse the fuzzy and psychedelic guitar and synth sounds with a smooth R&B aesthetic.

Esquire Philippines got to virtually chat with Tabudlo prior to him dropping "For You" and he went full music gear nerd on us and we were all for it.

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The twenty-three-year-old singer, multi-instrumentalist, and producer is no stranger to locking himself in the studio to add new wrinkles to his sonic portfolio even after his smash-hits such as "Nangangamba," "Binibini," and "Pano," which have racked up over a billion streams in different regions and markets.

Starting out as a guy who would write and produce music for other people, his genesis taught him to think musically beyond his own perspectives and has been a masterclass for him to embrace empathy in songwriting.

"There are a lot of things that you can learn from a lot of people, especially artists because they have their own thing. They have their own stories," he told Esquire Philippines in the virtual interview. They become vulnerable in their way and just hearing different stories and again, different perspectives on these people, you get to really put it in your own thing and really reflect on your own stuff that you're doing as well."

Picking the brains of some of LA's finest producers and musical minds was a transformative experience for the singer, and we can see this in the dreamy and gritty soundscape presented in "For You," his first track produced in California. The record has co-producer and writing credits from seasoned industry players such as Isaiah Tejada, Joe Janiakmi, and Emma Rosen.

Tabudlo is no slouch as a producer with the capacity to pull off a lot of what Michael Todd "Mk.gee" Gordon and Dijon such phenoms.

"For You" strikes that balance between the intense and abrasive tone from Mk.gee and the accessibility of some of Tabudlo's earlier work, like "Habang Buhay."

The Filipino singer says Mk.gee is a huge influence on what he is up to right now, as the American artist is able to reinvent and revive sounds from the '60s, '80s, and '90s, which he finds refreshing in today's pop circuit.

"For You is actually one of those songs that still has that feel in terms of how they do it in today's production world, especially in the US," Tabudlo says.

"I noticed there's a lot of evolving in terms of how people produce guitar tones and synth tones in today's music there. They're very in that spectrum of what Mk.gee and Dijon does."

"It doesn't matter how upfront what they're doing is. It's the influence behind everything. And so producers that I've worked with are very high praises with them."

It's no secret that Dijon, Mk.gee, and to an extent Justin Bieber are killing it in this Alternative R&B world that could be the next genre-meta for the foreseeable future.

While Mk.gee and Dijon aren't what you typically picture when you think of pop music, their DNA is all over the mainstream music sphere. The ultra-popular "Daisies" track from Bieber's latest LP, Swag, was a dead-ringer for Mk.gee’s mastery of the axe, with Dijon co-writing and co-producing the track. It’s no surprise that the tune was destined for chart-topping greatness and instant replayability.

"For You is actually one of those songs that still has that feel in terms of how they do it in today's production world, especially in the US," Tabudlo said.

"In terms of their fan base, I wouldn't say they're mass right now. They're not like millions of people listen to them right now," he added, citing Dijon and Mk.gee.

The singer also named a few of his favorites from both artists, like "I Want" and "Break the Spell," from Mk.gee; and Dijon's powerful track "Big Mike's."

The singer is doing all this sonic architecture experimentation while straddling between writing music in Filipino and English.

Other than those two, he also gave us his desert island albums and songs that include that "Nice to Each Other" cut from Olivia Dean's debut album, "Tangerine Boulevard" from IV of Spades' comeback record Andalucia, and the entire You're a God album from Vertical Horizon.

Think of it as a mix of alternative rock from the 2000s and some new stuff.

On the local scene side, Tabudlo praised the reunion and new album put out by local rock juggernauts IV of Spades and said that a possible collaboration between them could be an intriguing collision of sonic worlds.

The resurging rock group's comeback album was met with a lot of fanfare and acclaim, with many listeners seeing it as a culmination of the evolution of their creative abilities.

The tracklist included love letters to sounds from the '70s and '80s told through the band's mastery over their respective instruments and nuanced showmanship.

"Collaboration-wise, that would be really sick. I feel like a lot of people would really love that as well. I would love that," Tabudlo said.

"I've been a Spades fan for I don't know how long, and it also broke my heart when they all broke up. So it's a very healing world type of thing when they got back together, and it'll be an honor if that would happen in the future."

Tabudlo unabashedly wears his foreign influences on his sleeve, but still gravitates toward the homegrown feeling of writing in his mother tongue.

Take his song "Pano" for example, it did crazy numbers in Asia and in the United States despite being a song written in Filipino.

"And so that being Tagalog is, you know, a crazy sort of like surreal feeling. Because like, again, it's a weird thing being able to write a Tagalog song and having them listen to that and memorize the words," he said.

Tabudlo shares that being a musician in this vertical age is still about making an impact with his distinct sonic aesthetics, both locally and outside of the country.

"Filipino artists are starting to really get recognized. Spades is back. Sonically, it's a crazy impact again. I feel like OPM is in good hands right now," he tells us.

"I've been saying this for a while now, but we definitely have a bigger opportunity, just a bigger chance of conquering the world when it comes to our OPM."