Jett Pangan has had the privilege of fronting The Dawn, one of the country’s most enduring rock bands, and also becoming a competent theater actor.
In this exclusive QandA, he narrates the circumstances behind the Dawn’s breakup in 1995, his theater debut, singing Burt Bacharach and Steely Dan, and what to expect at The Dawn’s 40th anniversary concert on June 27 at The Theater at Solaire.
The Dawn came into the scene at a time when OPM was at a low point. But the group prefigured the explosion of Pinoy alternative music in the 1990s. What were your thoughts when the likes of the Eraserheads, Yano, Parokya Ni Edgar, Teeth, Color It Red, and the rest were suddenly drawing a mass audience?
I knew that those bands you mentioned would gain a much bigger audience because most of their lyrics spoke deeply to the everyman.
But just when the live music scene was peaking, the Dawn stopped performing in ’95, and you became a label manager at Viva Records before forming the Jett Pangan Group. What’s the story there?
The wave of new bands gaining popularity in the early ’90s got us into some sort of existential crisis. I was also already in my late 20s, which I believed was the best time to get married, resign from the band after eight active years, and start a new leaf.
The plan was to get a job away from music, but as my wedding day neared, I received an offer to manage Neo Records, [a sub-label of Viva Records. A year into the role, my then-boss suggested that I release my own album. After my solo album ‘Spell, I needed a band to tour with. The JPG was formed.
Four years later, the Dawn got back. Was there a new motivation, or did you just miss playing with each other?
When we disbanded in ’95, I thought it was a closed book. Then, sometime in ’97, we did a reunion concert at the Ultra. We had fun, but saw it as just a one-time thing because we were busy with individual stuff. It wasn’t around ’99 that everyone agreed to give it one more shot. More than missing the jams, I guess we felt there were still more songs to make.
When did you get into theater, and why?
Playing Pontius Pilate in ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ (directed by Soxy Topacio for ’70s Bistro) sometime in 2000 made me realize that I really dug participating in theater. Around 2002, I received a call from Bobby Garcia of Atlantis Productions to play one of the leads in the musical ‘Tick, Tick… Boom.’ You could say I got hooked ever since.
You seemed to have enjoyed it as you did more plays and musicals. What are the similarities and differences between performing as an actor and as a musician?
The most important thing musical theater blessed me with was how much it improved my singing and confidence, which really helped me up my game as a performer for The Dawn and other projects. With theater or acting in general, it’s fun to disappear into a role. With being a musician, the room to write and express yourself is the best gift of all.
Your most recent music stint outside The Dawn was the Burt Bacharach tribute with Ryan Cayabyab conducting you, Bituin Escalante, Gigi De Lana, and Sofronio Vasquez. That’s a pretty complex type of pop concert, right?
Yes! Burt Bacharach had the incredible ability to make odd meters and weird chord changes sound like ear candy. Mr. C stayed true to the form while adding his own signature rhythm to the show.
Your own voice is pretty different from the typical guttural, snarling rock singer. Do you think it’s an advantage in the sense that you can cover a wider range of styles?
Thanks to the New Wave and New Romantic movements of the ’80s, my type of voice had a place in contemporary rock music. Voice lessons in the past, plus doing musical theater, further developed my range. I still can’t do stratospheric notes like our rock gods can, but I’m happy staying in my lane.
You pulled off a wonderful surprise singing ‘Deacon Blues’ with the Black Cows at 19 East. What other left-field material are you game enough to cover?
I also love to sing Sinatra and similar standards. But yeah, jamming Steely Dan with the Black Cows was awesome!
What have you discovered about yourself and the Dawn while on tour abroad?
I’ll always miss home by the second week, no matter how beautiful and First-World other places are. Also, I eat too much when I’m in another country.
What do you want the fans to expect at ‘Kwarenta’?
Director Paolo Valenciano is staging the concert in a visually trippy way that shows the band’s history as we dish out songs that defined our career over the decades. We got a musical director for the concert, the venerable Gino Cruz. He has the unenviable position of getting headaches and possibly indigestion from helping us stitch together the best setlist possible, given the sheer number of songs in our catalog.
There will be tributes to members who passed away, bassist Mon Legaspi, and THE Man who started it all, Teddy Diaz. We’re also very excited to have on board some former members who’ll jam with us: guitarist Kenneth Ilagan, bassists Buddy Zabala and Carlos Balcells, plus some of our session musicians in the past: keyboardists Dodo Fernandez and Leni Llapitan, and drummer Kurt Floresca. For wind instruments, we’re happy to have Ronald Tomas.
For the core fans, we hope to bring back memories of a time when it was all sweat, rain, moshing, and loud fun. For the younger generation, we’ll embrace them with the energy that powered our music through the years.