Walking into the office of Underdog Music felt like rushing to your best friend’s house after class with all your friends already there. I take in all the cool decor; six-piece band (e)motion engine, scattered in front of the TV playing Tekken, pause the game to say hi.
I first met (e)motion engine at their gig in SaGuijo a few weeks back, where they debuted their single mlb – a love letter to their cat meaning “my little boy.” The band, comprised of Camille Santos (vocals, bass), Ace Santos (lead vocals), Fumi Paderes (lead guitar), Gre! (rhythm guitar), Miggy Panlasigui (drums), and Jared Carlos (keyboard), filled the stage. The room was so packed we all danced as one big wave.
It makes me laugh now, but I remember feeling like I was in a movie that evening. Maybe it was the novelty of being in the iconic gig venue, in disbelief that I now get to be part of things like this – me, who lives in a quiet suburb and had to travel almost three hours to get there. Maybe it was hearing mlb for the first time, a tenderly written shoegaze track with an outro so nostalgic I could practically see the movie credits roll.
Fitting, then, that the band says they seek to “score the life of a human being.” They pledge no allegiance to a single genre, prioritizing instead whichever translates feelings best. “Music is a language, and I want to speak as many languages as possible,” says lead vocalist Ace, who produced and co-wrote mlb with bandmate (and sibling) Camille.
“The song took four hours,” Ace says of their debut single. “I couldn’t sleep. (I thought,) I could be on my phone and doomscroll, or I could be at my PC playing guitar over a drum track and getting something cool. I kinda ended up making the whole thing.” He showed it to Camille the next morning. “We were like, this is just a demo, we’re going to re-record it. But we realized we liked it like this. A lot of our music ends up that way.”
It’s largely why their music feels nostalgic. It’s lived-in; a balm in an industry with a sanitizing habit, where the final output can feel so far away from the people who created it. mlb is farm-to-table.
The rawness of the process is not to say the band’s work is not studied. Their musical influences, which include emo, pop, and Japanese music (“A lot of us are big weebs,” says Ace), are not only borrowed from but analyzed. They determine what feelings these genres elicit and how they can ‘speak’ it to tell their own stories.
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It’s why they’re called “(e)motion engine” in the first place, though they admit the additional layer of meaning was just a happy coincidence. “We found out the graphics card for the PlayStation 2 (was called ‘emotion engine’). For the Nintendo 64 and PlayStation 1, you couldn’t see emotions on a face; it was pixelated because they didn’t have enough processing power. The emotion engine on the PS2 was the first time you could accurately convey realistic expressions like sadness and anger,” Ace explains.
“It fits with our goal of trying to score the human life. We’re using the scientific method of what makes these genres feel like this and translating it into something subjective – like using objective reason to elicit a subjective response.”
And, frankly, music has been their whole life. “I’ve been emo since 2005,” Ace jokes. “Bought my first wallet chain when I was 11.”
Process, of course, is only one part of the puzzle. “The hard part shouldn’t be the work. It should be finding the right people around you that you can trust,” Ace says. The most fundamental metric is if they feel like “five people playing parts or five fingers on one hand” – “If people are playing parts, it works in a way, but there are bands where you can see that their intent is the same. They’re contributing to a bigger message. There’s a coherence to it, like finishing each other’s sentences.”
It took a while for the band to come together, the members being a mix of old friends and new musicians they found cool. Once they played together, the chemistry felt right. “The hard part’s already done,” Ace continues. “We already have the people, and I know that even on a bad day, it will be sick as f*ck.”
What does the future hold for (e)motion engine? “We’ve got 24 Chicken outside,” Ace quips as we near the end of our interview and plates get set up at the office’s dining table. “We’re just expressing and having fun, but there’s also that drive to be as big as possible. It’s like in a video game: how many people can we reach and connect with?”
The place is lively when we join the office for dinner. People are sitting everywhere eating their chicken dinners. Someone is playing guitar. Laughter erupts in the kitchen. When it’s time to go I say goodbye to the band and everyone at Underdog, and as I head to the elevator I can practically see the movie credits roll.
(e)motion engine’s debut single mlb is available now on all major streaming platforms via Underdog Music PH. Follow the band on Instagram.
Produced by Andrea Panaligan
Photos by Elleisha Angeles
Banner image by Gia Cantar
Special thanks to Underdog Music PH