THE DAVAOIST: Davao Bands: The Beautifully Weird "Azimuth"

It is rare to find a band that sounds like Azimuth in Davao City right now. There are just a handful of them who are into experimental music, or to easily put it, try really hard to keep their tunes as original as they can. Apparently, it is quite difficult to play the “They sound like” game when you start listening to them. I have asked some of my friends to listen to a couple of their songs, hoping that when I do that I would finally have an idea on how to describe their music. The best feedback that I got was “ Weird. Beautifully weird”. I don’t know if the band would be happy with that comment. But hey! Beautifully weird can is often times a good thing.

The band was established in 2006 with only three members – Roy, Jad, and Jay. These three guys happened to have the same taste in music, and from there everything took off. Since neither of the three knows how to sing well, they became an “un-mouthed” band for quite some time. Two months after founding their band, they were asked to play cover songs in a university event. Playing for that event with their 1^st session vocalist – Alvin help them gain a pretty good reputation and basically that was the moment that have paved their way into the local music scene. In 2009, they employed the help of Nep to become their main vocalist. The moment that they already resembled a complete band, they started creating original songs and also started to formulate their own breed of music which they call as “ Experimental – Man and Machine”.

We had a short interview Azimuth so that you can know them better. You can read it below. GO! READ IT!

The Davaoist: How did you come up with your name? What's the story behind it?

Azimuth: We were on our way to the rehearsal studio back then (if other people go to bars to drink and have fun, we go to a practice studio to play and have fun). Little did we know that a band name was required to be able to rehearse in that certain studio (which was commonly done in other studios too, actually). So we wrote "Azimuth" on the paper aaand.. woola! Azimuth was born. We coined it after the incident when the three of us, Jad, Roy, and Jan almost failed the quiz on trigonometry during our freshman year.

The Davaoist: Who are your influences?

Azimuth: As a group, we happened to have started the band with the same individual primary influence - Incubus. But as time went by, each of us had our own influences and interests, constantly growing and evolving... so we can't call it as a band influence, but rather as individual influences which help us create something new(we believe), through the collaboration of our own discoveries.

The Davaoist: How do you describle your music?

Azimuth: Weird!... period. Hahaha. Or experimental. 'Coz we experiment a lot. Hahaha.

The Davaoist: Where is the official tambayan of Azimuth? offical food?

Azimuth: We used to hang out at Torch and Trefoil (particularly at the space outside) where we usually practiced before, but now its pretty much at our very own houses. Although much of our band meetings/sessions/foodtrips however happen at Jan's house at..... secret.

As for food, we could all agree on Porky Best paired with Sprite (very healthy! haha!).

Who are your favorite local acts?

A: Local? M2M. As in too many to mention. Hehehe.

The Davaoist: What were the craziest/most stupid things that your band ever did?

Azimuth: Hmmm.. we went to a resort at Talicud island without any of us knowing where it was actually located. I guess that was the craziest thing we did.

most stupid? hmmm..I guess there are too many to remember? haha..

CONNECT WITH AZIMUTH ON FACEBOOK

Nep- Vocals