SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST
In the Theory of Evolution as penned by Charles Darwin, he defends that in the natural scheme of selection, it isn’t the strongest that survive, but rather the ones most agile and adept to change. Tracking our steps to the exploratory expanse of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, we figure out individual modes of survival, as exhibited by James Reid and Bret Jackson. Not even remotely complicit to any expected competition, the brothers, bound by circumstance and music, come together to endure and exist, proving that while now less calculated and perhaps well, careless, their truth is all that matters
It has been four years since MEGA last crossed paths with James Reid. Back then, he was one half of the most prominent love team of the time, with several projects lined up and a fast-rising career desired by many. Now, at the colorful and festive country of Brazil, James joins us in an exclusive tell-all of his recent and future travails—his career in music, his relationship with Nadine Lustre, and his much-awaited plans for the future, the artist ingénue speaks up, sharing his truth with no reservations. James starts, “A lot has happened since Greece. Probably the biggest change was me leaving Viva and being 100% hands-on with Careless. That’s definitely been the biggest change. It’s been crazy. I’ll tell you that it’s very difficult. But it’s been a really good learning experience for me. I’m kind of taking things to my own hand— besides taking care of myself and my own career.” An iconic superstar of his generation, James has lived much of his life under the watchful eye of the public—and with it, the burdens of its praise and scrutiny. A successful career spanning nearly a decade is something that most artists can only dream of, and James has nothing but gratitude for the life that he has been blessed with. Yet like most young artists who have spent a huge majority of their career on a well-drawn blueprint, the desire to break away from the mold can prove too tempting. And James took his leap of faith.
“I felt that I had some things that I wanted to do. And my ideas were different from Viva’s (his former management agency). So I decided it was best that I take control of my career. We’re still on good terms. But I don’t know, I had a different vision of where I would be in my career and a lot of it was to do with music. I really wanted to push it further and I wanted to see how far I can take this,” James tells us. The decision was a bold and unexpected move that astonished both fans and critics. With his departure from Viva, the agency handed him his music label—then known as Careless Music Manila—and with it, the management duties. Now the chairman of the recently independent label, he takes on a gargantuan task—one that he is more than willing to take.
James, after all, is no stranger to the music industry. With the critical success of his third album Palm Dreams a couple of years ago, it is without any doubt, that he has more aces up his sleeve. The drive and purpose alone of Careless is a breath of fresh air from what most artists in the country are used to. And this vision has attracted not only throngs of fans but the respect of many talented artists as well. “We want to be the label that artists can go to, and know that they have creative freedom. We just want to change the game,” he explains. Having observed much of the processes that his contemporaries go through, further reflection on the issue made him realize what he can do with his own volition. The incredible power to spark change was something he just couldn’t put aside. “It was hard for me to not do it once I saw it because I felt like I was in a position to help change it. So it wasn’t even my choice anymore. I knew that I had to do this. It just felt right,” he affirms.
The quick succession of life-altering changes may seem daunting, but James approaches this with a positive and hopeful perspective. And regarding his relationship with Nadine—who until recently, he has parted ways with romantically—he has more or less, similar sentiments. The decision was not an easy thing to make, but self-awareness taught them both to look at what would benefit their personal lives and careers best. Both ambitious and highly-achieving, James and Nadine have made a mark in the entertainment industry as a power couple, in and out of the limelight. Back then, a career outside the partnership was out of the question. But now, at the peak of their careers and with varying personal interests and successes, it was something that was clearly worth asking. James admits, “I am not sure who I am without Nadine yet. We’ve been in a love team for so long. And that’s been my whole life. I can’t even begin to think of who I am or what I’m supposed to be outside of that love team, which is scary. And that’s why I said I got a lot of figuring out to do. But as far as aspirations go, I’d like to just get to know myself better and become more independent.”
He takes a pause, reviewing the word he’d just said. The spotlight has made things more complicated than they already are.
“People might say I’m a bit heartless. I don’t want it to seem like me wanting to know who I am without Nadine is the only reason. There are too many to point out, but that’s all I’m able to share without going into depth. I still love her. It’s just my perspective on love has broadened.”
This self-made path may not be the most comfortable or easiest for James, but the journey so far has been fun for him, owing to the support of his Careless team who has believed in his vision since the label’s early beginnings. “Definitely one of the biggest challenges was I wasn’t just starting a business, I was starting a business with friends which is a dream in itself because everyone tells you ‘Don’t be getting business with your friends because it’s difficult.’ And so I didn’t listen to everyone and I went ahead and did it anyway. It’s been hard. But honestly, I think that we’ve become better friends since. We’ve really pulled together as a group and this year in 2020, it’s no longer like a school project. It’s no longer just for passion. It’s really become a purpose for us. Before, it was just a group of friends doing their thing and having fun and we’ve gotten this far without any real marketing strategy. This year, we brought on more professionals to help us out in various parts of the business,” he says.
“AS FAR AS ASPIRATIONS GO, I’D LIKE TO JUST GET TO KNOW MYSELF BETTER AND BECOME MORE INDEPENDENT ”
Having stressed how difficult and taxing this leadership role has been, James tells us that he cannot wait to get back to doing more music. With 2019, his goal was to ensure that Careless was up and running, disclosing the fact that being a CEO was not in the plans as he would prefer to work with his strengths, which lie in the artistic side of things. Hence, the new year brings renewed energy and a zest for more successes, “I just felt like I was scattered everywhere and I was putting so much energy into so many different things and this year I really want to just bring it all back and focus on what I think I really have to do. I’m still really ambitious so I want to spend these remaining years of my 20s seeing this through and hopefully create a platform for other artists—ones that come after me, my friends, and other people that I find really talented—so pretty much creating a legacy.”
At the end of the day, regardless of the deafening cacophony of opinions, one thing that remains is his enduring goal to speak his truth. And whether everyone agrees to this new direction, James couldn’t care less. The self-imposed decision is one that would inspire his growth in his personal life and steer his business to the way he wants it to be. He says, “I think all I really want to achieve as an artist, not as you know, the owner of a label or any of that stuff, is just to be able to tell people my truth. You know, just to be able to share my wisdom with people through our music. And it will be hard. It won’t be easy because not everyone is open-minded. But I guess that’s the goal.”—PG
If he had his way, or the ability to turn back time, Bret Jackson would rather not go through what now stands to be a standard rite of passage for many an earnest and eager industry hopeful—Pinoy Big Brother. While it seems to be almost a lifetime ago at this awning of the new decade, a past chapter buried deep in the narrative, with frayed edges eating itself up in the passing of time, he certainly holds no grudge for the infamous yellow house tucked in the Lego-like complex of what is the country’s biggest and most successful multimedia conglomerate. If anything, this was where he first struck a bond with a stranger who would fast become his best friend, James Reid. That and for all things considered, this was his big break, something one could only so much as aspire to. “I think the only thing they really did for me was that it introduced me to this world that I had no idea about. I remember coming out of it being like, what’s an artista? What is this life?” he recalls of his early days in the ‘biz. “I never looked at it that way, because I was from Dumaguete, and I never even watched anything on TV. I just lived a really simple life, and I got thrown into something that I had no clue of. It just taught me a lot though, like, okay—this is what’s going on now, and I guess I’ll just try to like figure it out.” And figure out he did, alone for the most part, navigating the vast unknown with just a flickering source of light in hand, proverbial, of course.
“When PBB happened, they were kind of putting me in this position where they thought they knew who I was and that I do this,” he begins, seemingly dusting off the files of his history he had long kept hidden. “I didn’t know what I was doing, you know? But I went with it.” This meant fitting into a mould made for him to fit into. It wasn’t a natural fit, naturally, but he was young and unaware, as someone is supposed to be at that stage of life. “They were like, okay, we want you to be Justin Bieber. We want you to love this song. We wrote it for you. I’m not saying I know better, but it didn’t feel like it was the thing that I loved so much. It felt different. It wasn’t it.”
“I JUST LIVED A REALLY SIMPLE LIFE, AND I GOT THROWN INTO SOMETHING THAT I HAD NO CLUE OF"
Afar cry from his space of existence in the soothing and still island of Dumaguete, a grasp of calm that he still holds close to his heart, this was where Bret Jackson learned a lot about life from, shaping dreams from the swirl of clouds on the clear blue sky, which peacefully co-existed with the rhythmic crashing of the sea on the shore. “I think the best thing I learned is that it didn’t matter where anyone was from or their upbringing, or what they had in life. It was more about who they were as a person,” he ruminates. “They wouldn’t treat each other any differently, and that’s the biggest thing that stuck to me. It was like, you can’t judge anyone or anything, just respect who’s around you. Even if you’re in a certain place, it doesn’t matter, as long as you have mutual respect for each other. That’s what I held on to.” This was where he first picked up a guitar, at 14, or 15 to his best memory. “I would just play for hours and hours and hours in my room alone, but I wouldn’t let anyone in, wouldn’t let anyone hear it. I didn’t learn from anyone. I would just play and play and play. Then I would write music and then I started trying to make songs,” he details, orchestrating his lifelong love affair with music, something that was as he says was always with him. “I was just always around it, and I would just hear different things. Sometimes you hear a song and that meant something to you, because that happened during a time in your life. That is the beauty of music: it spreads messages, it spreads good memories or bad memories or sad memories, whatever—it’s just the human life and the human experience, and it’s done through the art of music. And I thought that was great. I always just loved it. I didn’t know what kind of role I would have in it, or even if I had one, because at the time, I’d be like, ‘Who am I to think: Oh, I need to be a musician?’”
But that’s just the thing, whatever that’s meant for you will figure itself into your life eventually, one way or another—even if that means that not being convinced to be worthy of it at all. With a gravity-like force pulling him closer and closer to the orbit of music happened to be in the written, one that would eventually evolve into a symphonic exposition that told his snippets, slices, and stories of life. “I’ve always loved writing. I consider myself a writer more than maybe a musician. Yeah, I love poetry, I love reading, and I started writing songs just about what I was going through as a teenager. You know, puppy love, all that kind of stuff,” he laughs. “That went on for a long time, and then one day, I got the courage to say, ‘Okay, I want to try out at Robinson’s Mall in Dumaguete, and join this thing, and maybe I can play on there, whatever.’ And then I tried and they said, ‘We will call you back.’ But things like that happened: I sang in front of my school, I joined different things, and I just started making music more.”
Looking back, everything he had to go through, which was a veritable eye-of-the-needle sort of thing compared to what the kids these days have access to, was something necessary—although he didn’t quite understand it then. “I guess maybe it was a hardship I had to endure. It was the time that I really got to see the inner belly of, you know, what it was and what the entertainment industry was, what the music industry was, because I had all these preconceived notions like, ‘I’d love to be a part of record label. I’d love to make a music video. I’d love to be in front of a crowd—that’s what I wanted, to share music. You have this idea of what it is, and then you get into it, it’s like, not that at all,” he mulls. “Maybe it had to happen in order for me to figure out that these are the things that are wrong. Coming into Careless now, it’s like, let’s avoid these things and cut out all the bullshit. Maybe, you know, we’re the sacrificial lambs. And then it got to the point where it really got to the point where it was like, Okay, now that I know all these things about the music industry, I’m with my friends that also have the same vision as I do…We kind of have a collective vision…Now what can we do?”
What they did became Careless, an independent music label captained by James Reid, where he stands as head of Artist & Repertoire, housing a diverse group of artists under their roof with musical roots from everything like trap, hip-hop, rap, and R&B. “This whole Careless thing happened like a beautiful accident. None of us knew anything of what we were doing, or anything, but we just knew that we wanted to change things. This is the thing that people get upset about, they always say, ‘You’re not the first people to do this.’ I know that, I really know that and I have so much respect for the OPM scene. There were so many great musicians before us like, the Philippines is so full of great music— it’s amazing,” he explains. “The pain in my heart has always been, why aren’t we as big as these other countries? It’s not the talent thing. We have the talent, it’s crazy…and amazing singers and dancers and writers and everything. Even if everyone started a movement, great, we will do it, too. It doesn’t matter what arrow hits, as long as one does, you know? We need people to break through. We need to make this movement happen because the Filipinos deserve it, as a people and this is close to their heart. It makes sense. This is all I think about, all day every day.”
Bret Jackson can go on and on about the work that they do, and of course, the music that he loves. Over the course of our conversation, he forcibly
“MAYBE IT HAD TO HAPPEN IN ORDER FOR ME TO FIGURE OUT THAT THESE ARE THE THINGS THAT ARE WRONG" SOUL SURVIVOR
stops himself from talking; explaining how he gets so caught up that he often gets derailed in his own thoughts. There’s nothing to apologize for, we reason, adding that if we had our way, we would just sit here, watch him roll out his blueprint for the label he’s focused on, listening to him ramble on and on about this thing that he’s not only extremely excited for, but incessantly passionate about.
“All I want to do is let people create what they want, but also be able to make a living out of it. It’s a dream, but can be a reality. It can be,” he reiterates as if it were a repetitive hook playing out in a song until it fades out. “The only way to show people can be done is to do it yourself—and we have been. I mean, look at Korea. How many jobs could we create, how much could the industry go on with just pure talent of everyone? Some are saying, don’t soil the art. Yeah, but how about we eat also, and take care of our families? It’s not about selling out. Everyone wants to talk about fighting the system, which is true—and I believe that with all my heart. I don’t believe it’s a good system that we live in the whole world, but you live in it. And I’ve always said; try to Robin Hood this system. You have to learn how to play in the system you’re in and play it to help everyone else around you, and maybe if we play it well, we can get big enough to call the shots, and then maybe change it. I’d love that, but right now, all I want to do is try to break into this system and bring out all the gold and give it to everyone else.”
It’s a defiant act of subversion, circumventing the status quo with enough lashings of irreverence to cut through, giving other people a chance to tell their stories, singing their voices out until it goes hoarse. Sure, it will get scratched and worn to exhaustion, but at least they put it out there. “My favorite shows and artists have always gone on stage and died on stage,” of course, this isn’t qualified in the literal sense, people. “They give everything of themselves and they’re there to give a good show to the people. It’s for them too, but it’s for the crowd, really. I always believe a good show should have messages in it. People should go home and not just enjoy the music, but going home with faith in humanity again. I feel like that’s the whole reason we do this—It should be,” he affirms. “A lot of my music just talked about where it was at a certain point in my life. My first album, Island City Poems, was about being drowned inside Manila. I felt like living on an island, but I never see the ocean and I don’t feel the breeze. Literally, it was being imprisoned in the city, but I was talking about is being confined to this artista life,” he shares. “I had so many bad qualities coming from who I was inside. I wasn’t good to myself. Looking back at it, I wasn’t the person that I wanted to be, and I can reflect on that now. In the culture we live in now, it’s like no one’s allowed to make mistakes; No one’s allowed to be human. Sometimes you have to be that and you come out the other side and you want to be something better. That’s what it became, it’s just like my music, I want it to evolve to a point where my message is something people will really listen to. One thing is for sure, I will just want to speak the truth all the time, that way, the words and all that music will be there forever.”
In this premise of permanence through music, Bret Jackson is immortalizing his story of survival, one that follows the swell of success and the settlement of struggles. Tracing it from his crazy childhood being thrown around the government system, his troubled teenage years, figuring out a formative fraction of his life all on his own, “I felt like a survivor then, and I still do,” he says. Even in his music, the skirmishes and scuffles do not cease despite a determination to endure. “When it got to the music point, which was the thing I love the most, it was so hard to get respect from the heroes I look up to the most. It hurt, but just recently, one just sent me a message after listening to one of my songs, where I go to this really deep thing at the beginning of it, and he was like, I completely understand you now.”
At the end of the day, that is all there is to it, however we choose to manifest our expressions, it all boils down to the fact that we just want to be unequivocally understood. When you really simmer on it, there you realize that this is actually the whole point of the human experience and existence. Compelled to comprehend each other, we will eventually get, assures Bret Jackson. “Maybe people will look back and be like, well, he might have not always done the best thing, but he tried. I think that’s all we can do as humans is try,” he contemplates. “All these hardships, you can’t let any of that get in the way. Yeah, take the time to feel the pain and hurt, but don’t let that be the deciding factor of what defines you or defines what you’re going, how you’re going to treat people, and how you’re going to live your life. It is going to feel like a gigantic weight on your shoulders, but that’s just what it is. You can let it weigh on you, or you can try your best to be a survivor and get through it. Maybe it doesn’t get better, but you gotta try and try and try, and that’s all there is, eventually you’ll see the light.”
It might be a long time coming, and Bret Jackson understands, but it is a moment coming. In the meantime, the hustle continues—spitting rhymes, dishing truths, and making a difference, not with less of a care, but a whole lot of it, because this time, for the man behind the music, it matters a whole lot like life itself. –ARDC