Jim Bacarro And Saab Magalona-Bacarro: Mastering The Art Of Marriage, Music, And Parenthood

Jim Bacarro and Saab Magalona-Bacarro haven’t just shared their lives through music as members of the band Cheats — they’ve also built a life together as happily married partners and parents. The secret to their success goes beyond staying perfectly in tune; it’s working together to face life’s challenges and obstacles, successfully channeling their relationship into their creative collaborations.

Jim notes that all the creative collaborations they’ve done together have come up because of their relationship. “All the projects have gone with how Saab and I have developed as a couple. It was Cheats, and we were young, and we were reckless, and we started this really, really fun rock band.”

The relationship between Jim and Saab eventually extended to their business and creative ventures, including co-founding the retail and content brand, Linya-Linya. “When we were dating, we were still getting to know ourselves. We were very young back then — a lot of butting heads, a lot of ego in the way. I personally had a hard time taking criticism,” Saab shares.

Now that they’re married, the partnership has evolved into something even better. “The ego has really taken a back seat, and it’s more like, we’re partners, and we know that magkakampi tayo (we’re allies) in all of these things — business-wise, band-wise, and of course, parenting and marriage-wise,” Saab adds.

With a slew of albums in and years of making music together, becoming parents has shifted the way the two collaborate creatively. “I think, and you could hear it if you listen to our music, it’s basically an autobiography. When we were starting, that’s why [on] the first album, the songs were ‘Drunk,’ ‘Accidents,’ ‘Crash.’ The second album was when life was starting to get serious. And with that, I think there are a lot of existential questions,” Jim says.

“People think we wrote [Cheats’ second album Before the Babies] when we found out we were pregnant. But we actually weren’t. We didn’t know about it. So a lot of the songs were just hypothetical, in theory,” Saab shares. By their third album, houseplants, the songs reflected their married life. As Jim notes, it’s about “being parents and dealing with loss, dealing with the joys of life as you’re trying to build new lives for your kids.”

As far as married life goes, with creative endeavors sprinkled in, separating personal lives and challenges at home from making music didn’t really get in the way. “The art is a release from the grind of daily life,” Jim explains.

Luckily, the musical gene may have been passed down to their children early on. “Our kids are just obsessed with our songs right now. That also helps,” Saab shares.

“And that helps because I don’t need to practice anymore. I think it works two ways,” adds Jim.

In the grueling weekly grind that Jim and Saab go through — spending seven days a week caring for two children, running a business, and being on stage at least once a month — art becomes the anchor that allows them to unwind and perform with their friends.

Having art as an outlet nourishes Jim and Saab to become better parents. Not perceiving making and performing music as a chore, they have ultimately turned it into a tool for healing and therapy for their family and children, as well as a way to mark milestones in their kids’ lives.

The testament to this is Puddy Rock, born during the pandemic and creating children’s songs for their kids. At the time, Cheats were working on houseplants, and Jim spoke about the pressures of creating songs that would fit the band’s style. Making nursery rhymes and toddler songs that would sound cool became an open canvas, a free-for-all, if you will. As long as the process is fun and exciting for them, why stop? Jim and Saab have turned Puddy Rock into something sustainable, and it has now become a business, one with fun still present.

With Filipino children’s music being a niche genre in the wider local music scene, Puddy Rock is one of the few avenues that inspire young Filipino audiences. “I hope the contribution is, it’s music first, and then they get interested in the language. Like our son, Vito, he was struggling or had no interest in speaking Tagalog or learning Tagalog. Then he listened to Francis M., and he got hooked on hip-hop and Tagalog. So I thought, I want that formula for other kids,” Jim says.

Apart from the music itself, it was about providing ways to preserve the Filipino language for the next generation, especially for those living abroad. In addition, accessibility and inclusivity became the soul for how they continue to create music for Puddy Rock.

“Well, in our case, because we have a son with special needs, we wanted to make cool songs. Teaching kids about the world of inclusivity. That everyone is, you know, love is equal. And all brains are beautiful,” Jim explains.

Learning about emotions also became a key part of teaching kids through their songs. “Because now that we’re grown up, we see like, ‘Oh wow, this should have been taught in school.’ Emotional regulation, learning how to name your emotions — ‘What am I feeling?’ — we want to be a channel that can help promote that message,” Saab shares.

Puddy Rock has evolved from a home recording project into an actual physical studio and play space. Jim and Saab were fortunate to find partners who also believed in their concept. “Puddy Rock (the play space) is the physical representation of what we’re trying to do on the channel,” Jim says. “There’s an indoor playground. But we also have music and movement classes, art classes, drawing classes, and therapy services,” Saab adds.

This kind of perfect harmony isn’t entirely a new concept to Jim and Saab. With their podcast channel, Wake Up With Jim and Saab, which started in 2018, they had already been in the local podcasting scene before the pandemic boom. Having birthed the podcast to talk about their experiences as new parents, it was like hitting two birds with one stone. “We’re also creating content, and we’re basically just catching up. And it’s so fun because we really are best friends,” Saab shares. “Sometimes we talk about a lot of stupid things. But I guess you also talk about stupid things with your best friends, right?”

Since its launch, many fans and listeners — whom they refer to as their “Podkids” — have reached out to share that some got to know each other and even got married because of the podcast. With eight years on, there are no signs of slowing down. 

“I guess that’s the essence of it, which is sitting down and talking to someone. And obviously, we have argued […] We’ve recorded episodes that we had to delete […] It has helped our relationship. It forces you to sit down and talk about stuff that we wouldn’t be able to talk about at the dinner table,” Jim says.

Saab notes that, in theory, it’s easy to say and find ways to keep the marriage alive. But as life gets in the way, it’s the actions that speak louder than words. Just as they are committed as parents and partners, Jim and Saab stay accountable and dedicated to their listeners to return to their podcast every week, amidst all the parenting, rocking out, and everything in between.

Getting through tough days as partners has been much easier for Jim and Saab, as they have learned to complement each other: with Jim focusing on the bigger picture and Saab handling the nitty-gritty details. “The worst thing that could happen in any relationship, friends, bands, or marriage, I think, would be trying to avoid conflict or avoid sitting down and talking and communicating because you don’t want to have a conflict, because that’s a relationship killer,” Saab says.

Working together with their partner isn’t for everyone. But just like partners in life and in music, “the one thing that we would want to say is that working together requires practice,” Jim explains. “Working together requires humility and always sticking to your why. If you stick to your why, then the hard days become [less] hard.”

Hard days will inevitably come, but Saab always loves telling married couples to remember why they made their vows, saying, “Before you make that commitment, you gotta talk about these things […] Don’t give up because the more you work on yourselves, the more you get to know your dynamic. You don’t have to give up on working together because it can work, and it can be a really beautiful thing.”