If there’s a song that has become the national anthem over the past few months, it has to be Juan Karlos’ “ERE.” With a rousing and incredibly catchy chorus, “ERE” has captured the hearts and minds of everyone here and abroad, as evidenced by international acts like Lukas Graham covering the track.
The song clinched the number one spot on Billboard’s Philippine Songs chart in the second week of October. “ERE” also made its debut at No. 138 on the Billboard Global Excl. US chart, the first Filipino song to ever make it there.
Billboard Philippines sits down with Juan Karlos on the story behind the song’s creation and his insights on what made the song become a chart-topper.
Billboard Philippines: What was the inspiration behind and the process of creating “ERE?”
Juan Karlos: Originally “ERE” started out with just “O diba / Nakaka-putangina!” kasi naalala ko yung “Pare Ko” by Eraserheads — “Di ba / Tangina!” Around that time — it was 2020 — I was listening to a lot of early 2000s OPM rock. I was just wondering, “bakit walang ganung klaseng kanta ngayon…pang-mura anthem (Why aren’t there any anthems that use curse words now?)”
Eventually, I went through a breakup and biglang buhos lang (and everything just came out)…”’Di mo agad sinabi / Na may duda na sa ‘yong isip / Pinalalim mo pa / Ang sugat dito sa aking dibdib.”
Honestly, with all my other songs, there really is no process. It’s just a bunch of random moments. One thing is that my guitar’s always with me. For example, for “Buwan,” I wrote that in a car; the verse I wrote in the shower, and the chorus I wrote in the car. I guess that’s the beauty of it, because it’s not a planned thing ever. I don’t work with music in a corporate fashion.
You mentioned that you drew a lot of inspiration from Eraserheads’ “Pare Ko,” which has the same theme with “ERE.” Since you had the idea for the song before you went through the breakup, did you think the song was going to evolve into that, lyrically?
No, not at all! I eventually went through the breakup, and all of a sudden the song just became the anthem. It was like, “now it makes sense why the song was created in the first place!”
Nauna yung sagot kaysa yung tanong. Andami kong songs na ganun. (The answer came before the question. I have a lot of songs like that.) It’s one of the things I love about art in general — it’s so random, man. Being in the creative industry is spontaneous, it’s random, and I love it.
You initially released “ERE” as a single in August, but it wasn’t until the live performance video that it really took off online. Why do you think the song became as big as it is today?
The same thing happened with “Buwan.” “Buwan” was released in June 2018, it didn’t really get big until October, November, December of 2018 when the music video was released. Honestly, I don’t know because I do believe that it’s not necessarily about the wrong thing, sometimes it’s about the wrong time. Timing-timing lang ang karamihan sa mundo (A lot of things in the world are about timing), especially with being a musician. With “ERE,” it started out with a random Facebook post. Around the time the live performance was released, sakto umuulan, bumabaha, (it was raining, flooding) and I thought “wouldn’t it be funny [if people just used the chorus to show how bad it was flooding?]”
That’s the beauty of the song, I guess. It’s not just one song that you can use for one situation. The chorus itself (O diba / Nakaka-putangina) is something that you can use for a lot of different scenarios. Then, you have the bridge (Tatlong bilyon, ikaw lamang ang aking gusto), which kind of sounds like its own love song.
Marami siyang iba’t ibang (There are many different) parts to it that people could use for different scenarios. I feel like that’s one of the reasons why it got big. Also, may mura. Maraming mga tao na hindi nagmumura so ito yung paraan nila para makapagmura (Also, there’s cursing. A lot of people don’t have an avenue to curse, so this is their way to do so.)
Many people online have been speculating about the song’s bridge. What does the number “tatlong bilyon” refer to?
Juan Karlos: It’s always been a debate for me on whether or not I want to answer that. There’s an answer to that question, yes, but at the same time I enjoy watching people debate it online. People love to speculate and come up with their own theories and I love that. I feel like at this point, the actual reason doesn’t matter anymore.
Mayroong mga theories na, “Kaya siya ‘tatlong bilyon,’ kasi yung number ng babae sa mundo ay four billion, pero syempre yung iba underage…” (laughs). (There are theories that, “That’s why it’s ‘three billion,’ because the number of women in the world is around four billion, but the others are underage…”) So yeah, I really love it.
This story originally appeared in Billboard Philippines’ rock issue dated December 15, 2023.