K.O. Jones is still a knockout band.
The five-member rock group, originally formed in the 1980s from another band, has never stopped playing live.
Daily Tribune caught up with its current lineup — Lia Petoral (vocals), Warren Norton (guitar), Gerald Celeridad (keyboards), Lester Legisma (drums), and Jibby Borgaily (bass) — during a recent gig at C Lounge in Conrad Manila.
Daily Tribune (DT): Who is K.O. Jones?
All members take turns answering (KOJ): Back in the ’80s there was a band called Arnar. It broke up and some of its former members formed a new band called K.O. Jones. Through the years, membership changed.
Basically, it’s a group whose members can come and go. If I can’t come next year, somebody else will join. It was like a bunch of guys who are family supporting each other.
And then the pandemic happened. We didn’t play for two-and-a-half or three years.
DT: Who has been with the band since the start?
KOJ: Warren has been in all of the band’s shows.
DT: What were the challenges during the pandemic?
KOJ: We completely disbanded. We didn’t even talk, didn’t play… nothing. When we opened our guitar cases, spiders jumped out.
DT: How did you regroup?
KOJ: We had mutual friends and cousins [who communicated]. Jibby’s first cousin is also my first cousin. It started from there.
DT: Is there a plan to record an album of original music?
KOJ: We’ve actually recorded a whole album with a former member, Reugen Lista. We can do it again. We’re just a group of guys who want a good time and hopefully the crowd has time to listen to us.
You should understand our age, too. We love playing music, but we run our own businesses as well.
But, yeah, music is our passion and we really want to come up with original songs.
We have a lot of material. We’ll wait for the members who want to stick around. Why go through all the effort when, in the end, it’s not going to stick? But we have materials.
DT: Aside from C Lounge, where else can people watch the band?
KOJ: We do events — BPI, Forbes, a powerplant in Batangas. December is full of parties. Hopefully we can find a place we can call home. Then we can build from there.
DT: The band recorded a song with Arnel Pineda for the SEA Games.
KOJ: Oh boy, it was fun! Rosie Torrs, who’s in Portugal now, sort of made the rough copy of that song, lyrics and chords, all the basics.
We recorded it and it was fun to do. But at the closing of the SEA Games, our call time was in the morning while our show was late in the evening. Our waiting room was so cold… I think Arnel lost his voice.
DT: Do you have dream collaborations?
KOJ: When we played at Martinis, Pops Fernandez, Vina Morales, and Lovi Poe would jam with us. We’re looking for a place like that — where someone would show up and jam.