In the cutthroat music industry, it really takes a village for artists to find their footing.
When you hear the success stories of bands that finally had their breakthrough after years of making music, more often than not, you’d find that there’s usually a constant individual supporting the band no matter what.
For Lola Amour, The Ridleys, and Over October — arguably some of the current generation’s most prominent OPM bands — these individuals come in the form of their ever-dependable female managers, Mika Ordoñez, Modi Florentino, and Katrina “Kat” Romero, respectively. These are their stories.
Worthwhile journey
Mika’s eventual foray into becoming Lola Amour’s manager was a “right place at the right time” scenario. She and the band members all went to the same high school, but never met each other until years later.
It was in 2017 when their paths would finally cross. Mika — who was running a music event production company — watched them perform live for the first time during Wanderland’s Wanderband competition, and she immediately knew she wanted to book Lola Amour for her shows someday.
From there, the band would land gigs with Mika’s Raccoon Productions. It was essentially just an organizer-performer relationship then, until she quit her corporate job in 2018 and learned from the band’s former bassist Raymond King that they needed a manager. The rest, as they say, is history.
Going into this new role, Mika was determined to face the grind alongside Lola Amour, and she was putting her branding background from her previous jobs to good use.
“The first thing I did was analyze their market. I did a thesis about them, a marketing plan for them. I analyzed their current listeners at that time, I analyzed what gigs they’re getting into, who’s getting them, or the quality shows. So it was really more on analyzing the band at the start,” she shared.
“Second was introducing them to people and getting to know who their market is. Third was actually trying to figure out who their market is and connecting with them, so that journey was a bit long,” Mika continued.
Back then, she and the band would just accept any show to get their names out there — even if it meant having to split an already small talent fee among the members and the tech team.
Mounting small bar gigs like that was second nature to Mika. It was something she could easily handle all on her own. Now that Lola Amour’s fanbase has grown and they’re beginning to hold more major shows, she often has to enlist external help.
“I guess now there’s more at stake. There’s more planning involved, there’s more seriousness involved. Before, it was like, ‘Okay, we’re experimenting, we can just do trial and error.’ Now, we’re at a point where there are a lot of people riding on us. We have our tech team, and a lot of the members, this is their full-time job, so there’s really more at stake. It’s more of a pressure to make sure that things are going smoothly,” Mika explained.
Despite these pressures, more than anything, it’s the entire journey that makes it all worthwhile for her.
A gradual connection
Like Mika and Lola Amour, it only took watching one live performance by The Ridleys for Modi to take an interest in the alternative-folk outfit in 2017.
She was an alt-rock listener through and through, but had somehow been drawn to the band’s latest release at the time, ”Meaningful Silence,” and would even play “Maybe” on loop on SoundCloud.
“That’s when I knew that I wanted to help these guys out. I started to pass along some of the gig opportunities, just giving them gigs here and there because I truly believed that time that they deserved to be heard by more people,” she said.
Though she wasn’t their manager yet, Modi would assist the band from time to time, and it gradually started to become clear that they enjoyed working with each other. Things would finally become official when The Ridleys’ frontman Benny would offer her the managerial role after a Route 196 gig she booked them for.
“I believe that was the easiest yes that I said… More than anything, I knew that they deserve someone who genuinely cared. And I was more than ready to be that person for them,” she shared.
While Modi didn’t always have all the answers, she was always eager to do whatever she could to widen the band’s reach. It was a pure labor of love — all so The Ridleys’ music could reach places far and wide.
“I remember actually spending countless hours reaching out to gig organizers, prods, student council, events, even event promoters, making sure that we had the right opportunity to perform wherever we could,” explained Modi.
Modi believed she and The Ridleys could carve their own path in the industry “the indie way,” and they did — with the tight-knit community they’ve built over the years being the perfect testament to that.
“Syempre, may mga rejections diyan, heartbreaks, tough decisions I have to call as their manager, but I wouldn’t trade any of it, to be honest. Lahat ng puyat, lahat ng doubts ko sa capacity ko, sa capability ko, I believe led us to where we are now,” she shared.
(Of course, there are rejections, heartbreaks, and tough decisions I have to call as their manager, but I wouldn’t trade any of it, to be honest. All the sleepless nights, doubts on my own capacity and capability, I believe led us to where we are now.)
No regrets
For Kat, meanwhile, Over October’s lead guitarist and her longtime friend Joshua Lua reconnected with her and reached out to ask for help with their six-month “Ating Dalawa” tour in 2023. She ended up having all the merch with her, and it eventually came to a point that she would attend all their shows.
There hadn’t really been any formal request for Kat to be their manager. All of it sort of just happened, but she wouldn’t have it any other way.
“My turning point was when I drove up to Baguio for one of their shows. Kasi hindi ako nag-d-drive ng malayo. I mean, the last time I did it, I managed a band from Cebu. So nung nag-drive ako pa-Baguio, sabi ko, shucks, eto na. Wala na. There’s no turning back,” she said.
(My turning point was when I drove up to Baguio for one of their shows because I don’t usually drive far. I mean, the last time I did it, I managed a band from Cebu. So when I drove to Baguio, I said, “Shucks, this is it. There’s no turning back.)
Kat was even supposed to move overseas for her day job, but two years later, she remains based in the Philippines, happily juggling work as an industrial designer and Over October’s manager.
From then on, she would operate on the mantra, “A good manager doesn’t make her artist work. She makes the artist focus on music.”
Before their breakthrough hit “Ikot” blew up, Kat and the band were working double-time to get their music to reach bigger audiences — later realizing that it was all the little gigs they would agree to and all the fan hangouts they would arrange that counted towards their success now. Eventually, the spaces the band would play at got bigger and bigger, and were tremendously far off from the past gigs they’d held that had few attendees.
“Ang sabi ko nga sa boys earlier this year, ‘Napaikot ‘nyo ang ‘Ikot.’ Ako, papaikutin ko naman kayo sa different venues nationwide,” she recounted.
(I told the boys earlier this year, “You guys made ‘Ikot’ go viral. I’ll make sure you guys get to play at different venues nationwide.”)
As early as now, Kat has already been able to do just that.
Mika, Modi, and Kat have been with their respective bands through it all.
These three women work tirelessly behind the scenes to do whatever they can to help their bands find the right audiences, and for that alone, they’re successful in their own right, too. They’ve borne witness to their bands’ gradual transition to playing at numerous big shows and concerts after years of performing at smaller venues, and essentially act as the glue of the whole unit.
Over time, fans have even gone on to love “Ms. Mika,” “Tita Modi,” and “Master Kat” just as much as they love the bands they manage, and it’s not hard to see why. – Rappler.com
Content shared from www.rappler.com.