About to release their fifth full-length album, Cebu City’s pride and the Philippines’ finest musical export Urbandub are still making waves with the music that makes the city lights shine like diamonds, while keeping their integrity intact and feet on the ground. As fans eagerly await the release of their MCA Universal debut Apparition, vocalist/chief songwriter Gabby Alipe and bassist Lalay Lim share with PULP the secrets behind their phenomenal status as the “best band in the land,” the story of how it took years to come full circle and why fans would be foolish to think that the struggle could be over now.It’s both amusing and a tad perplexing to realize that it’s been more than half a decade since I’ve met and shared wonderfully engaging conversations with the fine lads (and “lass”) of Urbandub, the Cebuano modern rock outfit who beat both the geographical odds and tactically nightmarish outcomes of slugging it out on Manila soil with hit-after-hit singles, massively successful albums and an incomparable live performance ethic. I remember seeing and hearing them for the first time in their home turf during the 2004 Sinulog Festival in Cebu, and can still remember like it was yesterday when I first watched how they offered their own blood, sweat and tears during their first tour to Manila not too long after.

There was something about this band that wreaked of urgency (even though I can proudly say that most people had their heads turned the wrong way when the band first announced its arrival; ha-motherfucking-ha, morons…), and it wasn’t just the genius songwriting and musical skill: it was the sincerity to pursue what they had dreamed about doing for the next decade of their individual lives. They weren’t- at all - foaming at the mouth, calling-out the competition and boisterously begging for attention, but they were quiet, timid musicians who busied themselves writing great songs and music, and dealt with the requisite challenges by, well, writing even more great music. – Get Pulp's November Issue to read more.