Photo by Oscar Logevall and courtesy of Cheryl Tugade
I’ve known Cheryl Tugade for under a year — perhaps six months. We first met through a school club, and since then we’ve had numerous long, but never boring, conversations. Most of them trace back to Bruce Lee — Tugade’s current obsession. But more on that later. During the conversation that inspired this feature, Tugade and I were settled on a sunny patch of grass on UC Berkeley’s campus. She was decked in her usual: a baggy sweatshirt, the back hidden beneath thick long black hair, “torn-up gray jeans,” as she sings in her boppy single “Think of You” and intimidating Doc Martens. Tugade’s a freshman in college, but you wouldn’t be able to tell.
Tugade was born and raised in Singapore. She’s the middle child, stuck between an older and a younger brother. During her childhood, she had a myriad of hobbies, including piano, soccer and perhaps the most telling of her future in music: writing.
“Actually, I wanted to be an author. I wrote poems, liked writing. But I could never finish a novel. It’s just too long. I just liked coming up with these worlds in my head. But then I would never execute.”
She then moved to the United States for the last two years of high school, attending Phillips Academy, a boarding school in Andover, Massachusetts. Perhaps it was this move that makes her seem unlike most freshmen. She’d already navigated the confusing independence that most of us experience during our first year in college during her first year in boarding school. So now, she comes off as calm, relaxed and centered. She strolls instead of speed-walking. She talks slowly, pondering her answers before responding. She thinks a lot: about her friends, her favorite memories, Jon Bellion, her perception of herself and a bunch of other stuff that I can’t seem to figure out. She likes tea, not coffee. She seems to be comfortable during lulls in conversation — and she dotes over how Bruce Lee became water: a calm force that flows and accepts challenges and changes in life. It’s clear that she hopes to “be water” one day, but I argue that she is already there. Kind of.
Post her introduction, Tugade is comfortably settled in the grass, squinting from the sun which has now moved from behind to directly above us. I ask about her interest in songwriting, eager to pinpoint a core starting memory. As per usual, Tugade replies with a lack of specificity.
“It just happened. I never thought Oh, I’m gonna sit down and write a song. I was just emotional, and I started playing chords which I learned from playing other people’s songs. And then I ended up writing a song. It was just expressing what I was feeling.”
I roll my eyes when I hear her response, and Tugade is quick to notice. She has a tendency to be vague, something I’ve gathered over the course of our past interactions.
Since writing her first song in middle school, Tugade has signed with FlipMusic Productions, and released more music, including songs “Backseat,” “Think of You” and “December.” She has also developed a more structured creative process: starting out with chords, then filling out the lyrics and melody. She then goes back to make changes to all three parts of the song pretty often.
While writers often create their best work during revision, Tugade creates her best work through repetition.
“Sometimes I write a song like four times. And the song isn’t the same, but it’s about the same topic or the same story or the same experience. And I’ve written like five songs about that same experience, but it’s only the fifth one that makes the cut.”
I butt in, “So how do you know which version is the one?”
She responds, “I just like it.”
She begins laughing, anticipating my third or fourth eye roll during our conversation, and then tries to further explain. “The first version is just me learning more about the experience itself, and understanding it more. And then each version becomes better and more specific after that.”
Though Tugade doesn’t say this, it seems like the version of the song that ends up making the cut is the one where she is unapologetically herself. When I ask her why she is so entranced by this idea of being herself, the answer, for once, is clear:
“‘Cause, what’s the point of making anything, creative or not, if it’s not fully you? I have been more myself with my music than I am in real life. I talked about things in my music before I could even say them out loud.”
We both sit in silence for a few minutes, letting her answer permeate the air and our thoughts. Tugade glances around at the clumps of students surrounding us, focusing in on a dog that yelps like a small child. I scribble a few notes down on a crumpled piece of paper balanced on my lap.
As we move on to talk about her creative influences, I expect another lecture on Bruce Lee. Instead, Tugade mentions Jon Bellion. In a rare moment of visible excitement, she leans toward me, eyes bright. Her voice grows louder and louder as she celebrates the merits of Bellion: his authenticity in “Translations Through Speakers,” his poignant speech in “Dead Man Walking” and the unique instruments he weaves into his music.
With a voice a little too loud for our quiet surroundings, and one hand waving in the air, Tugade further explains: “He’s just making what he’s thinking. And it’s just him. It’s so true to him, and he’s not worrying about sounding professional. He’s just making whatever the hell he wants to make and not being limited by anything. And you can tell that by his lyrics. Something that has been inspiring me recently is when a song that’s so complex still fits and works. I feel like Jon Bellion’s music has a lot of layers. And it’s unpredictable, but then it fits and works.”
Because she’s not bringing it up, and because I want to hear her talk about it, I ask about Bruce Lee. How Lee relates to her music and herself. Tugade’s voice only increases in volume as she explains how Bruce Lee focused on actualizing himself, and being his unapologetic self. She sees Lee’s philosophy of being water as going beyond music.
“Beyond the music, whoever you are, being water is externalizing your internal self, from everything you do, everything you like, the clothes you wear, your lyrics and the instrument you use.”
As she speaks, her eyes glint. She counts out the facets of externalization on her fingers.
“Bruce Lee did that through martial arts and you can see that through the way he moves. And when I write music, there’s this inner world right? And there’s all these thoughts and feelings. And you can tell someone about it, but that doesn’t capture the nuances of the feeling, not the way that I can when I write a song.”
She moves her head back and forth, letting the sun alternatively bounce off her dark hair and her cheeks, conveying the nuance of her inner world. We continue to discuss what surprises her about her music.
Her answer is quick — one of the few that are.
“When I write a lyric, it nails a feeling that I hadn’t even realized. It’s the most insane. I’m like, oh my god, that’s exactly how I feel.” She points passionately at an unassuming, slightly dried patch of grass nearby. I nod my head vigorously in support. A passerby would have thought we were absolute idiots.
“It’s so amazing, and it’s not necessarily even like me consciously. Like, there’s something inside of me that just comes out.”
Unlike most artists, Tugade’s goal — right now at least — isn’t to make it big in the music industry. She sees music as a source of happiness, something that she loves to do when she isn’t studying for her computer science classes at school. Right now, she prefers the certainty of focusing on college, of staying in the United States and of working a corporate job.
“There’s like a song by Jon Bellion in ‘Translations Through Speakers’ where he says don’t ask because I don’t know. And I kind of feel like that song right now. And, there’s less pressure. Because I’m thinking: Oh, I’m like a CS kid now. So that’s what’s gonna make sure I’m okay in life and music is where I can do whatever I want.”
She pauses a moment after her previous answer, pondering what she just told me. And then perks up, ready to add on: “I also love music because people get to know me without talking to me. Like an acquaintance in Singapore was playing ‘Backseat’ with her friend on a car ride to the airport. While they were listening to the song, they both started crying in the car. Later, her friend performed a cover of the song. And, that was so insane. The fact that they cried. The song was so real to me, and it was so crazy that it felt that real to them too.”
As we wrap up our conversation, I ask Tugade about what her plan for the next few years is. Her answer is, to no one’s surprise, very fluid.
“At whatever point in your life just make the most of whatever opportunities you have, and see what happens. Go with the flow, you know?”
Here she smirks, knowing I do the opposite.
“That’s what I’m doing with my life and my music.”
Check out Cheryl Tugade’s Instagram and Spotify for more music!