Music and art has a magical way of bringing people together, but sometimes it also needs a little help. 

Enter: Secret Pals. 

For the last year, Singapore-based Filipino creatives Patrick Elicano and April Luistro have been working behind the scenes to connect an array of musicians, artists, and just anyone who loves all things fun and good with their pop-up shows and parties. Together, as Secret Pals, they shine a light on the local creative scene in both Singapore and the Philippines, bridging both communities through the power of music, art, food, and more. 

"We’ve been long-time supporters of the local creative scene from both our homes and have always dreamt of giving back and bridging the two together," Secret Pals tell Bandwagon. 

This weekend, the creative duo are celebrating one year as Secret Pals. Ahead of their anniversary show, Sunday Tambay, we sat down with Patrick and April to look back on their whirlwind year and talk about all the exciting projects they have ahead. 

Hi Secret Pals! How have you been so far?

Hey Bandwagon! It’s been one great whirlwind of a ride, haha! Can’t believe we’re more than halfway through 2023 and we feel that we’ve created so many memories than we could count in a year.

What is Secret Pals' origin story? Who are the people involved in your team?

We’ve always joked that it “started with a sunset and now we’re here”. But jokes aside, our story began in June of last year when we took our first trip back home after the pandemic. Visiting La Union has always been one of the things we wanted to do and we finally had the opportunity to do so. As we were planning our itinerary, we remembered a person we had connected with earlier in the year. We had ordered some shirts from THE Clothing and discovered that they are based in LU. They kindly invited us to swing by their studio, which we were excited to do! 

When we met them on the first night of our trip, it felt like we were somewhat welcomed with open arms and this carried on for the rest of our stay there. We met so many creative individuals and our stay there inspired us a lot. Fast forward to August ‘22, when Jerik Robleza and Loralie Lao from THE Clothing and July Grocery were visiting Singapore to celebrate their daughter’s birthday, they took a chance on us and asked if we’d be keen to collaborate on something for THE’s anniversary.

After several weeks of discussions, a shirt design and a pop-up concept at a cafe, we were all ready to go when they asked us for our “name” to be included in the designs. We honestly never thought about it or if this was ever gonna be a thing. All we wanted to do was to genuinely help behind the scenes, knowing that we could share a brand that we personally loved here in Singapore. And that’s when it happened. We were just friends helping friends in secret—Secret Pals!

So, that’s us–(just us two) Filipinos, Patrick Elicano and April Luistro, who grew up in Singapore and working professionally in the creative industry–trying to keep it lowkey and just some pals helping pals in secret. 

Can you share with us what the first Secret Pals show was like? How does it compare to your latest show?

We recall the first “show” to be so true to the lo-fi setup of how we started. SOS was gonna be in Singapore for the ASEAN Music Showcase and being based in LU as well, they reached out to Jerik (THE Clothing) for a connection for a DJ set plug. One thing led to another and the next thing we knew, we were linking SVATG and CRWN up with an opportunity to play at our favourite drinking spot and creative home ground, Moonstone.

Since it was our first party, we just sent an invite to as many friends to come down for a good Thursday night hang. What came after, was unexpected. We were pleasantly surprised by the turnout of Filipinos (most of whom were from the creative industry). Having grown up here all our life, this was a side of the Filipino community in Singapore that we never knew existed. Many months and parties later, we could now call all of them our pals. 

Looking back at all our shindigs, it honestly felt surreal seeing how the community has grown in its own way and we saw a glimpse of that at the latest party we were grateful to have been a part of. 

Our pals at Groovetop threw another one of their epic pop-up parties for a Manila Takeover. To see artists like Manila Junkie and Màrgachi, together with Singapore-based Filipino talent, Mari, being given an opportunity to play for a diverse crowd along with that very community we’ve seen grow over the months, was truly a *core memory*.

What are the challenges you've faced so far with Secret Pals?

One of the challenges we’ve felt personally is that the parties we throw could be easily misconstrued as “Pinoy parties” alone. Through and through, we’ve strongly felt that the talent we have from back home is more than capable of lending their sound to Singapore’s ears and that’s what we want to keep advocating. We want to make sure that whilst building this Filipino community of sorts, we also want to be inclusive and expose that very talent to the locals here. 

With the whole region coming out to Singapore to play shows here and there, there is an obvious gap in PH representation. So, when we set out and started to help our pals and DJs from Manila, it was a challenge at first trying to convince some spots to host them. With little coverage of the Philippine music landscape, together with our very new presence, stringing a few shows together was honestly a tough challenge.

What are your favourite moments with Secret Pals so far?

Oh man, there are so many! Back-to-back weekends from our first shirt pop-up at a cafe with THE Clothing to hosting our first party with SVATG and CRWN probably rank top as our favourite moment, mainly because it enabled us to see that this was actually possible. 

Collaborating with various collectives, like After The Noon and Orange Juice Asia to name a few and witnessing the organic exchange between artists from Singapore and Manila was one for the books. Seeing DJs do small B2B segments, whether here or elsewhere in the region (shoutout to Tashasan (SG) x SVATG (MNL) in Bangkok and Some Guy, PillowTalk (MNL) and Dee (SG) in Manila) has been very heartwarming. It’s the very ethos of what we strive to build as Secret Pals.

One of our favourite moments also came during the last party with Groovetop for their Manila Takeover. Toward the end of the night, one of the CDJs suddenly stopped working and the entire team had to scramble. Seeing the mish-mash of artists, both from various collectives in Manila and those based in Singapore, along with the entire crew and team, working hard to make sure the music kept going, was something that’ll remain in our hearts for a long time. It almost felt like the ever-resilient Filipino spirit played itself on show in that moment, and we were reminded to always keep the music (and good times) going (literally, and figuratively, haha).

Another one’s not a moment moment, but honestly seeing venues and more opportunities opening up along with the local community being more receptive to what the scene has to offer. It’s also lowkey one of our internal KPIs to make sure that beyond the artists and the guests, we get to see the staff and team enjoying their time as well. That always makes our night.  And lastly, it’s the reactions from those who have been there since day one and who might be attending our shows for the first time, asking “When’s the next Secret Pals party?”

You've previously hosted SVTAG, CRWN, pillowtalk, Some Guy, and more. What kind of DJs are you looking for at Secret Pals?

This is a tough question but an interesting one, haha. We’ve always kept an open mind to various genres of music.

Having been attending parties and shows here in Singapore for years now and seeing the vibes that the Manila nightlife scene can bring, we want to continue showcasing curators and selectors who could offer a fresh take on genres that are already mainstays here in Singapore. We personally feel that house music and all its sub-genres are pretty big here and we’d love to bring in more DJs and producers who could bring their brand of sound, hopefully with their very own tracks as well. 

We love our disco, funk and groove and it would be really cool to see tastemakers who could bring that sort of energy here too. We’ve also noticed that there is a growing interest in emerging genres such as Garage, DnB, Amapiano, and Baile Funk so we’re always looking to feature more artists who play that. At the end of it all, we are emo kids and indie heads at heart and so we’ll never shy away from an open format night where we can indulge in these guilty pleasures all at once.

Who's on your dream lineup for a Secret Pals show?

To be honest, we’ve never thought that we’d be able to work with some of the artists that we’ve worked with so far. So it’d be a dream to continue bringing back SVATG, CRWN, Some Guy, pillowtalk, Shymon, Màrgachi as well as the After the Noon and Orange Juice Asia folks. We’d love to curate parties where we could mix it all up and have them in different lineups. 

We’ve also set our sights on hopefully having the opportunity to work with Abdel Aziz, Butta B, and the Bad Decisions crew, Miguel Jesus aka Curtismith, and Jazz Zamora whom we have to credit for giving us our most memorable first Pob crawl experience. Another crazy dream we have and share with SVATG would be to bring together a lineup of curators from different Manila collectives such as Transit Records, UNKNWN Manila, and Sadomasodisco along with local collectives like Ice Cream Sundays from Singapore. Hope that’s not too many names, haha.

What's next for Secret Pals?

We’re looking at a very fun-filled and packed rest of 2023 starting with finally being able to bring our pals and close friends Casfade and Hapimeel for their own set of shows here. That, and currently planning a month-long celebration, marking a year since we first started. 

More than that too, we’re letting you in on a little secret, while we enjoy hosting pop-up parties as well as working with the best selectors from back home, the idea of Secret Pals goes beyond that. We want to continue sharing what we love, be it F&B, art, crafts, graphic design and more. And above all, one of the biggest long-term goals we have is to be able to bring in musicians and artists for their own live shows! That’s what really started this dream for us.

There’s plenty to look forward to but one thing’s for sure. We want to continue doing it the way we started and keeping true to the value of pals helping pals in secret. So if you know a pal or two that wants to come here, you know who to call!