Karylle: Yes, love career do mix

You’ll never know until you try. Karylle can say that again. She knows she can sing with the passion her mom, Zsa Zsa Padilla zoomed to popularity for. But writing songs? That’s a different ballgame.

Karylle only knew Jim Paredes (of the APO), her college professor, gave her straight A’s in her Creative workshops way back at the Ateneo, where she finished college. The flattering feedback challenged Karylle to write some more, not only weekly as the workshops required.

The challenges intrigued her and made her call on the creative muse more often until she ended up with a thick folder of songs she herself wrote.

“Jim knows how to nurse talent,” Karylle looks back in gratitude. “I never felt that I could be a writer. But the A’s he gave me pushed me to step up to the plate.”

It was not just a matter of coming up with song after song. It was also a journey towards self-discovery for Karylle.

Like any form of art, songwriting is a process of soul-searching, soul-baring. The heretofore shy Karylle never thought she could lay bare her innermost thoughts to the public through songs. She was too soft-spoken for that. But she finally did. It took a lot of courage and risk. But she finally learned to let go of pent-up emotions struggling for release. In the process, she felt free, comforted, fulfilled.

The result: A yet-to-be-released album called Road Trip. It is Karylle’s personal journey, not only to various places like Australia, Vigan, etc. It is also her journey through the ups and downs of every day, the highs and lows of a life packed with shows, business deals (courtesy of Circle Café along the Timog-Morato rotunda in Quezon City) and love.

“The songs serve as a catalyst for me. It’s liberating,” she reveals. “I think now’s the right time to come up with the album. I’ve matured enough to stand up to whatever people will say about my work. If I wait some more, I may be too jaded for it.”

She has yet to be judged in that department since the album has yet to see the light of day.

But one person has already heard her work and appreciates it. Karylle’s boyfriend Dingdong Dantes, for whom she wrote the song My Love Will Last a Lifetime, must have melted like butter when Karylle gave him the composition as her anniversary gift to him.

“Every time a special occasion comes up,” she relates, “we’d have a contest as to who can give the better gift. When he described his gift to me, I concluded that it must be expensive. So I thought about what I could do to win the contest. I’ve already made a book which I printed abroad. So I came up with this song that I did in no time at all while I was in the kitchen.”

Karylle won the contest hands-down, that year in April.

“Dingdong and I have nothing in common except a love for old songs,” says Karylle. That’s why My Love Will Last a Lifetime has the homey, cozy feel of a well-loved standard.

The song is just one of the many she keeps at home. Others have landed in the trash bin because the perfectionist Karylle felt unhappy about them. Others are just waiting to be recorded in her upcoming album.

Karylle wrote most of the songs on Road Trip while she’s on the plane en route to some destination. Taking a cue from her Kuya Ogie (Alcasid), Karylle hummed the melody on her cellphone recorder. Then, when she finally finds time, she asks different arrangers to polish the music for her.

But before Kaylle unveils the songwriter in her through her album, she will first carry on a tradition her mom has been known for year after year. It’s now Karylle’s turn to share the spotlight with other artists in the Valentine show Souls in Love at the Teatrino, Promenade, Greenhills on Feb. 13.

She teams up with fellow R ‘n B singers and friends Jay-R and Star in a Million (2006) winner Kris Lawrence. And since her first time to work with them, Karylle is pleased as punch.

“I’ve always been a great fan of their work, and I’ve watched in amazement as they charted their phenomenal careers in record time. We’ve worked on a few collaborations, and they’re always brimming with fresh ideas and sounds. And I like that,” Karylle adds.

Nothing, of course, beats singing on stage with Dingdong, whom she recently performed with at Cebu Waterfront Hotel one enchanted weekend evening.

“Our presence convinced people that we were still a couple, since some believed we have already parted ways,” relates Karylle.

How can they? When Dingdong protectively embraces Karylle when they’re watching any of his kissing scenes with his leading lady on screen?

How can they? When Dingdong repeatedly reassures her that “I’m on your side in everything.”

“I used to think you can’t combine love and career. One will suffer in the process,” recalls Karylle.

That’s why she admits she was holding back her emotions then. And she even went through a healing process. Now that she’s proven her fears wrong, Karylle no longer holds back. She has learned to reach out, even to Dingdong’s family, whom she went out with on a vacation in Boracay.

“You should see his cousins,” she gushes. “They’re so tall! I was the shortest in the group!”

Not so in Dingdong’s eyes. For him, Karylle stands six feet tall.

So let the intrigues come, left, right and center. Karylle and Dingdong’s love remains as solid as granite. And they don’t need Valentine’s Day to prove that to each other, and to the world.

(Souls in Love is produced by ALV Events International and Prime Events Force Unlimited, Inc. and is presented by Sun Cellular and Kotex Pads and Pantiliners, Popoy’s Grill, Ketchup and Mayo in cooperation with Bench and Unisilver. Couples will be treated to a free on-the-spot tarot and palm reading by love psychics and fortune tellers).