The Music of Tats
Tats Faustino’s first exposure to music was at age 8, playing percussions for his family band. Having an Upjohn Pharmaceuticals country manager for a dad meant endless parties where entertainment played a key role. He did the round-robin with his brothers playing guitars, drums and keyboards, but the drums caught his soul.
In high school, Tats joined the marching band and the Kundirana Glee Club band as its drummer, garnering the Gold Award For Excellence In Music on graduation day.
Tats Faustino started recording his own compositions using two tape recorders, very typical of teenage composers who experimented with drum machines, electronic keyboards and guitars, using the “pingpong” method.
He gave “Hang On” to high school buddy Gary Valenciano who was then a new face in the pop music scene. The song hit its gold mark and soon record producers asked Tats for songs, songs, songs. He was 18 then.
Tats eventually gained enough recognition and respect that producers began to have him arrange his own compositions. Thereafter, record companies asked Tats to produce the songs as well. Artists, managers, film and record companies sought out Tats for songs.
Jeric Soriano, a film director for a “breakthrough” musical movie asked Tats to do some songs for the original soundtrack. This same film director happened to also direct commercials and got Tats to do the jingles for a complete shower product line for Johnson & Johnson. The ad agency handling the account was McCann Erickson. McCann people discovered that Tats was a “speedy Gonzales” beating yesterday’s deadlines, at the same time gaining clients’ approvals. Thus, jingles became his income source while still in university.
Somehow, Tats’ awesome speed in producing midi music arrangements was good news for other sectors of the entertainment industry -- television was one such sector. Weekly musical shows
needed someone reliable and energetic. Tats had his first stint as tv music director/arranger at the age of 23, with no less than the Philippines’ “Superstar” Nora Aunor’s tv show under his wing
(on RPN 9). The Superstar retired from television and Tats was given the next show that replaced it, called “Manilyn: Live!”. It was here that Tats met television director Al Quinn, an industry veteran whom Tats considers as one of his mentors. “Manilyn: Live” lasted only 2 years but a major tv station (ABSCBN) got impressed with Tats’ work and contracted him to arrange for one of their shows, then eventually for one more show. Al Quinn was contracted by another major network (GMA7) to direct its weekly musical variety show “GMA Supershow” and Al Quinn requested for Tats to be its music director. Tats arranged and produced all the recorded music for the show.
The network wars were on, especially between GMA7 and ABS-CBN. After 3 years, GMA7 changed “GMA Supershow” into “SOP”. New format, new hosts, new staff. Director Al Quinn and Tats stayed on. “SOP” became very competitive with other networks’ shows on their timeslot. Music was played live by a band and Tats, being its music director had to be on-camera. Tats decided to beg off from his work on ABS-CBN.
He finally made time to finish “Tats Faustino” where he sings remakes of hit songs he wrote for other artists and introduces new loves songs he composed based on his own love experiences.
As of this writing, Tats is still with television but he continues to release his passion for music in all media. The drummer has evolved into a composer, arranger, music director and singer.