Ely Buendia Filipino Singer

Early life

Ely Eleandre Basino Buendia was born on 2 November 1970 in Naga, Camarines Sur, in the Philippines. He is the second child of Ely Revilla Buendia and Lisetta Ruiz Basino. He went to preparatory school at Naga Parochial School, finished elementary school at Pasig Catholic College in 1983 and completed high school at the University of Perpetual Help in Rizal.

He has said that he wrote a first, unfinished song after listening to a Michael Jackson album, and that he composed his first full song, "Unstrung Heroes", at 14. Years later he recorded that song with the rapper Francis M. His listening as a teenager included Rico J. Puno, Diomedes Maturan, Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan and the Beatles. He also later wrote the songs "Poorman's Grave" and "Acid Tongue" about his father.

At the University of the Philippines Diliman he studied mass communication with a film focus. In 1987 he played bass in a campus band, Bluidie Tryste. The following year he and its singer, Raymund dela Peña, held auditions for another group, which led to a friendship with the freshman drummer Raimund Marasigan. After the pair formed a new band, Sunday School, Marasigan brought in Buddy Zabala and Marcus Adoro from his own band, Curfew. The two groups merged and took the name Eraserheads, after a film by David Lynch. Buendia left the university before graduating.

Career

Eraserheads played at campus events and at Club Dredd, and early on they met resistance from record labels, one of which said their demonstration recordings were not pop enough. A re-recorded demo, titled Pop-U!, helped win them a place at Club Dredd. Songs the band wrote themselves, including Buendia's "Pare Ko", then built a cult following. While the group was starting out, Buendia worked as a copywriter at BMG. The company signed the band to a three-year deal, and their debut album, Ultraelectromagneticpop!, came out in 1993. It was followed by Circus (1994), Cutterpillow (1995), the Christmas album Fruitcake (1996), Sticker Happy (1997), Natin99 (1999) and Carbon Stereoxide (2001). Buendia wrote the group's best-known material, among them "Ang Huling El Bimbo", whose video earned the MTV Asia Viewer's Choice Award at the MTV Video Music Awards in New York in 1997.

In interviews he later described feeling pressure as the band's lead singer and main songwriter. He left Eraserheads in March 2002, and the group dissolved later that year. They reunited for a concert in August 2008 and another in March 2009, toured internationally between 2012 and 2014, held a third Philippine reunion concert in December 2022 and toured again from 2023 to 2025.

After leaving, he fronted a series of bands. The Mongols, in which he used the stage name Jesus "Dizzy" Ventura, released Buddha's Pest in 2003. When a guitarist left in 2005, the group became Pupil, which issued Beautiful Machines (2005), Wild Life (2007), Limiters of the Infinity Pool (2011) and Zilch (2015). In 2011 he formed The Oktaves with Nitoy Adriano of The Jerks and members of Hilera, and they released a self-titled album in 2013. In 2016 he started the soul and R&B group Apartel, whose albums are Inner Play (2016) and Full Flood (2018).

His first solo album, Wanted Bedspacer, came out in 2000 and leaned toward electronic sounds. His second, Method Adaptor, was released in November 2024 after the singles "Bulaklak Sa Buwan" and "Tagpi-Tagping Piraso". A remix album, Method Adaptor Remixed, followed in April 2025. He worked with Francis M. on In Love and War, which was released in 2010 after the rapper's death. Other collaborators have included the bands Itchyworms, Cheats and Sansette.

Buendia has also worked in film. He interned on productions of the directors Lino Brocka and Ishmael Bernal while a student, co-directed Eraserheads videos for "With a Smile" and "Maskara", and wrote and directed the short film Waiting Shed, which Cinemanila screened in 2009. In 2013 he co-directed the crime anthology Bang Bang Alley with King Palisoc and Zig Marasigan, writing and directing two of its segments.

In 2016 he founded the independent label Offshore Music, which has released work by Apartel, Itchyworms, Jun Lopito, The Ransom Collective, Eyedress, Ena Mori, Pinkmen and Sansette. The label signed a partnership with Sony Music Philippines in 2023 and has reissued the first three Eraserheads albums on vinyl.

Public roles

Buendia endorsed Leni Robredo in the 2022 Philippine presidential election. He released the song "Metro" in 2021 as part of a voter awareness campaign and later re-recorded it in support of Robredo and her running mate, Kiko Pangilinan. In February 2022 he performed Eraserheads songs at a campaign rally in Iloilo.