Some music is made for stages. This was made for borrowed rooms, empty parking lots, and the back of a small car crossing America.
we are, et al. is the music project of Ricky Paradela — Filipino-American, San Francisco-based, and the kind of musician who plays where he’s standing rather than where he’s been invited.
He started playing music in the Philippines — writing songs in San Fernando, Cebu, playing in bands. When he left for America, he left that behind too. He arrived with no band, no venue, no plan. Just the songs and the idea that he was a musician — made not by birth but by choice.
He began performing in the Bay Area open mic circuit in the late 2000s — Wednesday nights at Café Lift in San Jose, a church on Sundays that became the realest room in the Bay on weeknights. He watched for a month before he played. When he finally got on the list he wrote et al. in the name field. He didn’t know exactly why. It just sounded right. He kept it.
The music is quiet and raw and hard to categorize. Indie, folk, something else. Songs written in the Philippines, played in California to Texas, recorded in parking lots and borrowed studios. Mostly for people who weren’t there.
He has released 2 EPs, 2 albums and several singles.
He produced and recorded an album with his old bandmates some 16 years later. It was made during a return trip to the Philippines in 2022–23 — the same trip documented in the memoir Nomad Heart. His son Zeus was there. He filmed the show.
The album hasn’t been released yet. When it comes out, it comes out alongside the book. Same story. Two formats.
Afternoon Affair
Nomad Heart 