“Murag mao ni ang first time na nagkita ta sa buntag (I think this is the first time we’ve seen each other in the day light),” Karina Cuizon, frontwoman and guitarist of School Girl Classic, jokes as we take the steep hike up Cebu’s infamous Starbuks trail.
It’s one of those rare times where the stars align and the band is complete — Bassist Ian Intong moved to Batangas last year, Siamese Rat keeps himself occupied playing the drums for his long list of hardcore bands, and Cuizon juggles music and her work as an illustrator and artist for the Cebuano art studio, Happy Garaje.
School Girl Classic first debuted in 2018 initially as a summer project between Cuizon, Intong, and the band’s producer, Karl Lucente (also of Mandaue Nights and Monopolice). The three enlisted the help of Siamese Rat to fully build out the sound and persona of Hana, a fictional school girl who shapes the world that they tell through the music.
“Haven’t Got You,” the band’s debut single, is a simple yet great peek into that world. We see the world through Hana’s eyes — through cherry blossoms and train commutes, as Cuizon and Lucente’s voices tell a story full of tenderness and sincerity. “Taking my time as always, little bit slower nowadays,” Cuizon sings in the chorus. “While I haven’t got you, haven’t got you.”
The band dropped their punk-tinged sophomore single, “Suzanne” in 2020, in the heat of the pandemic. It’s grittier, fuzzier than the sleek indie guitar tones that defined “Haven’t Got You.” Despite the slight sonic shift, the sincerity of Cuizon’s lyrics still shines.
“Usually when I work, I watch movies or shows, and I think that’s a big influence on [my songwriting] because there’s a lot of rich stories in cinema,” Cuizon shares, in a mix of Bisaya and English. She also reads picture books, novels, and poems that sometimes inspire her to write songs. Through a mix of literary inspiration, her current mood, and initial ideas for melodies, she starts building out the foundation for different songs.
If you listen close enough to the songs, you can hear Cuizon’s references come to life. Cuizon reveals that “Suzanne” takes direct inspiration from the 1983 French film, À Nos Amours and the life of its lead character, Suzanne. In another currently unreleased School Girl Classic track, “Illuminate Me,” Cuizon directly references the 1998 crime film, Thelma & Louise.
“I thought, ‘wow,’ no spoilers but their [Thelma and Louise] bond is something else,” Cuizon says in Bisaya and English. “Murag ma-relate pud nako sa [Illuminate Me] kay murag siya ‘I could be your ride or die.‘”
(I can relate it to [Illuminate Me] because [the song is very much] ‘I could be your ride or die.’)
Cuizon weaves these themes and inspirations from literature and with her own personal experiences in life. “Mu-relate jud nako sa akong gi-agian (I can relate [these stories in literature] to what I’ve gone through in life).”
In the years that followed, the band has performed live on-and-off, premiering more unreleased songs and gaining their own cult following in the local music scene. In 2026, the band is set to play at the All of the Noise Festival in Manila and release new music. If you’ve been to a School Girl Classic gig in recent times, you can hear the sonic and lyrical progression in tracks like “Illuminate Me” and their upcoming comeback single, “Tomorrow.”
Those lucky enough to have heard the studio version of “Tomorrow” can note the stark evolution in the band’s sound. The track features more complex instrumental arrangements, a heart-tugging strings section that builds and pays off, and more prominent vocal harmonies, with Cuizon’s stellar lyricism tying the whole song together to truly hit it out of the park.
When talking about the complexity of their newest releases, Cuizon says that it originates from shifts in their influences as a band. For “Haven’t Got You,” the band and their producer pulled from their standard indie rock and indie pop favorites. As the years went on, they started experimenting with songwriting structures — citing bands like Great Grandpa — who utilize unorthodox structures in their songwriting and arrangements.
“Sa una kay ‘Haven’t Got You,’ four chords ra. Inig balik nako sa School Girl [Classic] kay nahimog eight [chords] in a song (Before, we only had four chords for ‘Haven’t Got You.’ When I came back to School Girl Classic [after laying low for a while], now there are eight chords in a song),” Intong jokes.
The change in sound doesn’t necessarily mean that the band has fully shed off their starting influences. Cuizon muses, “I guess na pa gihapon ko’y part sa ‘Haven’t Got You’ kay naa akong heart sa song. So I feel like, bisan ni grow out nako, makarelate pa gihapon ko sa kana nga time sa akong life. I mean, not as emotional as before. Nakakita ra nako as it is, [without] as much emotional attachment [as before].”
(I guess there’s still a part of me in ‘Haven’t Got You’ because my heart is still in the song. So I feel like, even if I’ve outgrown it, I can still relate to that time in my life. I mean, not as emotional as before. I can still look at it as it is, without as much emotional attachment as before.)
It’s now nearly a decade in between the release of “Haven’t Got You” and “Tomorrow,” and it’s clear that the band has a growing appetite for more experimental takes on indie rock. Despite this, they maintain the heartfelt storytelling that makes School Girl Classic the gem that it is. Their secret? They don’t hold their songs’ present arrangement as permanent.
Even when they record the studio version of their songs, they still come up with new ways to play them, especially when they perform live. The band, talking over each other, share how sometimes they’ll play around with the riffs of their songs — maybe changing it to something more midwest emo-inflected, or even a Hawaiian version.
“Lingaw ra pud mag-experiment. Dili ra pud siguro mi precious about the songs, na ‘ah, dapat ing-ani gyud ni ‘(It’s fun to experiment. I guess it’s because we’re not precious about the songs, like, ‘ah, we have to play it like this.’),” Cuizon says. Siamese Rat builds on this, saying, “Si Karl [Lucente], perfectionist siya pero naa mi freedom (Karl [Lucente] is a perfectionist, but we also have the freedom [to play around with the song].”
If there’s any band that truly encapsulates what it feels like to come-of-age, it’s School Girl Classic. In a world that feels so referential and derivative, where a song can sound so painfully made for an algorithm, the band’s small but mighty discography is refreshingly timeless. It’s the reason you can still listen to “Haven’t Got You” and “Suzanne” and not realize that both songs are quickly approaching 10 years old.
Listen to the tracks long enough and you’ll hear a sliver of what makes them so, well, classic: Lucente’s arrangements, Siamese Rat’s masterful drum playing, Intong’s walking bass lines, and Cuizon’s heart leading the charge — rooted in sincerity and shining brighter with every passing note.
School Girl Classic’s comeback single, “Tomorrow,” premieres on all streaming platforms this April 17 (Friday).
Creative direction by Kara Angan and Lorenz Torres. Photography by Lorenz Torres. Art direction by Kara Angan. Story by Kara Angan. Shot on location at Celestial Gardens, Cebu City. Coast2Coast, 2026.
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