Marcelo Barbosa Official English Blog: August 2009

Maila: What are the 5 main and necessary steps for those who intend to be guitarists like you?
Marcelo: I´ve never thought about it this way but let´s see what I can do. Well, first you´ve gotta know about music, learn how to listen to music and research the references. Second: study to learn. It can be done through a teacher, a good school or even by yourself if you think it´s better. Everyone must choose what´s the best way. Third: play with other people. It means nothing if you play very well but only to you bedroom´s wall. The relationship with other musicians in different musical environments is essential to anybody´s development. Fourth: be professional. It isn´t because you decided to work with arts that you are not a regular professional. You must see your career as a real job and make it as important as one. Last thing, never stop researching and studying. A professional who doesn´t go for constant improvement loses the chance of creating something new and innovative. Nobody is too good to stop learning.
Maila: A message to the readers, please.
Marcelo: Never give up on your goals even when they look impossible to achieve. Dreaming is part of living and it´s fuel to the soul. Who spends all the time with both feet on the ground loses the magnitude of flying. Don´t dream too much, though, work hard to achieve your dreams. Only dreaming won´t bring you anything and nobody will work for you.

The complete text of the interview interview by Maila-Kaarina in English
The complete text of the interview in Portuguese

Original story in Portugues is here

As some people already know, at the end of this week we did two shows after a few months without playing: one in the capital of São Paulo and another in Ourinhos, some city in the same state. As usual, I’m here to tell you my end-of-the-week story.

Although the first show had to happen on Friday, 31th of July, we decided to meet in SP one day before, on Thursday to do at least one rehearsal after such a long time we haven't played this difficult stuff together. Felipe was going to arrive on Friday, but it made sense to do some small rehearsal even without him.

I departed from Brasília on 4 p.m. on 30th and landed in SP on 5-40 p.m. or something like this. I used the flight time to start reading the bestseller “Cabana”. In the beginning it was good but in my opinion it started to get boring yet before the middle. (I really don’t know if I have patience to read it till the end!). When I arrived to the destination, my band mates Edu, Paulo and Moreira were already waiting for me at the airport to go to the rehearsal room, where we would work from 8 p.m. till 11 p.m. Since it was too early, we went to eat some pizza right in the airport, because otherwise we should have stayed without eating till 11 p.m.

When I stay in São Paulo it always surprises me how Edu always looks at the watch worrying if we have enough time to arrive to a certain place, even if we have 1,5 or 2h in reserve! On 18:30 or something like this we entered Edu’s car with all our bags and equipment. Edu forgot to take out the baby’s seat and it made the process more emotional: we were tightly placed there. And it’s clear that we got into heavy traffic and arrived at the studio a bit later than 20:00.
The rehearsal was going very well and although we hadn’t played together for a long time, all sounded much better than expected. I believe, the great number of shows we had played before this pause helped us a lot to stay in a good shape. From there we went to a hotel, left there our bags and equipment before going for dinner. And once again we ate in Sujinho, traditional São Paulo chain with different restaurants all around the city. Time flew by in eating and talking a lot and we could fall asleep only after 2 a.m.

On the next day after a walk and a breakfast on Av. Paulista we returned to the hotel to have a small rest until 6 p.m. when we had to go to Manifesto to do our soundcheck. I always wonder why we never come back to hotel and have to stay right at the venue till show-time, even if the show should start only at 2 a.m., like in this case! For sure, the soundckeck started only at 8 p.m. (when the soundcheck begins in time, it means that there’s Santa Claus who is working at the sound desk and Chip and Dale work as a roadie and a light engineer). Thanks God, we did it fast and closer to 9 p.m. we were already free. And what could we do to until 2 a.m.? For sure, to have a dinner was a great idea! Local people advised us some good shopping center located not far from there. I wanted to catch some cinema in between the dinner and the show, but couldn’t due to the schedule, so we came back to Manifesto (but only after going to drink a coffee with Felipe).

The show began after 2 a.m. and was very good. The venue was full and people were true and excited. It could have never been better. It’s very pleasant to look at the audience and recognize some faces of people who always visit our shows since the very beginning and some of them have already become our friends. I believe this is one of the best parts of our work (besides the opportunity to play with friends). To get to know new great people, new places, to find new friends… After the show finished at 4 a.m. we went to a bar to meet the fans, to make photographs, to do autographs and to talk with some friends. We returned to the hotel almost at 6 a.m. and although Paulo and Moreira wanted me to go to eat with them, I preferred to walk alone to the hotel to sleep for about 40 minutes. I had already learnt that our manager Vera would pick us up on eight to go to Ourinhos.

As soon as I put my head on the pillow, the time to go downstairs with the luggage came. From hotel – to Edu’s house where we drank some coffee and went to the place of our appointment with the crew of Rafael Bittencourt, since our show in Ourinhos was arranged for both bands. We were able to leave SP a little bit after eleven, I think so, and very soon I already fell asleep. But I awoke every hour because it was not so easy to put a 1,87m person like me comfortably in any seat of such a microbus like we were traveling in.

We arrived to Ourinhos almost at 6 p.m. Soundcheck was scheduled for six :lol: … Ok, happily, the crew of Bittencourt Project had come earlier to set the equipment. Soundcheck between six and nine and a dinner in some Argentinian restaurant not far from the venue. Great food and nice atmosphere. We returned to the hotel closer to 11. Chat, shower, bed with a book and alarm clock on the telephone rings. Show time!

The venue wasn’t really full. The local promoter told us that people have fear of crowds because of swine flu and he heard that many of them didn’t come due to that reason. Despite that, people who came really enjoyed the show. It’s great to feel the audience trembling with every song. I would have liked to see the show of Rafael, but unfortunately I was very tired after the previous night and this kept me from arriving to the venue earlier when we had to go to the stage ourselves.

The show finished, photos, autographs, chats, waiting for the roadies and we went to the hotel after 5 a.m. while our departure to SP was scheduled for six. How nice… My flight to Brasília was at the quarter past midday, thus I should have been at Guarulhos one hour earlier, 11-15. Coming into the bus, all of us fell asleep and the trip passed fast. We crossed the first SP precincts almost at eleven and Rafael was very kind to offer to bring me to Guarulhos airport, to another side of the city. During our way we had a great conversation about music, career, market, composition etc. I departed as planned, though with some small delay, and arrived in Brasília at 2-30 p.m. with some strange feeling that nothing had happened and I was still at the airport, taking the flight to SP... :lol:

Thanks to all who shared these shows with us and helped this trip. I hope to give you some great news soon!

Pictures from Ourinhos by Mitsuo