The
singer, musician and songwriter Andre de Brito was born in Lisbon, Portugal though,
the artist prefers to call himself a ‘citizen of the world’. “I am the least patriotic
person in the world,” he adds. His journey in music began when he was five
years old but taking piano classes. “In that time I was too dumb and I quit
piano lessons,” he comments.
Brito
tells us that during his teenage years he used to practice guitar a lot, sometimes up to twelve
hours per day; nowadays he divides his times on singing and composing. He chose the guitar because of its portability; he could bring it
everywhere easily. His parents were his greater supporters; they always paid
his instruments, music classes, and encouraged him to carry on with his projects.
About
the difficulties in the beginning of his career the artist says it was complicated to find people to play with and venues to perform and he argues it is still a struggle.
Brito plays guitar, piano, bass guitar and he also ventures himself on drums, percussion and
saxophone. On his music path he took classes in several music schools. “Two
important teachers on my music trajectory were: João Charepe, who opened my
mind up to the different vocal techniques; and Pedro Madaleno in terms of music
composition and theory,” he emphasizes.
Brito
comments he usually listen to diverse music genres. “Some musicians may
influence me in terms of vocal expression but not in composition field; I would say
in terms of vocals some of my references are Mike Patton, Freddie Mercury,
Sinatra,” he adds. About music composition he says he is currently attracted to a mix of pop and funk style like Prince, Michael Jackson and James Brown, among others.
“I’m inclined to enjoy so different things, from Pat Metheny to Nine Inch
Nails, from Bach to Bjork,” he points out.
His
first performance was in Almeda, his hometown in Portugal; he states he cannot
remember the place's name because it was a long time ago; he received no money
from this gig. Although the performance went on pretty good he was
nervous and excited on the stage.
In
addition to singing and playing different musical instruments, Brito is also songwriter and composer. He started
writing music when I was around fifteen to sixteen years old. “I have written
music from pop to rock up classical music, and other genres; I am not a religious
person but I believe music comes from our spiritual side, like an empty box in
our brain where creativity flows from nothing,” he reveals.
Brito
says his writing process is quite diverse: he can pick the guitar up or sit down on the
piano, and just come up with some musical ideas and then move forward or he may start with the lyrics and the vocal melody. “There are times as
well as the entire song shows up in my head with vocal melodies and instruments
included; walking seems to have a creative effect in me as well; I get musical
ideas on the most bizarre moments as well,” he comments.
He
tells us his writing process is to try to translate the musical ideas on his
head into a physical product; this could start by writing the
chord progression or part of lyrics but he also works differently like for instance by creating a beat on a
computer and record his vocals directly to see where his creativity
flows and what comes out. “Other peculiar stuff I do is to watch movies while
composing particularly lyrics; sometimes I use something an actor said or a word or phrase triggers something inside me,” he describes.
Brito
have collaborated with the singer Melanie Spencer which resulted on the music
project called MEL, a pop soul project that started in 2010. Two of their
songs are available on YouTube: Crazy, and Shine. “These songs
are from our second album called ‘New Soul’ released in 2014,” he adds. Brito
tells us he generally doesn’t like the songs he composes; however, there is a
ballad called ‘I Can’t Say Goodbye’ written by him that he really appreciates.
He
has an extensive discography of over 15 albums from different projects using
different artistic names but he is currently focusing on his pop music project
with some funk influences. “I am about also to release a new CD until the
end of 2017. My body of work is very eclectic since I am curious about
different musical genres,” he points out. He reveals that in his recordings he invites some musicians who are his friends and better
instrumentalists than him.
He
signed with the indie Swedish label PR Records with his project MEL but his projects solo are
still released independently. Brito
argues that there are so many ways of promoting music although it is difficult to be noticed. “People give more importance to someone who makes covers on YouTube
rather than someone who makes original music;” he laments. The artist tells us
he uses social media but he thinks it also distorts the reality and takes away
the mystery around the artist.
Brito
comments he loves the creative music aspect of making something out of nothing. “I love
working in the recording studio as much as I like performing live,” he emphasizes.
Asked about the music meaning in his life he takes a long breath and says: “It
means everything, it sounds cliché but it is real... I don't care about fame, I
care about music quality”.
In
addition to his music career, Brito also does voluntaries gigs; one of them was
an improvisation with actors in a performance style called ‘Playback Theater’ that
involved people with rough background such as formers drug users. “They would interact
with the actors and I would improvise music on top of it; this would help them
recover psychologically speaking,” he describes.
Inquired
on his expectation in the world’s musical future Brito points out: “I hope that
some of the artificiality in music that is perfectly evident nowadays goes away
and we focus again on music quality; now we have artists on Top40 that can't
even sing, they can't play an instrument, they don't write or produce their own
songs; you take a look at someone like Stevie Wonder or Prince and you could
see real raw talent there; and they were control freaks in terms of their work
and creativity”.
And
to conclude our interview Brito emphasizes that music is what makes him happy,
and he tries not to waste his time with negativity. To learn more about the
artist’s please go to: André Brito Official Website; Fan Page;
Twitter;
and YouTube.
by
Zel Florizel
