Today we’re gonna offer you an exclusive interview with Samuel Skelter, a young Brazilian artist hosted in one of our tracklists and “deus ex machina” of the project “Automatic Pilot Required”
Hi Samuel, and thanks for spending a little bit of your time here with us! First of all, tell us something about you...
About myself, man, well, I'm a proletarian boy which growed up in the countryside, had what people call mystical experiences since early age and, at the same time, is simply mad 'bout rock'n'roll stuff and everything like that. I've learned to write, play and sing songs, to record, edit, mix them and everything is needed in order to finish them. The same is true for the graphic art: I’ve learned everything all alone. I love to draw since I was a boy, and since I'm a music addicted from my childhood, I learned everything alone, even this rough english I'm using to talk to you right now. The countryside is not a busy place... you know, you don't have so many things to do 'round here. Either you begin to create things related to what's in your mind (you make fuckin' good music, for example), or you become a junkie, as the most of youth here. I have choosen both, hehe. But now I'm almost 29, man, I'm too old for it, you know, so I'm just worrying bout my music and forgetting what's "not recommended", hehe...
During our survey of the web, we noted that many Brazilian talented musicians take inspiration from contemporary (but also past, as well) Anglosaxon artists. You don’t seem to be an exception...
I have great rock'n'roll and alternative influences like those of the fuckin' Happy Mondays and psychedelic ones like Beatles and Os Mutantes. Primal Scream are a great influence as well ("Décimo Quinto Grau" is pure "XTRMNTR" and "Evil Heat" influence, for example), Goldie is ok with his drum'n'bass, but I prefer DJ Marky and Amon Tobin. Roni Size is smart as well... there's a lot of nice names, like the fuckin' Chemical Brothers, which are my favourite electronic music artists side by side with the fuckin' Prodigy.
...anyway, you show quite quite a strong propensity towards “contamination”, in my opinion...
Shure!
I love Manu Chao, which is of both French and Spanish origin but makes a fuckin’ nice brazilian (latin) stuff as well. I love also his former band, Mano Negra, and I love Brazilian Octopus, a fuckin great brazilian formation from the 60's, with Hermeto Paschoal, Lanny Gordin - my fave guitarist ever, beyond Hendrix in my bad paid opinion -, and others, I love Elis Regina, Os Mutantes, Caetano, Gil, Gal, and lots of crazy stuff from the last two centuries 'til now.
What about the Brazilian musical scene? You know, we European people are a little bit ignorant about foreign “movements” ...
Well, it's alright, I like it. On a national level of popularity, we have a nice history ‘bout the fuckin' 60's and 70's: Os Mutantes, that I love so much, and lots of other very nice psychedelic bands as well. Then we have the great history of our 80's with the punk rock and pop scene from Brasilia and the indie revolution of the 90's; now the things go better even from an international point of view: we have the fuckin' tropical punk and electronic stuff of the amazing CSS, we have the folk rock of the newest genius Mallu Magalhães - our Dylan in skirts! Heh -, we have Tony da Gatorra, which is a kind of electro-punk hippie stucked in time, who invented his own instrument, his gatorra (the reason of his name, of course), as we have lots of native brazilian music good new artists and great names of all kinds of music too, both underground and mainstream. We just have to keep it up. This is my point of view. But we need that the wankers stop what we call "jabá" here, that means that some artists which appear in all kind of media here, well they pay for it "by the clothing underneath," a kind of bribery for real, a local stuff that rolls between media, some of the big record labels and this poor kind of artists. I don't give a fuck 'bout it, but the only problem is that it makes it possible for these artists to access the media, while the real good ones of the country, since they don't have the same money to invest in this "game", have to keep on struggling in the market independently, if they want to have any wider dissemination. Eu peço o fim do jabá na música, pelo menos! I ask for the end of "jabá" (bribery) in music, at least! It's the worst stuff for it. Thanx God we have internet and mp3 stuff, it's the beginning of the end for their dirty games.
The last thing you said let me ask you something more about the internet. What do you like and how could it be better? You know... I'm planning to do something more than a blog and I'm interested in other musicians’ opinions about the web. I'd like to do something really useful for every good musician...
Well, about the internet, I really appreciate it, expecially when it have a totally free content. Everything in the internet should be free, broadband connections should be free and provided to all, as our open tv here. Music needs to be a free stuff, artists should make money only from gigs and sale of records. Internet mp3 stuff and all that things should be free. Society has alredy decided it, the big bosses of music industry have just to accept it now. There's nothing more that they can do about it now. For example, you asked for my opinion about yor blog: the best you can do is to keep on doing what you’re doing, i.e. reveal new unknown artists from all the whole world, and try to include sessions of downloads, mp3 and videos: this is the real interesting content, as the texts about the phenomena you are discovering everywhere are. Nice information and nice stuff available for free, there's no secret.
What’s the state of mind with which you live your music and your life? How much “Brazil” is there in all of it?
I'm out of the little things which use to bother people all over this planet. I'm beyond all this conflicts of the mankind. Only those who are immersed in the wordly illusion can be affected by such things. We just have to be at the level of the only real Truth: Love. Love is God. Live in love, help ever, hurt never, and everything's gonna be alright. Music's powerful, we can mix fun with good deed in it. This is the fuckin' secret. Duty with Consciousness. The meaning of life. The shortest path to the Goal. It doesn't matter if you're a punk, have no religion or are a monk: only if you work with intelligence you will triumph. It's a fact. I agree that there's no path to follow, ‘couse all path or non-path will always end in the Goal as well. The difference is the shit that you'll have to face if you have no intellect. About the influences again, I should tell you something about “Automatic Pilot Required”‘s influences, of course, but if I should tell you ‘bout me, myself, my influences, I'd tell you I love Elvis, Dylan, Beatles, Os Mutantes, Sex Pistols, Stones Roses, Oasis and that.
Well... do you agree if we end this intwrview talking about football and its phenomena?
Adriano is really a big trouble! And I'm a "Milan" fan... and Ronaldo... well, you know! I think that maybe some of the greatest football talents are just like Bob Marley, or Jimi Hendrix or Kurt Cobain... and I love these big talents because they are "human", and not machines…
About Adriano, well I'm watching São Paulo vs Audax Italiano (0 x 0 'til now) right now, and the men on the tv are just talking ‘bout his bad behaviour and his bad football nowadays, and that if he becomed “the Emperor" there in Italy, that's obviously due to his former nice football, not to his current shit, of course. But this is so just because of his lack of discipline. It's like with music: if you get too hard on drugs you will fall. He should let nightclubs and everything like that only for his holydays…***
Thank you Samuel, it has been a pleasure for me to know you better! Keep in touch!
Thanx a lot and have a nice week in Italy, chap! I'll try to go over there some day as well. It's where my family came from. I'm an italian descendant both for my dad's last name and for my mum's one (Pelegrini and Bazani), I guess from Sicily, and it would be great being there some day.
Carlo Trevisan
*** PS by Samuel: In that game São Paulo was playing, Adriano scored 2, and we won 2 x 1, heh. The fuckin’ Adriano did wheesht our geggy ("shouted our mouth", Scottish expression). He's a fuckin’ great player, no doubt.
posted @ Sunday, March 23, 2008 2:45 PM