Interviews: Interview with AURAS Vocalist Gui Oliver
Posted on Sunday, April 18 @ 22:18:38 EDT
Topic: Interviews
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Gui Oliver
Leading AOR's Next Generation
by Tommy “Hashman” Hash
Arena rock never died, even if many bands are limited to playing festivals and clubs, the spirit remains tried and true to the big anthem choruses, huge hooks, and high spirited catchiness that cuts to the chase and grabs the heart and soul of all musical elements, basically meaning the songs are delivered with power, as the strengths of the songs themselves hold to pop sensibility with a hard rock edge. With troubadours such as Journey and Toto as well as reinventors Harem Scarem & Fair Warning being visible, new artists have amassed on the scene signaling a new area of anthemic tunes - Last Autumn's Dream, Work of Art, W.E.T., Blanc Faces, and Auras among others are standing tall purveying AOR.
Hailing from Curitiba, Brazil, both vocalist/guitarist Gui Oliver and guitarist Ferpa Lacerda felt the urgency to write original material after honing their chops in cover bands. Upon forming Auras, the band's experience playing the big tunes from the big rock bands had shaoped the band to really create tunes laced with the mass of melody amid the soulful edge and upon hearing their latest album, New Generation, (Frontiers Records) this band sounds like seasoned veterans as this collection of rock and pop collision is brought forth with powerful delivery from the rock and roll of "Beauty of Dreams" to the balladry of "Into My Arms" - the question is posed, "why isn't this music mainstream;" but an answer is given into the fact that although most might see this band as rooted in the 80's rock fashion, it's plain to see that this type of music is timeless, and not dated at all. Gui Oliver discusses about how all of this came together and what beholds upon one of Frontiers' new artists.
"It began in 2007," begins Oliver, "actually before that, myself and Ferpa we were in a cover band called Eye on You, and we decided to create our own music, write our own songs, we were tired of playing cover songs and so we did it; the rest of the guys didn't want to and that's how it got started. My father was a musician back in the 70's, I listened to the music that he loved, so when I discovered REO Speedwagon, Journey, Chicago, Toto, Styx, & Foreigner, I just went crazy; I started to learn the guitar and I also started to sing as well. After a few years I started to just sing. After singing in both cover and original bands - I am now here."
For a debut, New Generation holds as one of the strongest from a band, and with a debut album, you really ride on the fact that you have your band's complete existence up until that point represented where you are are introduced - but again it was about the experience the band had with the cover bands, their love for the music, and the confidence in themselves, where the only sense of urgency is found in that fact that these guys wanted to go out on their own and just do it, "The cover bands I used to be in, I played some songs by Journey, Survivor, & The Storm; some songs that are known very well here in Brazil, but we made the audience hear this music and they liked it," explains Oliver, "one cover band I was actually in, we wrote an original called "Angry Hearts" and the other guys didn't really want to go and record this song - so Ferpa and I decided to make the rest of the songs on our own. When we created Auras, we had about five songs ready to record, so we recorded them to make a demo, to show the record labels and everybody else what we could do as a band; after that, Frontiers Records contacted us and the rest is history.
Their down-to-earth lyrical approach, it also is a strongpoint alongside the musical elements, "When I write the lyrics, I want to say something that can add to the melody, being something that people can relate to," elaborates Oliver, "I talk a lot about faith. It's very hard for a band in Brazil to sign to an international label and release this kind of music, so the lyrics are all about good things and the great things we have in life - to believe in what we are doing and to love what we are doing, the songs are very upbeat and optimistic - I don't want to talk about sad things and if people listen to our songs they should feel good about it, not thinking about the sad things we have in the world."
Brazil is known for producing artists Sérgio Mendes and Eliane Elias ,who have brought the ethnic sounds of their country into mainstream territories; you also have Sepultura, Angra, and Soulfly being flag wavers for the country's metal scene, finding a large following abroad. Even being within a country with a big music scene of it's own, it hasn't been easy for Auras to actually break big over there...yet at least, "Actually I think we are one of the first bands that started playing AOR," states Oliver, "Now we have great bands such as Highest Dream and N.O.W. (feat. Phillip Bardowell) that are making this music, but they aren't really bands, they are more like projects, so I think that our reputation is to play live and make records. We have some great bands here, but no so much AOR; we do have our share of cover bands too and it's difficult for us, because promoters really want to book cover bands first, so we don't have too much space to make our music; but we fought it and we did it, by making the album, so now we are going to try to go out and play live around Brazil, outside our hometown - that's our goal to play outside Brazil and I think our audience is outside Brazil because the record was not even released here yet. We would love to go to Europe and the U.S.A., that would be great for us. The American bands created this type of music, I know that some of these bands that play this type of music might playing just clubs and festival, such as MelodicRockFest, but the whole melodic rock/AOR scene not as huge as it should be."
Being the songwriters that they are, they are eager to create more material as they tend to constantly be in writing mode, "We wrote a song for Fergie Frederiksen, the ex-Toto singer who has an album coming out on Frontiers later on this year, I think. Dennis Ward is handling the mix of the album, It's very Toto-ish," hints Oliver, "We have another album in our contract with Frontiers, so we can't waste our time, we have to create more songs, and we are always writing. We have some extra songs that we might use another time. I have a lot of acoustic songs that I think are beautiful, but they don't necessarily work with Auras, so maybe I can use those for other artists."
So as Auras has hopes to go out on tour and play their music to the melodic rock masses, the reception of New Generation has kept the band in the good spirit to move ahead with more music, "Now we are rehearsing a lot and we want to play a big show in our hometown to present these songs to our local audience, but it's hard because again, the album wasn't released in Brazil - it's very hard to get the albums here, because it's very expensive to actually import them, so it's taking time to take off here," concludes Oliver, "Yet the reception of the album abroad has been great with so many reviews being positive; this is great for us. We want to play live, this band is a live band so the main thing now is to play live, after that we want to make more records to make this band bigger; we have faith in this and faith in our music - so it boils down to playing live and making records. We would really like to thank everybody for the positive response of this album; even some musicians have been e-mailing us and we hope to see everybody live out on the road. The next album will also show that we have grown as well, so I hope the next album will be better than this one, I think we will put together some great songs again."
Copyright and Publishing: 2010 Tommy Hash for Ytsejam.com
CLICK HERE to read a review of New Generation
CLICK HERE to view the video for "Beauty of Dreams"
Please Visit:
Auras at MySpace
Auras at Facebook
Gui Oliver at MySpace
Frontiers Records
Frontiers Records at MySpace
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