Interview By Dimitri Kalagas
Until a few years ago, rarely were we exposed to music originating outside of the US, Europe or Australia, unless you went on a hard dig through record stores or ventured overseas to find it. Even then the searches were rarely fruitful, uncovering nothing but insipid ‘world music’ type shit. However, it seems that times they are a-changin’. Thanks primarily to music blogs and a few forward thinking individuals, access to contemporary music from formerly inaccessible places is now common, uncovering a new wave of artists and genres, that collectively are helping to reinvigorate a world of music that was on the verge of drowning in mediocrity.
Enter Bonde do Rolê, a Brazilian trio who, since forming around two years ago have been shaking things up internationally with their unique blend of pop and Brazilian baile funk. Discovered by Diplo and consequently signed to his label Mad Decent, Bonde do Rolê are self-confessed clowns, wreaking havoc on tours through Europe and the US, leaving a steaming pile of debris in their wake. During their recent tour through the UK Lifelounge managed to chase up Pedro D’Eyrot for a chat about their debut LP … With Lasers.
LL: How did you guys originally meet and decide to form a band together?
PD’E: Gorky and I were DJs and basically it was really boring. So we got together and started making music, putting together everything that we liked and basically we got something out of that.
LL: Your album has a really diverse range of sounds, obviously with a heavy baile funk influence. So what sort of music were you making before you started Bonde do Rolê?
PD’E: Gorky was into house, and we were into electro and some baile funk, and we also liked every trashy thing from the 80s and the 90s as well. All that stuff, and we put it all together.
LL: So how does the song writing process work with the music that you produce now? Where do you pull your influences from?
PD’E: Well, for instance, for the first song of the record we were like ‘yeah it would be really cool if we could sound like Iron Maiden’. So we got our friend Ken who knows how to play the guitar and we said, like, ‘We want to sing like Iron Maiden, just like them’. So he plays and then we kind of sample ourselves you know? He made the riff and then we get it, distort it in the computer, and make a song out of it.
LL: A genre like baile funk is obviously very heavily sample based. Is that a method you still work with now, or are you producing more of your own samples you then cut up?
PD’E: Well we had to produce our own stuff in order to release it. We still like sample stuff but we have to release it underground unfortunately. Even though we produce our own stuff, sometimes we like it to sound as if it was sampled.
LL: You sing in Portuguese, so what are the lyrics about? Where do you come up with your ideas for them?
PD’E: They’re mostly about stuff that happens to us. Like for instance we might go out to a club and then meet a friend who tells us a nasty story about a girl, or something else that we find funny. For instance, Marina was watching a movie about a guy, and she was like, ‘Oh no way, how can someone can be that macho. He has to be gay or something’. So we write a song about it.
LL: I read somewhere that you’re using a dialect of Portuguese appropriated from the gay community?
PD’E: Yeah during the 90s, there was a whole clubber scene, and these people had colourful hair and were wearing different clothes. So there was a lot of prejudice against them and in order for them to go out they had to go to the gay places, because they wouldn’t be hassled there. They started to have their own slang, and people in their crowd got together with the gay scene and that’s how the slang happened.
LL: Who or what are some of your influences and has baile funk been a major source of inspiration for you guys? Or is international music more of an influence?
PD’E: Yeah, more of the international stuff. Things like rock bands. Stuff that we used to listen to when we were kids. Baile funk a little bit, but the thing about baile funk is that they’ve been using the same samples for many years. When we play we’re like ‘alright, let’s do it but let’s add new stuff to it’. Because they’ve sampled the same freakin' stuff over and over. So we’re going to do it like they do it, but we’re going to use more influences.
LL: You have created a completely fresh style of music and people are taking notice because it’s something different, interesting and exciting. What’s the response been like for you in Brazil, because obviously it has been quite big overseas?
PD’E: Well in Brazil it’s a bit complicated because there’s actually prejudice against us. Brazil doesn’t actually support Brazilian stuff in the underground. There’s a little bit of jealousy you know? So they don’t really like it. Other kids in Brazil are trying to sing in English to sound cool, they think singing in Portuguese sounds funny. We sing in Portuguese and people seem to like us overseas, but Brazilians are like, ‘aah you guys are really boring’.
LL: Really?
PD’E: It’s the way a lot of Brazilian people think unfortunately.
LL: So do you think that has limited the music scene in Brazil, and the quality of the music that has come out of Brazil?
PD’E: Oh yeah a lot. Totally. Baile funk hadn’t come out of Brazil earlier because of that, but it has been out in Brazil for many years. A lot of people weren’t proud of it, so it was really hard for people to get to know it outside Brazil.
LL: Obviously Diplo has been influential in bringing that genre of music out of Brazil. How did you guys meet Diplo?
PD’E: The thing about Diplo is he has this huge network of people. So everyone knew someone who knew him. If you’re a DJ and you know about cool stuff from your area, you send it to Diplo and then he sends you back stuff from different areas. So there are lots of people in this crazy network, and he got our sounds, found out who we were and started playing us. And then we met and it happened from there.
LL: So what’s your relationship with him like now? Has he been a bit of a mentor for you guys?
PD’E: He’s a really good friend, like an older brother. We hang out a lot.
LL: Has he given you a few ideas about how to go about making it overseas and in the music industry and all that sort of stuff?
PD’E: Yeah, more giving us advice about our behaviour in the music world.
LL: What sort of advice does he give? Like not to party too hard?
PD’E: Yeah that too and to wear decent clothes and we were like, ‘Fuck no!’
LL: So what do you guys think about the Internet and music blogs? It seems to play a big part in bands being able to get music out there. Was it something that you guys intentionally tried to use to get your music heard?
PD’E: In the beginning, we didn’t really get into it. But with this one, … With Lasers, we knew the power of it already and Gorky is a really big fan of music blogs, so he was scanning everything like crazy.
LL: I actually heard about you guys on a blog. I got one of your remixes from it. So do you get asked to do a lot of remixes? How does that work?
PD’E: We find it really important because we come from the DJ culture and we know how it works. A lot of people get to know you from your remixes first, and if they like the remixes then they go see what you sound like. So we give out a cappellas very easily so people can remix us. We make it really easy for them.
LL: So when you’re doing remixes for other people, do you have a style that you put into your remixes or does it depend on the original track?
PD’E: Well, not really, but people often do like us to do baile funk, and sometimes when we don’t they are a little disappointed.
LL: What sort of other stuff would you do other than baile funk?
PD’E: Well we try not to think of a particular style, you know? We try to make it sound good. I don’t know why, but we always end up going towards baile funk.
LL: You guys have had quite a lot recognition in a small period of time. Did you ever think that you’d get signed to a big label and tour all over the world?
PD’E: Well, we never saw that coming. It was a big surprise!
LL: What do you see as the next step?
LL: I have no idea.
LL: You don’t have any grand plans or anything like that?
PD’E: No not really. Now we’re going to get into the festival season here in Europe. I think it’s going to be really great because we like to play outdoors. We’re trying not to over react about stuff.
LL: For your live shows, you’ve got a reputation for going pretty crazy. How do you go about translating your recorded music into a live set?
PD’E: I don’t know. I think we get drunk.
LL: If you guys weren’t making music, what do you think you’d be doing now?
PD’E: Man whoring! I don’t know. I think we would be unemployed.
Bonde Do Rolê’s debut album … With Lasers is out now through Domino Records.
Check out the video for their track Solta O Frango here.
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