Andre Matos almost left Angra permanently after the release of Holy Land (1996) – and it was all thanks to a joke, as Luis Mariutti the Ibagenscast .
“There was a huge mess at the time, the band's atmosphere was already terrible, and a joke was made that the manager later – I don't know why – fueled a fire and presented to Andre as something serious. And Andre said, 'Okay, then I'm out,'” the bassist recounted.
When Andre's decision reached the other members, several contacted the singer to seek a solution to the disagreement, even the manager Olivier Garnier . "I think everyone ended up talking to Andre, I remember talking to him, explaining the whole situation, I said 'Andre, the atmosphere might be terrible, but it really wasn't a serious thing', it was a ridiculous joke, actually, that shouldn't have been done at that time. The manager knew it was a joke, but in the end, it came across to Andre as something serious," he continued.
The situation was so serious that Edu Falaschi even rehearsed with Angra as a possible replacement for Matos, but the original vocalist would return to record the band's last album, Fireworks (1998), before leaving the group permanently in 1999.
