Individualism within a band bothers me. I think a band is a machine, a cog in a machine that should function as a whole

Wikimetal (Daniel Dystyler): Hey guys! Starting another episode of Wikimetal, I, Daniel Dystyler, are missing Rafael Masini today, but Nando Machado and I have a third member at the table today who will help us conduct the program masterfully. It's really cool, we're honored to have Fábio Ribeiro, a great keyboardist, here with us on Wikimetal, right Nando?

Wikimetal (Nando Machado): That's right, we have guest Fábio Ribeiro, the illustrious keyboardist, one of the great names of this instrument that is so unique in the history of rock and heavy metal. It's an instrument that some bands don't have, others can't live without. But we're going to talk all about keyboards, who the great masters are, the great influences of Fábio Ribeiro, this guy who's been in a thousand bands in Brazil, right Fábio? So, how's it going?

Fábio Ribeiro: How's it going, guys? Everything alright?

W (DD): It's an honor to have Fábio here with us, it's going to be great, you're going to help us run the show, you'll see it's a really relaxed chat, you're going to help us choose segments, pick songs, and especially talk about this topic that you understand so well. We, Nando and I, are more laypeople, talking about keyboards, their influence on the history of Metal, on the history of music, on the history of rock. I think it's going to be really cool.

FR: Thanks.

W (NM): To start, I'd like you to tell us more or less how you got into music, and in particular, Heavy Metal.

FR: Well, with music it started very early, in 1975. My father was a classical guitar teacher at the time, my mother also played piano, so it was kind of inevitable that I would get into it. When I was born, my father said, "You're going to have to play something... when you're a little older you can choose and see what's coolest," you know? "But you're going to have to play, you're going to have to play!"

W (DD): It was already a prerequisite at home.

FR: So it was already a prerequisite, there was no way to avoid it. And I started with a band in '83, an instrumental progressive rock band called Anubis, and Fábio Zaganin was the bassist, he still plays today.

W (DD): But you were what, 12, 13 years old?

FR: I was 14 years old.

W (NM): Zaganin, for those who don't know, is a great bassist, a great luthier, one of the greatest luthiers in São Paulo, in Brazil…

FR: So, Metal, the first band... because Anubis was instrumental progressive rock, then came Desequilíbrios, which was kind of fusion, kind of prog, kind of metal, kind of whatever.

W (DD): You were telling me about the drummer earlier, right?

FR: Exactly, with Chico Mocinho who later became the drummer for Clavion, exactly. Now, real Heavy Metal, although it wasn't that Heavy Metal yet, was A Chave de Sol in 1987, still with the lineup that included Beto, Tigueis, Ivan Busic on drums, and Roberto Cruz on vocals.

W (NM): That was the album The Key, right?

FR: It was The Key, the egg-shaped record. That's where I came in, with the egg-shaped cover.

W (DD): That's the record that has English on one side and Portuguese on the other, right?

FR: Yes, exactly that album right there.
W (DD): That album is awesome.

W (NM): Great Beto who lives in California now, I think.

FR: We've been in contact online, but it's been a while since I've seen Beto.

W (NM): He's a really cool guy. It's a really good album, it has Sun City, it has A Chave é o Show, it has several cool songs. Actually, A Chave do Sol was a great band in Brazil that… I think was even a little unfairly treated, because they started as an instrumental trio, kind of jazz, kind of jazz rock. Rubens Gióia, who was the guitarist at the time, was heavily influenced by Jimi Hendrix, he played with a Stratocaster. He had a Fender, Tigueis also had a Fender. It was Zé Luís on drums, Tigueis on bass and Rubens. They played at Fábrica do Som and I recorded them, at the time we had just bought that first Sharp VCR, remote control, wired.

FR: The one with two parts.

W (NM): Yeah…It had two parts, and we recorded the guys at Fábrica do Som and we couldn't believe how well they played.

W (DD): For me, I always associated A Chave with Rush, it was the Brazilian Rush. It was a trio and Tigueis reminded me so much of Geddy Lee…

W (NM): They played a lot, a lot. And then the band started changing their sound, then Rubens started singing, and then I don't know if he stopped singing.

FR: It was Fran.

W (NM): Then they put Fran in, they recorded a Baratos Afins album, right?

FR: The first one on LP, exactly.

W (NM): And then, I don't know, the band changed… and I think Zé Luís left and then Beto joined as vocalist, who is a great vocalist who had that Coverdale, Robert Plant… Robert Plant and David Caverdale influence. And they did excellent shows, A Chave do Sol, and that's when you came in, that time when A Chave played at Mambembe all the time.

FR: Then it changed to A Chave, when Rubens left, Edu Ardanuy joined, Zé Luiz Rapolli also joined on drums, and we continued for another two years, until 1989/90.

W (DD): And we were talking to Fábio about how many Viper and Chave shows there were during that Mambembe era, Dama Xoc, and everything else, that we must have crossed paths several times.

FR: Back when there were decent medium-sized venues to play music in São Paulo.

W (DD): That's right. And Fabio, going back to you, so that was your start, but what about the keyboard decision? Your father left it quite open…

FR: The keyboard decision was pretty funny, man…

W (DD): Because you started out playing guitar, right?

FR: Exactly, for that very reason. When I joined Anubis, well, it was close to Rock in Rio, there was that Metal fever in Brazil, and damn... I'd been playing piano for a good eight, almost ten years. And there was no way around it, man, I caught the guitar bug, there was no stopping me.

W (DD): Rock in Rio hammering in my head.

FR: My dad played guitar, my dad liked Randy Rhoads, Yngwie Malmsteen and stuff like that, and there was no way around it, I got the guitar and said "No, I'm going to take a chance playing guitar" and then I was actually in the band for a little over a year trying to play guitar, but it just didn't work out.

W (DD): It wasn't the beach…

W (NM): But you play, don't you?

FR: I scratch very poorly.

W (DD): That's a lot of sweat, isn't it?

W (NM): The guy who plays piano, he basically plays anything, right?

FR: And the guys from the band themselves came up and said, "Listen, you've been playing piano for ages, why don't you play something you know how to do?"

W (DD): Delicately…

FR: And then there was no way around it, we went and bought our first keyboard, all that stuff, and the fever got even worse and turned into an addiction and it never stopped.

Deep Purple and Blackmore were the true pioneers of mixing classical music and heavy metal

W (DD): Cool. And Fabio, speaking of keyboards, keyboardists… If you had to rank them for the Olympus, who would you consider the gods of the keyboard in history?

FR: In rock, it's funny, isn't it? I kind of admire the guys who made some sense and changed something. Number one, Keith Emerson for sure, who was the guy who put the keyboard in front, who dragged the Hammond organ across the stage, who stabbed the keys, who said, "The keyboardist isn't just a nerdy-looking guy with sunglasses in the dark at the back of the stage," you know? A guy with attitude. Not to mention that the guy plays... the hell he can do, right? I also have a lot of admiration for Rick Wakeman musically, I have a thousand influences from him.

W (DD): Especially for those starting out in programming, Journey To The Center Of The Earth…

FR: I made progressive rock albums and stuff, so there was no denying the influences. And Jon Lord, I think, too.

W (DD): And it was very sad this year, wasn't it?

FR: It's ours… It was a huge loss. And I didn't get to meet him, unfortunately. Of the trio there, I didn't meet Lord.

W (DD): And have you met the other two?

FR: I met the other two.

W (DD): That's great.

W (NM): And do you think Jon Lord, we've even talked about this before, do you think he was largely responsible for mixing classical music with rock, with heavy sounds like that?

FR: I think Purple in general, in the beginning, you know, him and Blackmore. I believe so, they were the forerunners of the whole thing, you know? Of mixing classical music and heavy metal and all that.

W (NM): It was that record they recorded with the philharmonic and stuff.

FR: Right off the bat, they released an album with an orchestra.

W (NM): That was Ian Gillan's first album, right?

FR: Exactly, exactly.

W (DD): And a lot of people followed after that at Jon Lord's school, like, I don't know… Don Airey.

FR: Exactly. Another guy I admire a lot is Don Airey, and David Rosenthal too, who was in Rainbow.

W (DD): The youngest ones too, Jens.

FR: Jens. Man, I ran into Jens a few years ago and I even told him, "Dude, I watched that Yngwie Malmsteen DVD until the tape stopped spinning."

W (NM): In Japan, there, Marching Out. We interviewed him.

W (DD): One of the first interviews we did at Wikimetal was with Jens.

FR: This is one of the modern keyboardists I admire, Jens Johansson. I think he's really cool.

W (NM): And Jordan from Dream Theater too?

FR: I had the pleasure of doing a workshop with Jordan this year. The guy is super nice, super good.

W (DD): He seems very nice.

FR: I didn't know him either, I met him at that particular moment. It was really cool working with the guy.

W (DD): Very cool. Very nice.

W (NM): Now, why do you think that? I don't know, it's been many years, but... A while back there were bands that were proud of not having a keyboardist, they even put "no keyboards" on their albums. Why do you think that prejudice existed?

FR: Queen had "no synthesizer" written on their albums up to a certain point, until they finally gave in. I think it was on Hot Space if I'm not mistaken.

W (NM): Why do you think that prejudice existed? Not anymore, right? Nowadays you even hear Black Metal bands with keyboards.

W (DD): Nowadays it's very curious, it's more common for a band to be proud that they don't have a second guitarist than that they don't have a keyboardist, like almost.

FR: True. I was even joking with my partner the other day, Alê, who's the bassist for Remove Silence, saying, "Hey, could it have been Ozzy, man?" at the beginning of the Diary Of A Madman tour, he put the keyboardist up there hidden in the castle tower. Of course not, but we joke around saying, "Could it have been the guy who got into the habit of putting the guy in the dark, not putting him in the photo, and not painting him gold…".

W (NM): It's because the guy doesn't appear in the band photo…

FR: "...even though he's responsible for half the sound on the album?"

W (DD): Maybe, huh?

FR: I don't know, I'm not sure exactly where this craze came from, but I think things are becoming a little more flexible now, right? But there really was a strange phase. The 90s, the beginning of the 2000s, things were really strange for keyboard players in Heavy Metal itself.

W (NM): It's also in the 80s, I think the keyboard sound that the guys recorded, I think even the new wave or the bands that were changing, becoming more commercial, used that keyboard with a sound that was too artificial. In the 70s, the keyboard playing with the Hammond organ, with the Fender Rhodes electric piano, was a great sound.

FR: More aggressive, right? Exactly.

W (DD): Even in the 80s, if you think about Perfect Strangers, for example, the beginning is fantastic. So I don't know, I think it was misused in some cases and that's perhaps why it created this prejudice, and it comes a lot from that Manowar line of saying, you know, "Dude, Metal is drums, bass and guitar and that's it," I don't know, it might be a little bit like that. Okay, let's do this, let's listen to some music here, I'll even skip a question here, Nando, do you allow me? So we can listen to some music. We're going to ask you to help orchestrate this musical selection for today's episode. So I'll start with our traditional question, the question we ask all the honored guests we receive at Wikimetal, a question they usually say is a joke, but let's see what you think, which is this: you're in the shower, in the car, in traffic, your iPod is playing millions of songs and suddenly a song comes on that throws you off balance, you have to nod your head, you have to move, you can't stay still, what song is that for us to listen to now at Wikimetal?

FR: Well, Waidmanns Heil from Rammstein.

W (DD): Rammstein on Wikimetal, new album by Rammstein.

W (NM): We just listened to Rammstein with the great song Waidmanns Heil, chosen by Fábio Ribeiro here at Wikimetal, which is also a band that has a very interesting keyboard performance, right?

FR: So, man, there's a band that... look, that's Heavy Metal, that's Heavy Metal in the 21st century, in my opinion, you know? I think that's the way to go.

W (DD): Very cool. And I said it's the new Rammstein album, referring to the fact that it's Rammstein's last album, which I think is from 2009 or 2010.

FR: Yeah, more or less. It's not that recent, but I think it's still the last one.

W (NM): Fabio, you've been in many bands, what's the biggest lesson you take away from all those bands you've been in?

FR: Look, the road was tortuous, wasn't it? We all know here that it's a rollercoaster, right? It goes up, it goes down, it goes up, it goes down, and so on all the time. I have a great affection for Shaman, although I haven't been an official member for reasons we were discussing a little while ago, most likely. I have a great affection and I felt it all the time, not because I felt that way myself, but because I ended up feeling that way due to external influences. I felt like I was kind of part of the band, because of the fans' affection, because of the freedom I had within the band to compose, to change arrangements when someone else composed and recorded, for example, like when André played keyboards and so on, and I had the freedom to go there and make changes if necessary, I participated in everything, in the activities and all that. So I think that was the one that affected me the most emotionally speaking.

"Of the new guys, I'd highlight Jordan Rudess, who's a genius. He's one of the very few modern keyboardists who invests in technology."

W (NM): And from that band, we remember three who I suppose are still great friends of yours today: André, Luis, and Hugo. You just produced Luis's new band's album, and you have a band with Hugo. So, talk a little about that relationship between André, Luis, and Hugo, who are practically like family.

FR: I've known André since the Viper days, we met around '85, '86 more or less, we did a lot of shows together during the Chave do Sol era, so it's a quarter of a century, there's no way around it. We had some periods of estrangement when he was, for example, in the first phase of Angra, which I didn't participate in. I only came back for the Fireworks tour at the time, even though I did the first show and all that, but there was this gap in between. I went to work with Korg at the time, there was no way to continue, right? And we still talk today, although now he's half Swedish, half Brazilian. And I ran into him at the Viper show the last time at Via Marquês, so everything is still great.

W (NM): And what about Luis and Hugo?

FR: I met Hugo a little late, funny, I'd known Luis for ages, since the Firebox and Black Jack days way back. And because Hugo was a bit younger, he wasn't always at the club either, so I only met him around '99. He was Luis Mariutti's brother who played guitar. It's crazy. We kind of shared ideas, ideals, ways of thinking about music, a lot of things. Hugo is a super musically versatile guy, incredibly open to any musical style, whatever it may be. So there was a really strong connection, so much so that it resulted in Remove Silence a few years later.

W (DD): And you mentioned several bands you've been in, that you've played with, that you have a good relationship with, from Angra, Remove Silence and all those, Shaman. Choose a song that you're proud to have been a part of, to have recorded, so we can listen to it here on Wikimetal.

FR: Man, I'm going to choose Endeavour from André Matos' solo album. That was the first song I contributed to completely, from start to finish, on one of their projects, you know? Because until then, since André recorded things with Angra and stuff, and with Shaman too, I did some things but I had production behind me, so I didn't have that much freedom. Now, with André, from the moment André decides, that's where I really got involved.

W (NM): Let's listen to Endeavour now, from André Matos' first solo album with Fábio Ribeiro on keyboards at Wikimetal.

W (DD): Okay, continuing here Fábio, tell us how you see the independent scene today and when you were starting out in the 80s, what do you think has changed? There are obviously technological changes that have made things easier or more difficult. Talk a little about your analysis.

FR: Nowadays, we're in a situation where it's every man for himself, God is on vacation, right?

W (DD): Good definition.

FR: God will be back soon. It's funny, man, on one hand you realize the conveniences we have today are infinitely greater than what we had in the 80s.

W (DD): Access to everything, right?

FR: Access to everything, you can promote your work without depending on anyone, which is excellent to tell you the truth. And on the other hand, I think that a little bit of that supposed magic we had, that almost esoteric thing surrounding it, I think that's been lost a bit, right? It ended up becoming a bit more automatic, a bit more… independent of “formulas,” I don't know how I'm going to explain this, but I think there are these pros and cons all the time. Well, with this whole evolution thing, let's say.

W (NM): And what has changed in Fábio Ribeiro's case since then?

FR: Look, man, I think the development was satisfactory. I started at a time when there was practically nothing, absolutely nothing. I learned to program my first synthesizer by reading a Spanish manual for a Casio keyboard that, luckily, had a synthesis course included. There were no magazines, no internet of course, nothing on TV, nothing on the radio. It was difficult to find information about the musical style you were playing, and about the instrument you were playing as well. The magazine Som Três, let's say, occasionally had an article about synthesis, how to program, which imported keyboards were good, and so on. And then there was this other problem too: "let's sell the house to buy a good keyboard," which at the time was impossible to buy equipment for…

W (NM): Besides, how many keyboards did you need? Did you ever do a show with, like… five keyboards?

FR: Seven keyboards, around six… seven.

W (NM): Nowadays you have a keyboard that has everything.

FR: Yeah, I'm using two, one being a controller for the second one that generates the sounds nowadays. It's something that has made this technology thing much easier, right?

W (NM): And in the production area, what have you been doing?

FR: So, I gradually got into this area, almost unintentionally, right? I don't know, keyboardists have a bit of an advantage in this area because when you get involved with your own instrument, you're already forced to know some concepts that are shared in the area of ​​recording, production, and so on, you know? The technological concepts there are the same in many aspects… effects processing, sampling itself, which involves recording and so on, right? So, kind of unintentionally, I learned this over the years, so it was kind of natural to set up a studio. I have The Brainless Brothers at home, which I've had for eleven years, so you end up getting involved with the business kind of naturally. This was excellent because I ended up becoming completely self-sufficient in this area of ​​doing things… you're going to record an album, you're going to make a new song, that's it, just press Rec Play and start recording, and start producing.

W (DD): And you opened up another area of ​​your work, right?

FR: Exactly. For the last five years or so, I've been doing serious production work. I did both Remove Silence albums with the band, right? And this Motorguts one too, which I could mention as one of the most interesting within the genre, since we're talking about rock, heavy metal.

W (DD): That's really cool. And speaking of interesting things, I'd like you to choose another song for us to listen to. This time I'd like you to request a song where you hear fantastic keyboard work, not metal or rock or anything like that, but something that makes you think, "It's worth listening to because what the guy did with the keyboard in this song is something to be proud of."

FR: You mean within the rock genre, right? Otherwise, I'd go for classical music performed with synthesizers, is that okay?

W (NM): Anything goes here, you're the guest…

W (DD): You're in charge here.

FR: You've probably heard of Walter Carlos or Wendy Carlos, who later changed sex, so to speak.

W (NM): Do Jethro Tull?

FR: That's the one too, actually.

W (NM): Is this a problem that happens to all keyboard players?

FR: I hope not. Today I'm at a certain age where whatever was going to go wrong should have happened sooner.

W (NM): But the guy from Jethro Tull, I think he was already about 60 years old.

FR: That's right, he admitted it later, didn't he?

W (NM): There's still time, Fabio.

W (DD): But tell me, choose one.

FR: Wendy Carlos, as he's known today, was one of the most responsible for introducing, if not the first, the synthesizer—the term "synthesizer," the word itself—to the world with an album called Switched-On Bach in around 1968 or 1969. It was all Bach's works, performed on a Moog synthesizer, which is a monophonic instrument that you have to program patch by patch for each sound you're going to make. That was already a masterpiece at the time. However, the album of his that I like the most is the soundtrack to A Clockwork Orange, the film. And there's the second movement of Beethoven's 5th Symphony performed by him, which is phenomenal. The way he managed to capture the nuances of the instruments, you feel all the dynamics, the atmosphere of an orchestra, you know? And in fact, it's being performed with a synthesizer from the 60s or 70s, without any special effects, recorded on a whim, without any sequence, all done manually, all the vocals, it's impressive. So for those who like Metal, who for some reason also have a taste for classical music, which I think is quite natural, I think people will enjoy it.

W (DD): So announce it and let's get started.

FR: Wendy Carlos, this is his version of the second movement of Beethoven's 9th Symphony. This is on the CD that's the soundtrack to Stanley Kubrick's film A Clockwork Orange. It's a version that's only with keyboard, only synthesizer.

W (NM): Then it must have been a lot of work.

FR: It's fucking cool. Can you imagine, there were eight tracks back then, and it was just ping pong.

W (DD): Play to one track, play to another, and play...

FR: And it's a whole orchestra, so you're going to do a violin line, it's a monophonic violin line... you do a line, the double part goes on another channel, with another patch, on the outside. If it's, I don't know, a chord track, it's four channels recorded one by one and without sequence, right? By finger.

W (DD): So this was the historic sound chosen by Fábio Ribeiro for us to enjoy, very cool.

W (NM): I'm sure the Wikibrothers will like it.

W (DD): And the question for him to choose a rock, heavy metal keyboard piece for us to listen to will come later, you choose one of those songs, we'll get there in a little while. Very cool. Fabio, of all the bands you've been in, which one do you miss the most? Which one would you like to be playing in right now?

FR: Of those I've already been through?

W (DD): You say things like, "It would be really cool to do a show now with Chave, Angra, Shaman…", which band would you like?

FR: Dude, if it weren't for the circumstances in which things happened, it's the Shaman. I know that will never happen, precisely because of those circumstances, but it would be the Shaman.

W (DD): But Shaman had a really cool moment, right?

FR: It's the band I miss the most.

W (DD): Were you at that Credicard show where they recorded the video and all that?

FR: Yeah, yeah. That was one of the most exciting shows I've ever done.

W (DD): That's one of the most impressive things I've ever seen on video, to believe that it was a Brazilian band's work, made in Brazil, with Brazilian production…

W (NM): Credicard packed, 8 thousand people.

W (DD): It sounds like Iron Maiden, it's Iron Maiden-style production.

FR: That was the third record attendance for Credicard Hall; only Djavan and Sandy & Junior had drawn a larger crowd before.

W (DD): So it was a magical day, wasn't it?

FR: For a Metal thing in Brazil, this is a historic achievement.

W (DD): And what a production! The show had everything.

FR: It was an hour of immense professionalism, the result of a year's work to produce the product beforehand, until we reached that level of quality, that level of quality... for sure, that's why I can say that the nostalgia comes from that very point.

I don't like "shredding" keyboards, I don't like showing off, I like to show art, sound, timbre, sound pressure, emotion

W (NM): That's really cool. And of the bands that have keyboards today, which one do you think serves as an example of "these guys know how to use a keyboard well" among the bands that are around today?

FR: Look, in Metal it's hard to find, it's hard to find.

W (DD): Even those speed Metal types like DragonForce, those ones...

FR: It's hard to find. I don't like "shredding" keyboards, I don't like showing off, I like to show art, sound, timbre, sound pressure, emotion, you know? To create a feeling in the listener that they don't exactly know where it's coming from, you know? And not this thing of... individualism bothers me. Individualism within a band bothers me a little, I think a band is a machine, a cog that should function as a whole, you know? So that's why I can't extract that from the vast majority of these new bands, from modern Heavy Metal keyboardists, speaking specifically of Heavy Metal, you know? For example, I'm thinking here and I can't find a band that I can recommend from the more recent ones, so I'll look to Purple, way back.

W (DD): Maybe like you said about Jens, maybe a little bit.

FR: Yeah, I'll look for Jens, and I'll look for Deep Purple, and things like that.

W (DD): Cool. It's good to hear an informed opinion from someone who knows about the subject, I think it's really cool. You already mentioned the Credicard show, so that show doesn't count because it's all contest for me, but tell me about another show that was memorable in your life, a show that made you think, "Wow, it was so cool to be there that day."

FR: When I came back to Angra in '99, things were kind of hectic because Leck Filho had replaced me back in the Angels Cry days, and he'd been in the band for six years, but then there were business problems, treatment issues, blah blah blah… and he decided to leave the band overnight, right at the beginning of the Fireworks tour, and then the guys called me. They called me back and said, "Hey, Leck's leaving, don't you want to come back to the band, don't you want to do this tour with us?" I said, "Sure… let's go," "When's the show?" "Oh, in two weeks." And by then they already had Angels Cry, Holy Land, and Fireworks, which is the most difficult, let's say, to play. Holy Land is a nightmare, then they don't put the keyboardist in the band, that's what I find funny, half the album is keyboards and there's no keyboardist in the band, but that's another story. Anyway, that's normal, and what did I have? Two weeks in, and I had a huge European tour of about 30 days, which was going to start within that week and a half. I unearthed the sheet music I had, that André had written—I still have it at home, the sheet music written by André… manuscripts from the time of the Reaching Horizon demo, it's all there, one day I'll frame it. And digging things up, I said, "It's not going to work," it's impossible to do a professional, quality job in a week and a half. For a keyboardist, it's not about sitting down and figuring things out; figuring them out is the least of it. The point is to program the sounds, do the setups to play live, do the sampling of the whole thing. It's the same work… the same work you have to do to figure out the music to play, you'll have to do to program it, or even more, to make it sound good.

W (NM): Because in reality, the keyboard isn't just a keyboard, right? The keyboard is a whole orchestra.

FR: It's something that few people worry about, and I think that's a shame, because the guy picks up the keyboard, messes around with the presets, adds two or three sounds, and everything's fine. Does it sound similar? Then it's great. It's also a matter of personality for the keyboardist, having your own sounds, your own timbres, something that someone hears and says, "Ah, it's so-and-so," even if you're playing something else, something that's not your style, but because of the timbre, the textures you use, the person can recognize you. This happens with Rick Wakeman, for example.

W (DD): I was going to say that, of all the modern bands, not just the keyboardist, but all the instrumentalists, I think Dream Theater is the band whose drum fills I hear the most from Portnoy.

FR: Of these new guys, for example, I would praise Jordan Rudess. He's a genius. He's one of the very few modern keyboardists who invests in one of the most important things in the profession, which is technology, technological advancements, innovations, trying to get the most out of your instrument and all that.

W (DD): And Dream Theater's fame allows him to do things like soloing with himself in cartoons on the big screen, and other things.

FR: The guy takes advantage of that in a really cool way. I admire that guy among modern keyboardists. And I was talking about the crazy thing, right? Then I called Rafael back, and I said, "Rafael, it's not going to happen, man. If you want me to do it professionally, to sound the way it's supposed to sound, I'm not going to tour with you guys in Europe in a week and a half, there's no way." On that tour, they did it with Fabricio, who was Shaman's keyboardist for a while after me, after the mess. Then I said, "You guys go, do it, and so on," I don't know how they resolved it in the end, but they went with this other keyboardist. Then on the way back, yes, I already had everything prepared, but not quite. I had everything written out in sheet music, because it's impossible to memorize all that in a few weeks, there's no way. In the first shows, I played reading, I admit, there was no way around it. And we went straight to Belfort in France, which is one of the biggest festivals that existed, I think it still exists today. There were about 40,000 people, I had just finished recording the sounds, the timbres. I didn't yet have very precise management of the timbre changes, of all the things, and I still had to read the score at the same time, figure it out, and also get the energy high during the show.

W (DD): Don't stand still.

W (NM): And pretending it was easy there.

FR: And then when I saw 40,000 people yelling “Angrrrá, Angrrrá, Angrrrá” out there, wow, I got a chilling shiver when I went up on that stage. That was the most thrilling show, the most spine-tingling.

W (NM): And how did it go?

FR: It went well. André wrote the sheet music for some parts of the new versions of Carry On because they had changed from what I had of his original sheet music from the Reaching Horizon era. He wrote it for me in the dressing room before going on stage. He said, "This detail here... there are a few things that could be improved."

W (DD): It's great to have a vocalist who's also a musician. Very cool.

FR: I climbed up reading Carry On for the first time, it was complicated.

W (DD): Very good. Okay, let's listen to a song then, a song that you think has a work of art, now of rock, metal, that has a work of art that is worth praising.

FR: Then let me think.

W (NM): I remember one year Eddie Van Halen won, I don't remember which magazine, the award for best keyboardist.

FR: Geedy Lee too.

W (NM): It was Jump, right? Because Jump, damn…

FR: Jump is like that, right? I even have a sound engineer friend of mine who was having a discussion with one of the guys in the band, saying, "Man, we play like hell, we're amazing musicians, but every time we go out, things don't work out, and we present another piece of work that seems like it's going to be a hit, but it isn't." The guy said, "Dude, show me one of your Jump songs then," meaning, "Make a hit," "Make something that will captivate people." The conversation there was about musical skills, you know? That was the point. The guy said, "Make something that touches people's hearts, not their brains, and you'll do well."

W (NM): And it's so simple, isn't it?

FR: I'll quote that then, I'll quote Jump by Van Halen, because it was made by a guitarist, you listen to it and you get it, of course the guy isn't a keyboardist, the way it was put together, but because of the subtlety, the intelligence, the vision of the guy to present something that became one of the biggest worldwide hits we've ever had.

W (NM): Almost 30 years.

W (DD): Plays at graduations, anything.

FR: Exactly. Van Halen's jump, with the solo and everything.

W (NM): Even the guys were talking about the best solo of I don't know what. Man, one of the best solos in the history of music for me is a song by Michael Jackson, Beat It.

W (DD): Which is Van Halen.

FR: What a wonderful guitar solo.

W (NM): What a guitar solo, it's perfect! It starts, it's fast, it ends, it's melodic.

W (DD): I think it's one of Van Halen's best solos. I think.

W (NM): He arrived and said, "Damn, I'm going to record with Michael Jackson," and he put in a lot of effort, he made it special, because he knew that it was going to be memorable, you know, Thriller.

W (DD): The soil is amazing.

W (NM): My solo has slow parts, fast parts, it has everything. It's the complete solo. And the whole song, the guitar arrangement of the song…

W (DD): Well, that was Eddie Van Halen on keyboards and guitars, chosen by Fábio Ribeiro, very cool. Wikimetal always surprises, right? In this special episode with Fábio Ribeiro, we've already had classical music, we've already had a guitarist on keyboards, very cool. What else, Nando? We're nearing the end of the interview.

W (NM): We're nearing the end, well first I'd like to thank Fábio very much, I've known Fábio for many years, since the time he was playing and I was there in the front row at Teatro Mambembe watching Chave do Sol's shows. Hey, we could have heard a Chave do Sol song from that great album, The Key, right? Did you record that album?

FR: No, I joined right after. I didn't record "The Key," I recorded "A New Revolution," the band's name was The Key, but not the album "The Key." I joined to do that tour that was right after the album's release. I recorded the one with Eduzinho on guitar, Zé Luis on drums, and the rest of the lineup was the same.

W (DD): This album has a song that I love called A Beiro do Pantanal, which I think is by Tim Maia.

FR: This one is really beautiful. In Portuguese, then we started playing in English.

W (NM): Is this Zé Luis the first Zé Luis or… which Zé Luis?

FR: When I joined, it was still Zé Luis Dinóla, the dentist, whom we called dentist because he was a dentist at the time, it was still him. We even did the Verão Vivo show on Bandeirantes at the beach with him still on drums, Zé Luis was joining the band and then Zé Luiz Rapolli joined, who is the other Zé Luiz, who stayed in the band for a long time until we all left at once in '91.

W (NM): So let's talk now, before we finish, let's talk chronologically because I've already gotten all confused here. Fábio Ribeiro…

FR: I didn't play at the Last Supper, people say I did, but it's a lie.

W (NM): So, let's start from where? The first more rock-oriented band was Clavion?

W (DD): We had this before with the same drummer.

FR: If we're going by order, Anubis was already Heavy Metal back then, it was instrumental, but it had a lot of Metal in it. Desequilíbrios was fusion, kind of messy, but it had Metal. I think Clavion was really Heavy Metal, because A Chave was kind of hard rock, right?

W (NM): But let's go in order, hence Imbalances, then The Key.

FR: The Key and then Clavion which was at the end of '88, then Overdose.

W (NM): Overdose, a great band from Minas Gerais that we even invited publicly, I'm going to invite Cláudio David, Bozó, who was a great band, right?

FR: I recorded You're Really Big, which is from '89, and I toured with them and stuff, that tour was really cool, a lot of fun, we toured the whole country.

W (DD): So after Overdose, what happened next, Angra already?

FR: It was Anjos da Noite with Sérgio Reis' son, Edu Ardanuy, and his brother, Átila, too, for about two years. Hard rock as well, right? Real hard rock.

W (DD): Anjos da Noite, I remember the album cover.

FR: Colorful Hard Rock.

W (NM): Hair Metal, the guys are calling it Hair Metal now. And after Anjos?

FR: That was Angra.

W (NM): Anjos, Angra. Angra, Shaman.

FR: Then I left, there was that break with Angra, then there was the return to Angra in '89…

W (DD): 99.

FR: That was in '99. From '93 to '98 more or less I was working in technology consulting... Korg, Kawai and some other companies.

W (DD): Then Angra returns, Shaman…

FR: Shaman, André Matos and Remove Silence. That's the sequence. And now Motorguts.

W (NM): And tell our listeners, for those who want to have a production by Fábio Ribeiro or record in Fábio Ribeiro's studio, how does it work?

FR: Hey, just get in touch, man. My profile is on Facebook, Fábio Ribeiro KB, you can find it easily. You can send me a message directly and I'll reply right away, no problem. My studio's name is The Brainless Brothers.

W (NM): The Brainless Brothers, but not so brainless, right? Because to make these programs, these recordings, you have to have a lot of brains.

FR: We'll figure out your sound, go ahead and do it.

W (DD): Shall we listen to one of Fabio's bands to wrap up the episode?

W (NM): Let's go.

W (DD): Choose a song from one of those bands.

FR: Since we're talking about Metal, let's look at the Metal side of Remove Silence, which, despite not
being a band labeled as Heavy Metal, has some songs that are just killer. Wormstation.

W (NM): Fábio Ribeiro, Hugo Mariutti…

FR: Alê Souza and Edu Cominato.

W (DD): That was Remove Silence ending our episode. Fábio, I wanted to thank you so much for your time. I know our schedules aren't easy to meet up here, but it was really great to have this chat and for you to have shared so many stories. Our space here is always open for you to promote your work.

FR: Thank you so much for the opportunity, it's really great. Thanks to everyone who's listening. Cheers.

W (NM): That's it. Fábio Ribeiro on Wikimetal.

Listen to the full episode: