TOGETHER WE STAND, DIVIDED WE FALL”

By Nando Machado

My life has always been surrounded by a lot of music. Since I was little, my parents listened to a lot of quality music at home: Caetano Veloso, Tom Jobim, Elis Regina, Chico Buarque, Gilberto Gil, and the Beatles… The Beatles, in fact, have always been my favorites. I remember my father putting on the Abbey Road vinyl to play in the living room; I still love that album to this day, perhaps one of the best albums ever recorded. I remember my mother crying in the living room, watching the news, when they said that a certain John Lennon had died—the same guy who was on the cover of that album kissing a woman on the mouth, a black and white photo, Just Like Starting Over . I was only seven years old when I discovered that, yes, evil existed in the world.

That's when I started listening to the Beatles more and more. When I went to Recife to visit my cousin Pedro, we would secretly listen to the Beatles all night in his room—me, my brother, and my cousin, all older than me—until we fell asleep. Good times.

I was always the youngest in the building. Some kids from the 8th floor were always at my place, and suddenly they started bringing us records to listen to that they had borrowed from their school's record library (what a cool system, they could borrow records and return them days later...).

Queen, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Kiss, Kiss and more Kiss. ​​After all, Kiss was coming to Brazil and, after Queen and Van Halen (shows I was too young to attend, unfortunately), finally in 1983 I was going to see a Kiss concert. I was already 9 years old and this was going to be the biggest concert in the world! My mother was going to take me along with my brother and the guys from the 8th floor, it was going to be amazing. Then I started listening to Kiss non-stop, I took clippings of the band to school, those second-grade kids didn't understand anything, they said they killed chicks on stage – that's why they had those pointy boots.

But just listening to Kiss wasn't enough. Our friend Cássio had a group that lip-synced Kiss songs, the Kiss Army, and he invited me to 'be' the drummer Peter Criss. I was Peter, Cássio was Paul, Marquinhos was Gene, and Eduardo Simões was Ace. Soon after, he was replaced by Andre, our neighbor from the building and a guy with a more appropriate look. In 1984, we performed on TV, on Wandeco Pipoca's show. Just to give you an idea, at that time the clowns Atchim and Espirro were still supporting characters. It was a lot of fun spending the day at TV Gazeta waiting for our turn, and finally we recorded a lip-sync of Love 'Em and Leave 'Em: we had to copy exactly the videos we watched on Som Pop and Super Special, music programs that showed videos long before the birth of MTV.

At that time, my mother had bought a Sharp VCR with a (wired) remote control; it was amazing, the pinnacle of home technology. So, we started recording rock videos from TV programs like Super Special, Som Pop, Fábrica do Som, and a little later, Realce, Clip Trip, etc. The picture quality was terrible, but we watched them millions of times anyway.

It was around that time that I started going to Woodstock Discos, back when it was still in the José Bonifácio gallery. I went there almost every Saturday with the guys from the 8th floor. Many times, we walked there to save bus fare, hoping we could buy a record or cassette tape with the savings. It was so cool having older friends; I was 9 or 10 years old, and my friends were already 12, 13, 14. It was awesome hanging out with that group. Everyone had long hair, wore rock band t-shirts, and leather jackets (even in the heat).

We used to buy bracelets downtown; we had to run from the punks. It was scary, but it was amazing. On weekends, my dad would take us to a movie theater on Avenida Faria Lima, inside a shopping mall called Call Center: it was the Rock Show. What a delight to enter a small, moldy room to watch videos with terrible picture and sound (but at least the volume was loud)! We'd sing along as if we were at Iron Maiden, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, or Motorhead concerts. "Speak of the Devil " and Led Zeppelin's "The Song Remains the Same " were movies I saw at Carbono 14. As always, I was the smallest. There were only long-haired, mean-looking guys… but I thought it was the coolest thing ever.

And what about the Kiss concert? I ended up being barred from entering; the age restriction was 14. My mother took me home, along with my brother, who still hasn't forgiven me to this day. But the guys from the 8th floor ended up staying at Morumbi. My mother called their mother from a payphone to ask if they could stay there alone, and their mother agreed, since they were already 14 and 15 years old. In other words, they were already 'grown up'.

Back then, the group would get together at home all the time (all the time, really!) to watch videos we bought at the mall or recorded from TV: Ozzy, Dio, Black Sabbath, Kiss, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden. The best bands in the world inside our house, it was amazing (I don't know how my mom put up with it). Our group had a name, it was called Devil Rats . Since we were Metalheads, we wanted to start playing instruments and forming bands within the group. The guys from 8th grade bought some instruments at a flea market in Bixiga (back then flea markets were called that). Wow! A real guitar! We had an acoustic guitar at home, but a real electric guitar was too much. I decided I was going to play bass, my brother started playing guitar. And so we started taking lessons at Grupo Ama. Until a real sound started to happen, my brother formed a band with the guys from the building, I was too young and they didn't want to have a band with a 10-year-old kid. That's where Viper began (you already know the rest of the story).

While my classmates listened to pop music, we listened to heavy metal; while they watched Pinocchio cartoons, I watched Mad Max .

So I went and formed my own band with my own friends. First was Abismo Negro, which played at my high school talent show, Breaking the Law and Paranoid , it was really cool! Then I formed Ravish, which later became Darkness with Marquinhos (Kleine), it was just bass and guitar, but we rehearsed every day, plugged the instruments into the stereo and pretended we were at a show, it was really fun. Instead of pretending to be Falcon, I pretended to be Steve Harris. It was a magical time.

Then came the time to start going to shows: Chave do Sol at Lira Paulistana was the first show I saw, then came Celso Barbieri's shows at Lira, Metal Rock e Cia, Praça do Rock, Radar Tantan, Ácido Plástico, etc. There were so many cool bands, it was the SP Metal era, Centúrias and Vírus were my favorites. Then came SP Metal 2, with Korzus, Santuário, etc. Dorsal Atlântica, Sepultura, Overdose, Attomica, Azul Limão, Taurus, Salário Mínimo, Platina, there were so many good bands back then!

In '85, the guys from Viper had already started playing shows, and we had to find other musicians for our band. Kiko on drums and Diego on vocals, later replaced by Vartan. It was '86, and Darkness started playing shows too, mainly at school festivals. Viper was starting to become really successful; their shows were always packed, and on Sundays they would go to a radio station in Santo André to participate in the "Rockambole Session" with a guy named Beto Peninha. We would listen and record on the radio, at Téti's or Espiga's house, hoping they wouldn't be murdered by skinheads on the train they took to Santo André.

All of this was so much fun. There was no internet, no iPad, no iPod. When we bought or received a record, it was the best thing in the world. We'd listen to it for months until it wore out, listening and looking at those covers: Piece of Mind , Dressed to Kill , Fair Warning (funny how I still listen to the same records to this day, and how good they are!). We'd record cassette tapes of imported records from friends who had more money or who had traveled to the US with their parents. We'd go to the gallery to see articles in Japanese magazines; back then we'd buy cassette tapes with live shows, VHS tapes with shows by bands that would never be released or come to Brazil.

On weekends we'd go to shows, whether to play, watch, or just hang out outside chatting. We didn't always have the money to get in. Rainbow Bar, Black Jack, Teatro Mambembe, Clube dos Aeroviários. Then came the more professional venues, Dama Xoc, Aeroanta, Projeto SP. Things were evolving, and I already had a band that played in those places. Exhort was a good band, although we always lacked a good vocalist, and the drummers changed all the time. But the band had a cool core: me, Marquinhos, and Vartan. We were good musicians, and when we played covers, it sounded pretty good, at least by the standards of the time. Everyone would say, "Look at that band with a 13-year-old kid on bass, he's actually pretty good," wow, I felt fulfilled.

I think it was around '86 that I discovered Metallica. My brother recorded a tape, I don't remember who it was from, with the album Ride The Lightning . It was amazing, there was a song that started with a slow intro and then exploded, it was a punch, unlike anything I had heard before. Then Thrash entered my life and things were never the same again.

At school I felt like the best, my friends were much older. While my classmates listened to pop music, we listened to heavy metal; while they watched Pinocchio cartoons, I watched Mad Max . My friends had long hair, wore ripped clothes, leather jackets, band t-shirts, patches of Kiss, Iron Maiden, Slayer, Motörhead. We were headbangers: when we arrived at concerts, I went straight to the front row to headbang.

It was amazing, nobody cared if you were rich or poor, we were all true friends, from childhood, from adolescence, and we're still friends as adults. It's incredible how many friends I still have from that time, 99% of those guys are my true friends/brothers (one of them is even my brother, haha) and I'm very proud to have experienced all of that with them.

Metal truly ennobles man; only those who have been through it all will understand what I'm saying. The true friendships, the stories, all of that makes us who we are today, when we go from boys to men, from children to adults. Rock and Heavy Metal have always been present in my life and always will be. This is me, the idea that nothing will destroy us, that we are stronger than anything, we are just, we are warriors. It can be through a silly Manowar lyric or an analogy to war made by Iron Maiden, we understand all of that.

Together We Stand, Divided We Fall , we are united, we are strong, we are Metal. What other style gives you that possibility? To be something? Have you ever heard someone say "I am Dance," or "I am Samba," or "I am Reggae"? No. But those who like Metal ARE Metal, and it doesn't matter what others say. If your parents tell you to cut your hair, if people look at you strangely in the street, if you are discriminated against by your teachers or bosses at work, if your neighbor asks you to turn down the volume, who cares? What matters is that we are Metal, that we will get together with our best friends to discuss who is better, Bruce Dickinson or Dio? Iron Maiden or Metallica? Yngwie Malmsteen or Ritchie Blackmore? Charlie Benante or Dave Lombardo? That is BEING Metal and that's what really matters!