The Torch, the Banner, and the Box.
These three words together probably don't make much sense to almost anyone on the planet. But to the people of the VIPER , they do.
Since Andre left us, I've wanted to write something sharing some of the stories I experienced so intensely with him at the beginning of VIPER.
Stories that probably only I and maybe half a dozen other people know. Or remember.
The release of the song “Sentido do Fim” on Felipe [Machado] new solo album, Primata , made me want to tell some of these stories here.
I met Andre in the first semester of 1985. He was still 13 years old, a child. The first Rock In Rio had just happened and he had seen Iron Maiden live! I was 15 years old or had just turned 16. Another child. Almost.
I remember how he always seemed older than he was. Not physically, but because of his ideas, his understanding of the world, his stance on life's issues, his awareness.
I'm going to share two little stories here that very few people know:
Back then, personal computers were extremely expensive and rare. I found this topic interesting, but since I didn't have the money to own one, I borrowed a CP200 from a friend (a "modern" personal computer for the time, which had 16KB of memory – to put it in perspective, to store one MP3 song, we would need about 200 of these).
Andre, who was 13 (maybe 14 years old), came to my house for several days in a row so we could program the CP200 together. What did our program do? It painted the VIPER logo on the screen to the sound of a Bach sonata. Note by note, Andre would tell me, "now it's a sixteenth note in G minor; now a quarter note in A sharp." And I would program what he said. Note by note.
After about 2 weeks, we proudly showed Felipe, Pit [Passarell] , Yves [Passarell] and all our Viper crew the program running, displaying the VIPER logo (that original logo from the Soldiers of Sunrise Johann Sebastian Bach 's music .
It seems like a stupid thing (maybe it is). But back then, when it was difficult to even see a computer in person, that screen displaying VIPER and playing a song that we "told" it to play, seemed like magic.
The other story I wanted to tell happened even before Andre came to my house for the first time:
Yves started pressuring Andre, saying he had to meet my sister, that she was very attractive, that she loved heavy metal, and that she liked guys with long hair, etc.
He spent several days talking to Andre about it. Until one day we arranged for them to come to my house so I could introduce my sister to Andre. They arrived, stayed in the living room, and I called my sister over.
It was hilarious to see Andre's face when he was introduced and to realize she was a child of about 7 years old and that it was just a joke to see his reaction.
Finally, I wanted to talk about these three words that are in the title of the text: The Torch, the Banner, and the Box.
As I said at the beginning, these 3 words together probably don't make sense to almost anyone except maybe 10, maybe 15 people from the VIPER Family.
The first generation of VIPER roadies – self-styled Roadies of Sunrise – consisted of Carlos Mauro , Marcos Cardoso , Rafael Masini , Val Santos, and myself.
And those 3 words made up our worst nightmare on concert days: The Torch, the Banner, and the Box.
The Torch.
The torch, I think every VIPER fan knows what it's about: Sometimes during "The Whipper," sometimes during "Soldiers of Sunrise," Andre would come on stage with this damn torch on fire to create a visual effect in the show. The lights would be dimmed, and Andre would wander around the stage with the torch, on the drums, in the audience, among the guitarists, in the pit.
Our nightmare was that the torch was incredibly flimsy, completely unprofessional, and unsafe: it was like a broom handle with a cloth tied to one end and soaked in kerosene. And we knew it was only a matter of time before something went wrong, as happened at the famous Soldiers of Sunrise at Colégio Rio Branco, where a major tragedy almost occurred. Images of the whole incident can be seen here , and since that day, thank God, Andre decided to retire the torch.
Interestingly, at that show we debuted a new Roadies of Sunrise , a red t-shirt that later went down in history as the uniform for firefighter roadies.
The Strip.
The backdrop was part of a stage set that we had to hang behind the drums. The first version of this backdrop was supposed to be a kind of dragon or dinosaur with planet Earth behind it. The dragon looked like an earthworm, and the fabric must have weighed about a ton or more.
And the venues where VIPER played at the time generally didn't have the infrastructure to hang something as giant and heavy as that. So every show was an hours-long operation to figure out how the Roadies of Sunrise were going to hang the banner. Years later, we left behind the worm-like version and got much nicer backdrops. And lighter ones!
Finally, Caixa.
Yves Passarell managed to get (I don't know from where) a solid wood box that he decided we would use to store and carry some cables and band equipment. He had the VIPER logo affixed to the box, and it actually turned out very nice.
But the box weighed about 10 times more than what it contained and was a nightmare to carry. Usually Carlos and Marquinhos were the roadies assigned to carry this ordeal. This box became so iconic that in the original Soldiers booklet, where the roadies are listed, Carlos and Marquinhos appear as: Carlos “The Box” and Marquinhos “The Other Side of the Box”.
Finally… Just like that VIPER logo appearing on the small TV I had in my room (yes, the CP200 didn't have a monitor and you plugged it into a TV), those were truly magical years.
The Wonder Years.
I miss those times so much. I miss Claus. I miss Andre. And the conversations we had.
And it was an adventure for a group of kids aged 13 to 17, trying to conquer the world through heavy metal at a time when nobody in Brazil knew what that was.
The tribute Felipe made to Andre in "Sentido do Fim" (listen here ) is so beautiful, and it made me want to write these lines, remembering these stories, while listening to the song on repeat.
The song ends by repeating the chorus of the first song VIPER ever wrote.
And brilliantly, Felipe made the song not end.
It remains incomplete, unfinished.