Homeward Bound

Continued from blog 12 - Three is a Crowd...

... I landed back in Brazil in July 1992 trying to pick up my life where I had left it 2 years and 3 months earlier, not easy. Our following had moved on, the rock scene seemed to be dead and everybody was listening to traditional Samba in the big cities and in the countryside to Brazilian Country music.

Paulo had already discussed it at length with Tayo and they were to continue making music, without Brent. Tayo would carry on writing the lyrics, Paulo writing the songs and they would at home build up their songs exchanging CDs through the post. In the meantime, Paulo who was now married to an European Partner would attempt to go back to England and Tayo would attempt to go back to the UK transferred by Erickson. How I would be able to go back to the UK I had no idea.

Paulo declared that their intention was for us to be a studio group just making recordings to post on this new exciting media, the Internet, which everybody was adhering to, we could be a band even being apart and show our music even without being signed and because Tayo was always on the front line of IT we would be one of the first bands on it as not many knew how to do all the programming or would be able to design a web page like he did.

Finally he also declared that his intention was for me to sing as Tayo and himself couldn't sing to save their lives. Well, again the wild card, but surprisingly I enjoyed it even more than playing keyboards and certainly much more than playing bass.

I set out to look for singing lessons and first of all went to Rio to see a famous vocal coach to the stars, who was quite expensive and I had to travel really far to get there. She was very rude and kept attacking me on the stomach telling me to keep the muscles tight and breath properly. She didn't let me improvise or give a rock tinge to the songs, she was quite radical and finally dismissed me saying I would never be able to sing as I was monotone like people like Rain Main, not knowing she was comparing me with another person in the autistic spectrum like myself. I then moved on to a teacher in Niteroi where I lived, thinking if I was going to be insulted let it be without having to travel and risk my life being robbed and shot in a bus to Rio. My teacher was nicer than the previous one but again didn't allow for much of a Rock feel to the songs, he just didn't get it, so I started looking for people who actually sang in bands who were teaching and that's when I found Kakao Figueiredo in his KKO studio, walking distance from our flat, years of experience on stage with a Progressive band, recordings and everything. He was amazing, he really believed in me and focused not only in my physical ability to sing (breathing, sustaining notes etc) but also on interpreting the songs. I still remember the little songs he invented from the top of his head to get me to practice certain sounds and notes, I'll never forget one in particular entitled "I'm rowing to find my love" LOL

Our music continued to be in the same form of Dancyn' Days but sounded now quite different with female vocals, many people compared it to the band 10.000 Maniacs. We did however, unlike Dancyn' Days, on this new format write loads of songs as Paulo is a very prolific songwriter, I was the one always struggling to keep up with his genius.

As for a name, we didn't want to keep the same Dancyn' Days as we were not in England anymore and Brent was not with us, we wanted a fresh name and Paulo came up with an old favourite subject and fascination since his childhood "American Indians". As a child, although Western Movies always depicted Indians as the bad guys, when he played cowboys and Indians with the hundred of toys he had, including an Apache Fort he could get inside, it was the Indians who always won. My Mum also reports that he had several Indian imaginary friends as a child and seldom introduced them to her using their proper Indian names and claimed he was himself the grandson of Sitting Bull.

We have also used as our image some pictures the boys found from Indians that had the same feel the Kafka drawings had, A Sioux Eagle and another called the Wheeled Twins.

And so it was that our new formation of 3, actually at the beginning 4 as our former Roadie Johnny Carlos was going to join us playing bass but it didn't happen in the end, two here, one there, was baptised as Redskin...

... To be continued...

Pictures: 1 - Nuria Sanchez, 2 and 3 - (In Press Release) Murilo Teixeira, 4 - Unknown