by Rafael Nery
01-Hi Miguel, how are you?It is a pleasure to do this interview.Start by telling us who
Are your big influences of the instrument and who were your teachers?
Hello, first of all I would like to thank you guys from Guitar Clinic for this interview and
For sure I will be more than glad to tell my biography!
My influences have changed during the years, but I started listening to guitarists like Brian May, Angus Young , George Lynch, Warren DeMartini, Randy Roads, Eddie Van Halen and Richie Blackmore until 1984 , when Malmsteen’s Rising force album came out which in my opinion is the biggest divisor when it comes about rock guitar. New guitar players came out with him in this “neoclassic shred” style, Tony Macalpine, Joey Taffola, Vinnie Moore,Cacophony (Jason Becker e Marty Friedman) and others guys who used to mix all this with a Blues rock style like , Vai , Satriani, Andy Timmons, Paul Gilbert, Greg Howe and Richie Kotzen. Until 1992 I only used to think about these guys and rock, hard rock and heavy metal, I didn’t used to listen to other styles of music. Since 1994 I have changed completely and I opened my mind for a huge occidental and oriental music universe and I started listening to everything. Today I love music independen of the style and every and any instrument not only guitars or guitar players , Mark Wood (violin) , Jean Luc Ponty , Django Reinhardt , Al DiMeola , Zappa’s family , Michael Hedges , Robben Ford , Joe Bonamassa , Alan Holdsworth , Jim Hall , Birelli Lagrene , Gary Moore , Steve Stevens , Steve Ray Vaughan and mainly Jeff Beck which in my opinion is the greatest guitar player alive.
My first teacher was a guy named Rafa who taught all the guitar players from Santos in my generation, after I studied one year at the first IGT (87/88) in front of the Ibirapuera park with Mozart Mello, Faíska and Wander Taffo.After I took some lessons with Edu Ardanuy.In 1994 I went to the USA and I studied with Joey Tafolla and Jean Mark Belkadi.
02- Your first band called “Last Joker” had na interesting career with some conquests, tell us about it.
Last Joker was my life between 1989 and 1994 when the band finished. But in these 5 years of history we could reach some recognition from the audience, our shows were always
sold out, from the press, we have got excellent reviews for our first LP named “LAST JOKER” and we also did some opening concerts some famous band in the brazilian metal scene in that time such as ,Sepultura, Korzus, RDP, Viper, Angra and Dr.sin in some metal festival. The band used to have a lot of energy and we had our songs playing on the littoral rádios all over São Paulo. A curiosity is that the guitarist Marcão (Ex- Charlie Brown Jr – famous band in Brazil) played in the band with me and the drummer Pelado (Ex- Charlie Brown Jr) also played on the second formation 93/94.In 2005 , Last Joker got reunited and did a great gig to celebrate 10 years of the end of the band, the show was sold out and we took advantage of this situation to record a Dvd with 2 edited câmeras to eternalize the event, Last Joker Reunion / Live at Retro.If you are interested on buying this go to:
http://www.musicgatebrasil.com/produto.php?id=77 , we still do have some copies! Maybe until the end of this year or at the beggining of 2008 we are going to do other gig,let’s look forward for this...
03-After the end of the band, you decided to go to the USA to study.What was this experience like?What is for a brazillian “going” into a totally new culture like?Do you think it is necessary for a musician?
The experience was wonderful, of course that I had some problemas to get used to the weather, language, habits, food, laws and etc... I learnt to valorize more the things in life, because as I hadn’t money to study at a music school I used to work in restaurants by the day and at night I used to go to the guitar class with Joey Tafolla and Jean Mark Belkadi or even on Saturdays. Besides that I only used to think about music, I watched a lot of converts, I bought several equipments and I used to study in my spare time. I don’t think it is totally necessary but I think it is important, be in the USA, Europe or even Japan, learning a different culture ,and of course to use the facility in the biggest countries when it comes about studying. I did some courses of audio engineering at Music Box Studios in Hollywood which encouraged me to buy my first small studio with 4 channels of tape in 1995.
04- You released your first álbum in 1997 , what was the writting process like and what was the response for this first album named “Miguel Mega”.
In 97 I got back to Brazil as I had some material in demos recorded in the USA, I decided to get this material together and to produce my first cd recorded at my home with eletronic drums.I didn’t get a big responde because I just did 100 copies to publish because this cd was for me a kind of professional material, it was just to introduce some ideas that me to form a band to play them alive. I had a great review on the brazillian Guitar Player’s edition of that year.
05-Posteriorly you released two albums “Intuitive” and “Coastline’ ,was it easier this time since you had already an album out and what was the response?
In 99 I released my second solo album “Intuitive” also recorded at home, but this time with much more quality, recorded digitally using a VS 880 of Roland, This cd even recorded in home shows a bigger musical maturity on the songs , but as it was recoded with a eletronic drummer I just did 200 copies, used for the promotion of the album.In 2000 I started doing the demos for the songs that would be part of the cd “Coastline” released in 2001.This Cd was really crazy to record, every money I could save, I used to book in sessions of recording at PlayRec studio of a friend of mine Alexandre Ciagle and I used to give the demos for the musician listen to the arrangment at home or in the day of recording, we played the song 2 or 3 times and we recorded.I spent one year and a half to finish this cd.Cd finished, I thought that as important to record 1000 copies of this cd because for the first time I thought I had a quality cd with musicians playing and not eletronic drums.This Cd featured André Pingüim (Drums/ nowadays in Charlie Brown Jr.), Daniel Teles (keyboards/nowadays with Rita Lee) and Edu Ardanuy (Dr.Sin). Coastline was a divisor for my career , because of this cd I could open some doors on the print press (I started writing some columns for Cover Guitarra), endorses, shows, festivals, tv and radio shows, sites and etc. I used to send cds for everyone, from 2 to 5 copies a week, online radions, virtual stores of indie cds, sites which reviewed cds, record labels and all the sources I could find on the internet I used to set, Os Correios (Post office in Brazil) received a lot of money from me between 2001 and 2002....(laugh).But I don’t regret about anything, everything that was positive on my career happened after the releasing process of Coastline in 2001.
06- In July of 2001, you were ranked for the final stage of the IX edition of the Cascavel Jazz festival.What was it like?
I have never felt music as competion, of course when you are starting, there is that thing of who can play faster and the immaturity make us to use some tools to try to impress the listener , but after with musical maturity showing up I didn’t use to agree with this idea of competion but I used to think that I had potential to this competion where the winner was going to play in Cascavel.It was amazing, I was ranker as the 1º place and I still had the invitation to back on the X Cascavel Jazz Festival in the following year as the principal concert.The vídeos of this show are on www.youtube.com, you just have to do a search for Miguel Mega.
07-How do you face Brazilian instrumental scene? Is it possible to make a living?
I think that there are many artists in Brazil doing a relly great instrumental music, but the scene almost doesn’t exist , we can find some places in the downtown, Sesc, Sesi and some specific organs and some privated intiative , as William Fischer himself of the Cascavel Jazz Festoval who does a fantastic job.It is really hard to make a musical scene in Brazil, there are a lot of good people disputing few places , the country has continental dimensions, and the people stay focused on play on their region and it makes things harder, and it can be a little of bit solved with the internet which helps in the promotion of a musician.But no, I don’t think is possible to 90% musicians ti make a living from the instrumental scene, it is a complement, since Brazil is the country of samba, musician here has to work hard to pay the bills.
08- You also have worked on your own recording studio and as the biggest part of musicians teaching, how does it work?
When I came back from Los Angeles in 1997 , I did bring the idea of building a studio.It came true in 2004, I had a oratory in my backyard and I decided to build the studio from the top. I did, I projected everything, I studied about acoustic, microphones, pre amplifiers, compressors, effects, softwares , loops and all the modern studio’s tools and in 2 years and a half I have already recorded and produced rock bands, jingles for motorcycle stores, pizza shop,openning for regional tv shows of surfs, songs for small movies , infantile music cd, pagode groups (kind of music very famous in Brazil) , jingles for politician programs,musics for companies and corporations, process of making sonorous for PABX,some stuff with beginner radio announcers, and all my projects.As I work alone on my studio, I always have to record the bass, acoustic guitars, electric guitars and keyboards on my productions and it makes me start thinking as a bass player or keyboardist and consequently much more in music than guitar on these 3 last years, but this didn’t make me stand away from the electric guitar, just the opposite.In this moments, on my spare time I have recording my next solo cd which is probably out next year, and I feel this sounds much more mature, experimental and more audacious, not focused too much on technique, I am playing more for the song and of course in some songs I open some blanks for my improvisation and the same for other instruments like sax and keyboard which give some special taste for my solo albums. I also teach guitar on my studio and I play in a band in some bars, pubs, parties, weddings and etc.Soon I am going to start a project of Live PA which is one interaction of a DJ with some instrument, in my case the guitar.I am always connected to music, everyday.Sometimes I have to postpone classes with students because of the studio schedule, but with some effort everything is solved.
09-You played on G-fire album with some great musician, what was this experice like and what was the response for this album?
The online magazine www.theshredzone.com interviewed me and Vernon for the same edition, so he read my interview, and entered on my website, listened to some musics and really enjoyed, soon after he sent me an e-mail and asked me to sign with Boosweet Record for normal distribution and digital of my Cd Coastline in the USA, Canda,Europa and Ásia.Besides that he invited me to take a part in G-Fire project.For me it was a great and a huge honour to be invited for a cd with names like Morris O’Connor who has already played with Stevie Wonder and often plays with Glady’s Knight in Las Vegas and is a monster on the guitar, Kevin Chokan who is the musical director of Diana Ross and accomapnies Jeffrey Osbourne on tours all over the world, a hitmaker and a guitarist with a really great technique and a great arranger, and Vernon who is also a legend in smooth jazz, R&B and Blues who have already played with Johnny Guitar Watson, Billy Paul, Teena Marie, besides being the executive producer of the cd.The responde was excellent , the single of the album, a Kevin’s song, played on lots of commercial radio stations, university rádios, online radions of smooth jazz in the USA and with that the cd has won the Smoothy Award.It was in 2004 and 2005 he invited me for G-Fire II, with, Mark Whitfield, who have already played with George Benson, replacing Morris O’Connor.The Cd got out and also won the Smoothy Award in the end of the year because the singles of Mark Whitfield and Kevin Chokan also played in a lot of places. The response for this cd was even bigger because it was ranked for some weeks on the top 20 of Billboard in the category smooth jazz independent.Personally it was a honour to play on this project with so good musicians.
10-You have two instructional vídeos talking about “Outside”, what was the reason to record these vídeos?And for those who don’t about this give us a quick explanation of this subject.
I had this year filed for some years, since I have moved to the USA I started walking throught the jazz ways, bebop, fusion , so I started studying many scales, minor harmonic, minor melodic, dim, dom dim, gregorian modes and scale modes in general, oriental scales, japanese,hawaiian ,snake charmer (a variation of minor harmonic), and some chords substitution , subV, major and minor Blues over mixolydian chords and all the tolls found on the biggest jazz improvisers, and I started mixing these scales and this way of thinking rock, blues and even metal looking for add some color to my solos and in order to write songs.In 2003 the opportunity came up to make this dream come true, I got the studio that worked as the scenery for the instructional vídeo in exchange of the promotion on the cover and on the vídeo’s booklet and as a friend of mine is owner of a vídeo company , he helped me in all the process (caption and edition) almost for free we just had to do some reunions to know decide where we would have close takes etc... I took the edited material to HMP (Cover Guitar) which got interested on releasing them ( Tocando Outside Volume I e II) on VHS in 2004.In 2005 I went to play in the USA and in Portugal where I took this material, mainly in Portugal,and as they speak the same language of us, they told me that to get interested in this material it would have to be in DVD format because VHS is out of the market.That was when I got the idea of editing the two volumes in just one and to add extras like the interview I did of 30 minutes in a programa IMega TV (Canal 21 – São Paulo) and some of clipes playing even in little bars, music clips of my cds and at EM&T.With this done the DVD came up, I gave this finished material to be published and I stayed during one year negotiating about the releasing of the DVD, even being DVD, there is piracy which makes the company owners do not get intererested to release artists products , and I think they are right, who would like to put money in something that people won`t buy, can get from someone and copying in a cd-r....I think at this point all musicians all over the world, but mainly us living in a place with high levels of digital piracy we must think and wonder what is going to be our future from now own or to any musician to sell his work, since everything is for free...the reason to record this instructional DVD was due to the blank of this subject on this kind of material spoken in portuguese.
11-Together with Vernon Neilly, you have a portal of indie music called “Music Gate Brasil”, how does this portal work and what are the opportunities for bands who want to promote their songs through the website?
So , MusicGateBrasil.com is a portal based on guitar9.com which was where I took the idea when I did my first searches about virtual stores in the year of 2000.When I released Coastline in 2001 , that was first virtual store I sent my cd and I saw on this website a new standart of a virtual store much interesting and I wanted to do one adaptation of this store for brazilian market and worldwide adding the possiblity of selling not only physical cds but also downloads per 0.99 cents the same of ITUNES and RHAPSHODY and also musical methods and acessories like strings for electric guitar, acoustic guitar and basses,picks, pick-up,cables and etc....It is a mini shopping of musical products and of music which gives the possibility for indendepent artists with only U$ 10 to sign up for Music Gate Brasil and to sell their work in a website which offers security and credibility for those who are buying and the artist receives in his home, a transfer of nominal check for each U$ 25 of his/her products sold.Music Gate Brasil is installing the tool of credit card, what is going to give the possibility to sell this worldwide.It is an ambitious projects which is going to take years but it wants to open a door for our too poor indie scene. Vernon is my partner in this journey, and the benefits are for all the artists, since everyone who signs up for MGB is added to biggest network of digital distribution of the label Boosweet Records.I have felt that the market for indie music is in a level of transiction and due to piracy people haven’t been interested on buying music, mainly indie, I think the cd is going to become just a busines card for musicians , that’s the reason that I always encourage the artist to ask at the most 10 bucks for the cds and I still think this is a little high, it should cost 5 and the dowlond 0.50 cents to estimulate the market, even it was about creating more interest on people to listen to the streams on the artist’s product page.This is something I am going to decide together with Vernon in the next months.Anyway, Music Gate Brasil is getting bigger and day by day more artists are signing up, it is a nice way to put your work in a credibility website viewed all over the world.!
12-What are your plans for the future?
As I said before , I am recording my next solo album and as I record this on my own studio I have been trying different sonorities, tones, textures , harmonizations, rhythms , loops and etc....I can say that my plan for a near future is about finishing my new album, releasing it and after that touring , that is what I am looking for .I have been locked inside the studio, recording,producing, studying, teaching, rehearsing for 3 years , but I am missing perfoming live more often. And of course, I want to do a great premier concert for the cd in a great place and to record this show to maybe make this a live dvd in the future.Besides that, I want to make Music Gate Brasil bigger, because everything on the internet is conected , it is like youtube, myspace or orkut, one person talks to another and it over and over and in a certain moment it gets really big and it can help our indie market destitute of investments.Besides that I want to make some specific courses of audio engineering , music for movies among others and I also want to do an upgrade in my personal website , www.miguelmega.com.br, which has been kinda abandoned in the last 2 years.
13-Thanks for the opportunity, and please leave a message.
Well, I just have to thank the opportunity to show a little more about my work and history and I hope all the reader`s enjoyed this interview as I did!
Check out the new indie world wide music distributor
WWW:MUSICGATEBRASIL.COM
Peace and Music !
Miguel Mega
www.musicgatebrasil.com
www.miguelmega.com.br
www.boosweet.com