01-Hello, how are you Paulo Rafael? I would like to know how you started playing the guitar and who are you main influences?
Hello Nery, I am doing Ok, thanks a lot for this opportunity to talk a little about my career! It all started by the age of 12, playing in the garage of some of friends of mine, “Italo and Camila Lecker” who nowadays are professional musicians. At first, I started playing the drums, actually on the keyboards...Lol, soonafter I got a very old drums, which was very useful then. After watching some concerts of band like Metallica, Angra and Dream Theater, as well as their guitar players, I fell in love with the electric guitar, then I decided to focus on this instrument. My main influences are: John Petrucci (No doubt), Jeff Loomis, Paul Gilbert, Gonçalo Pereira, Juninho Afram, Steve Vai, Yngwie Malmsteen and several others.
02- Who were your guitar teachers?
Internet, Lol. I’ve always been a self-taught person, but there was a huge lackness of theoric information for guitar ten years ago,mainly when you live in a small city in Ceará (Brazilian state). So I’m very thankful to my musician friends Italo Lencker and Michel Macêdo who helped me in this area. Going straight to the point, a good part of my theoric information comes from the internet which also helped me with some opportunities, like the contest “Crie seu momento com a Música”, sponsored by Michael Musical instruments, which fortunately I’ve won too.
03- How did you get to know the Guitar Clinic website? Did it help you to improve your guitar playing?
Actually, I got to know it by chance when I was doing a research about some guitar oriented material sometime ago and the guitar clinic website showed up on the first results. The website is full of contents which each guitar player talk about their own styles and share some technical and theoric ideas in order to help musicians like me.
04- Please, talk about your new projects?
I am playing for a Heavy Metal band named Silent Garden as well as I will be doing some clinics throught out the Ceara soon , playing some of my songs and doing some renditions. Besides that I also work as a Freelancer musician for regional and well known national musicians like my last concert with Afoson Nigro (Ex- Dominó).
05- Where you people can get to know more about your music?
R- I still don’t have a website with all the information, although I am working on it, but, you guys can find my vídeos on my You Tube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/paulorafael24 I
06- What’s your gear?
My gear is very simple, nowadays I’ve got an Ibanez RG Prestige 1527 7 strings, Ibanez Korn Signature K-7 and POD X3 Live by Line 6.
07- How do you face the instrumental guitar market?
As time goes by, we can notice that it has reached a very instering place which is noticed on the worldwide market, it seems to have a bigger response if compared to some years ago, which only some groups could be noticed on the press. Today we can notice the plenty of it , since several guitarist used their ideas in the other projects. We can see this very clear on this examples: John Petrucci (Suspended Animation), Kiko Loureiro (Fullblast), Jeff Loomis (Zero Order Phase), Rafael Bittencourt (Brainworms), Ron Jarzombek (Blotted Science), among others.
08- What’re your projects for the future?
To finish my pos-gradution at Personal Trainer, because it what I do for a living and to buy my gear (lol). After that I intend to start music college to finally do what I’ve feel in my blood.
09- How did you get to know about our Don't Leave me tonight giveaway?
I got to know about it due to a friend of mine which also took part on it.
10- Thanks a lot for the interview! Please leave a message to our readers.
Thanks a lot GuItar Clinic, Sérgio Rosar, Avs Bags and Rafael Nery, and I hope more people come and visit the website to add more information to it.
Paulo Rafael
