Brazil have got foreward a lot of good bands an Excluidos isn´t any exception from that. It took a while but finally here is the long interview with the Brazilian punkband….november-2016

Please tell me a little bit history of the group?
-R: (Ronaldo/Caio) It started in 1996, São Paulo, one of the world’s biggest cities. 4 friends having a hard adolescence, full of energy and loaded with fears and uncertainties, were finishing high school and glimpsed a way of changing their lives and expressing themselves together through punk rock. What started with a strong identification and forthcoming with the punk culture finally materialized itself emphatically with the formation of a band in 1998.

It came as no surprise that our main influences have always been the classic punk rock bands from the70’s, and much of what we became and believe in adult age come from the punk culture.

At that time in São Paulo, the punk underground scene was dominated musically by Hardcore and Crust bands but we wanted something different, something that sounded more like the bands that we liked while still keeping a sense and a touch of our reality. In these days, we and some another new bands were called "The New Generation of Punk Rock" in our country, like mentioned by Antonio Bivar (writer and journalist with a strong background in the Brazilian punk scene) in his book “O Que É Punk?” (What's Punk? - 2001, Brasiliense - publishing company). As soon as we gathered a repertoire of a few songs. we started playing and right from the beginning had a good acceptance in the local scene. That allowed us to play with important bands of the national underground like Inocentes, Cólera and Ratos de Porão.

International band barely came to Brazil at that time, but nevertheless, in the first years of the band, we got the opportunity to play with the Stiff Little Fingers. Several years later Brazil entered a period with economic growth and a favorable exchange rate that allowed more bands from Europe and US to come to São Paulo. During this period we also played with GBH (2004), Rezillos (2006), The Adicts (2010) and TSOL (2013).

Please tell me a little about every member in the group right now, age, family, work, interests and something bad about everyone? Earlier bands?  Other bands on the side?
-R: Caio (35 years old) – bassist. He is married and has two little twin beauties as daughters. He is an engineer and is interested in punk rock and audio engineering, despite working on a big and traditional multinational electric company to make a living. He also played in another punk band from São Paulo called Flicts in the early 2000's. His worst faults is to have a horrible memory, besides being lame, color blind, dyslexic, left-handed and bassist, HAHAHA!
André (36 years old) – guitarist. He has a son almost entering into the adolescence phase. He is a journalist and has a very good musicality. He plays as easily as he breathes! He is also interested in sports and drugs. It seems a bit contradictory? Well, this is André. His worst faults is that he always wants to close the matters quickly, because he is becoming a drunk and anxious grouchy.
Raphael (32 years old) - drummer. He too is an engineer and absolutely methodical. His interests are drumming, skateboarding and his collection of world beer cans (over 4000 items by the time this interview was conceived). He's dating a long time with the same girl and his family lives inland of São Paulo. What else testify against him is: he already had dreadlocks!
Ronaldo (37 years old) – singer and guitarist. He lives alone but has a girlfriend with two daughters and has small design company together with a friend. He is a very artistic guy and true to his beliefs. His interests are music, with preference to punk rock, but he also likes to learn about other music styles like Scottish music (for many years he has been playing in a bagpipe band). Ronaldo founded the band and because of his charisma and sensibility much of the style and personality of the band comes from him. What sometimes can be really annoying about him, is his disorganization and lack of sense of time. In the last years he is also getting kind of rude sometimes, but he still has this kind of a “best friend a guy can have” way.

I can hear much different influences but mostly punk as Clash Jam but even early U2? Favorites from the past?
R: (Ronaldo) Well, really, punkrock is our base, because it is the preference of all four band members. It was this style of music that awakens our desire to play. I'm glad that you could figure this out, because Clash and Jam are two admired bands and huge influences for us! About early U2, is has never been among our preferences, but I can understand why you cited them. I will quote our favorite of all time, because some bands are still active.
Ramones, Clash, Pistols, Buzzcocks, The Jam, Undertones, Adicts, Damned, early Misfits with Glen Danzig, Rezillos, Stiff Little Fingers,Toy Dolls are in our pantheon of punk rock bands, but there are still many others of this style that we love. We also like other rock styles, especially The Beatles, early Metallica (until the Black album), Queen, AC/DC, Thin Lizzy and the first two albums of Guns and Roses, which were part of our adolescence.

Excluídos are you satisfied with the name? How did it came up?  What does it mean? Which is the best bandname you know?
R: (Ronaldo) Yes, very satisfied, although this name seems to carry a negative load that will probably always keep our band out of any big achievements. Is a weird sensation!
The name came up when I and an old buddy felt like outsiders in school when I and Romeu (this colleague) were forming the band. The name does not only represent the way other guys and girls in school and neighborhood made us feels but it also represents the “right” behaviors society imposes that we don’t agree with and for us seemed to be more like a horror show. We didn’t agree on the way people valorized fashion, with the prejudice against poor and with those who didn’t fit on the “normal” way of being as well as with the repressive education system that our society created.
The name literally means "the excluded" and this means that we have a way of thinking and acting that’s on the margins of society. Despite of this ideology, we have to admit that we have never been able to really live our lives as much aligned to our convictions as some bands we knew (e. g. Crass or Oi Polloi). At the time, and still today we have never been able to make a living out of the band and give up our jobs. Still we try and do as much as we can.

The best band name, I don't know. But I can remember some cool and funny names like a old brazilian punk band Restos de Nada (Rests of Nothing), and Adam and the Ants.

What´s the best thing with playing live?
R: (Ronaldo) Feel the energy!
There are two main ways for the band to express itself:
– Live, when the energy flows through the audience.
– And by recording an album and try as much as possible to register our essence.

In both ways, it’s great when we feel that the people that listen to us share our thoughts and capture this essence and connect them to their daily lives.

And where is best to play? And the worst place?
R: (Ronaldo/Caio) It’s always great to play in small overcrowded clubs with a decent PA and overall infrastructure. All in all, if you have a good vocal reproduction things tend to flow.
The worst places to play are those ones where no one is really interested in you or your musical style and the atmosphere is cold. When the equipment in the venue is lousy, it’s also a pain in the ass, because we are not able to deliver what we can and people don’t get the chance to really understand who and what we are.

How is to play this sort of music in Brazil right now? Which types of bands do you have concerts together with?
R: (Raphael/Ronaldo) The uderground scene in Brazil has been better, but also has been worse. For us, we started going to shows in the 90s, thinking that we would arrive in 2016 with a much larger and more powerful scene, but it was not so.

In São Paulo particularly, in the late 90s early 2000s, there was a big "boom" of independent rock bands. At that time, don't had venues in São Paulo who made the scene become stronger and more active.

In parallel in 1998, opened in São Paulo a very important place, the Hangar 110. This venue helped leverage the underground scene of São Paulo and indirectly the scene of Brazil. As the owner of the house had been a member of a punk band in the early 80 (Anarkólatras), the Brazilian punk and hardcore scene had a new great space to express themselves.

However it was weakening over the years in a decadence process caused by disinterest, too complex to explain here.

Usually we played in concerts of punk rock with punk rock bands, but we has also played shows with Hardcore bands, Rock'n'Roll, Psychobilly and a Reggae band once.

How would you describe your music in three words?

R: (Ronaldo)

I’ll give you three alternatives, all of them represent our music well.
1 - punk rock rules.

2 - love true music.
3 - expression, fun and friendship.

What does punk mean to you, is it only a word or is it a lifestyle?
R: (Ronaldo) Well, we are not punks, but it really changed our lives. Because of it we have a more critical vision and challenge the supposed good intentions behind things. Part of us have been educated based on conservatives Christians patterns and we found a way of disruption through punk. Music “saved” our lives and punk open our eyes!

How do you see on downloading, mp3 and that stuff?

R: (Raphael/André/Ronaldo) We see this stuff in a positive way, but it have a two faces.

The internet now provides us with broad access to information as well as an important means of communication for all purposes.

For independent artists, this means of dissemination has even greater weight as it makes it possible to get our work to places where it would not be as easy without it. Even we can do our music to get you through those means.

For another side, the public's relationship with the artist became volatile and banal, because this massive supply of material, makes it difficult to choose and shortens the immersion in the universe that artist, making the public's relationship with the artists, increasingly superficial.

How is it to live in Brazil now? Politically?

R: (André) Our political and economic situation is very complicated. Brazil has one of the world's worst income distributions. This means that live here some of the richest people in the world who control politics and the economy, and some of the poorest people on the planet who still live in the 18th century conditions, illiterate, without electricity, without access to health care. Meanwhile there, all the rest will be rotten.

Is there any good bands from Brazil now?  Is the punkscene/hardcorescene big?  How is it in your hometown?

R: (Ronaldo/André) Today we don't have a scene exactly, we see the emergence of good bands and some rock venues in São Paulo and a new galley which is getting involved, DJing and organizing gigs like the SP Paranóia group, besides the Casa Mafalda, that is a lab of cultural and social practices. So, we have evidences that this reality may reverse soon in all country.

In the early 80 came the first great wave of punk in Brazil and in this decade, originated most of the bands in this segment. The second big wave, in which we participate, happened in the second half of the 90s and these two moments that cultural, artistic and political movement endures through the same bands as Cólera, Olho Seco, Garotos Podres, Inocentes, Invasores de Cérebros, DZK and Ratos de Porão of the first wave and from the second wave Juventude Maldita, Subviventes, Deserdados, Ação Direta, Calibre 12, Gritando HC, Devotos, Agrotóxico, Flicts and we, all playing up today!

What do you know about Sweden?
R: (Ronaldo) Basic historical things about your culture like the ancient paganism, Vikings and internal "family" wars, there are small differences between your language and the Norwegian, and you both don't understand Finnish! hehe
Also we know that is a rich country with a good quality of life specially regarding the health system, education and basics needs. The weather can be brutal at some times of the year and the Zlatan Ibrahimović is always cruel to the defenses of football opposing teams.

But that’s just how far our knowledge goes. We’ve never been in Sweden and know little about today’s lifestyle but would love to visit and get to know the country!

Have you heard any good bands from Sweden?
R: (Ronaldo) Yes, oddly enough, and is not the Abba, Roxette or Cardigans! Are few bands, but weirdly the first that come in mind is Asta Kask, though we not enjoyed it really, because is not our preference in a hardcore style.
But the other boys of our adolescent times always quoted the Asta Kask when they were doing compilations on cassete tapes that included these bands of old school hardcore style. After that I met a compilation album released in the mid 80s in Brazil, with the bands Anti-Cimex, Crude SS, Fear of War and Rövsvett, also hardcore and as I said before do not really enjoyed, because it was not the style that attracts me more.
I have a cd of a band called “The Sinners” that I got in early 2000' and the first song "Love you more than this", that has a 90's vibe with a " country pop pinch", is always part of our playlist in trips. We also know The Hellacopters, a good band, and Melody Club that has some very good melodies like "Destiny calling" from the "Scream" album. Ebba Grön also has some good stuff in some specific moments of their discography. I also have singles from bands like "Vicious Visions", "Urban Släke", "Vacum", "Travolta Kids" but I know very, very little about them. Well, we know that there is a poignant scene in Sweden since the years 60/70 to here, but we don't know really much. But surely we would love to buy some vinyls and watch some presentations in the Pet Sounds Shop in Stockholm.

Your lyrics, who does them and what influences you?  Is it easier to do lyrics now or was it easier to do it when you was younger? Never in english?
R: (Ronaldo) Lyrics are a challenge for us! They are composed in four hands, almost everyone in the band contributes, but portuguese is a somehow truncaded language and the sound have a nasal feature. The lyrics are one of the major factors that explain why we take so long to compile a new album.
We don’t make songs with verses that end like "yeah, yeah, yeahhhh", or simply "ooohhh, ooohhh", because in Brazil this would sound strange, in opposite to countries where english is spoken and where rock and roll was originated.
Here, normally the lyrics demand a true story or message that describes things, (whether or not important). Obviously, our pop music that is in the mainstream does not follow this “rule”. Those normally say silly things but also disappear after 6 months.
Our Inspiration comes from the dilemmas we face in our country, one of them being the social differences, that leads to a deep emptiness, pain and anger. But that is just one of many themes in our lyrics.
It may seem contradictory, but when we were younger, it was easier to write lyrics, because we had less repertoire about life. Our arguments were most obvious and direct, and therefore it was easier to express our anger. Today, we are still dissatisfied with the world. Anger and unhappiness are still with us, but with more self-control, besides a more critical and consequent point of view.

We have never done a song in english and probably we will never do that in our albums. We don't have any good reason to it and it would be even more difficult. Maybe in some special project, who knows?

Is there any subject that you never will write anything about??
R: (Ronaldo) Superfluous things, luxury and apologia to consumerism. Support to reactionary and conservative causes!
Well, "the romantic love”, is a theme that irritates me a lot, but we never know. We believe in love in all its diversity.

Politics and music, does it go hand in hand?  Which is your most political song?
R: (Ronaldo) It often does for us! In past times we spoke about introspective and emotional issues, but always searching for a relation to our daily live and how the illogical and mediocre routine makes us tired and turn our lives sadder. Our most political song is "Pra melhor" (For the better).

We must not submit ourselves

to a false democracy

But be have the right to choose

and we want anarchy

We want to be able to live

without abuse of power

We are victims of this society

that's why we are against the government

It takes away our liberty

and there is no half term on that

What's the point of this fucking system

that doesn't grant any chance

to change

For the better

For the better

For the better

Best political band/artist?
R: (Ronaldo) Probably The Clash, sometimes. It's not the most political group, but have a good balance between artistic side and a political posture and certainly a very refined poetry in their lyrics.

Do you think that music(lyrics and so on) can change anyones life, I mean people who listens to music?

R: (André) The music changed my life. Why not change the other? If I had never heard Ramones sure I would be a completely different person. So, I think so, the music turns. Art has that power.

Your cover on your CD looks really nice, is it important to have a record cover which shows people which type of music you play? Your favorite recordcover?  Who does your covers?  And do you have any good recordstores in your hometown?
R: (Caio/Ronaldo) During the recording and mixing sessions of this album we quite often talked about what the cover should look like, but never ended up with something meaningful for everybody in the band. It came to a point where we just said "let's think about that when the master is ready".
As soon as the master was ready we did three or four picture sessions with different photographers without any specific planning for the cover. We really just needed some decent updated pics of the band.  On the least and unpretentious sessions, a friend of ours took that picture we chose for the cover. She wasn’t thinking about a picture for the CD cover. When we saw it, we really thought that it represents very well what we are, the place we live in, the kind of music we play and the moment we were going thru.
Additionally, some of the best album covers ever (in our opinion) have band pictures, like the classic Ramones album, the Undertones and even some local references like the Inocentes "Adeus Carne" record. I think this is still a heritage from the old days, before internet got so popular, where it was really hard to get information about bands, especially pictures. Therefore it was always cool when the cover had a picture of the band members.
The complete art based on that picture was done by Ronaldo, but everyone got to give some advices which didn't make it easy, but at the end it came out really nice. In this album everything was done by ourselves (compositions, arrangements, recording, mixing, art, etc...) and that's why it represents very well what we really are artistically.
In Brazil nowadays it is easy to get imported records although it can be expensive, since the government charges high import taxes on this kind of material. If we look back 2 decades, when we started to learn more about punk bands and form our musical style, it was very hard to get to listen to this type of music. I remember that back then, if someone got a new imported record he instantly became popular, since everyone who wanted to listen or get a copy of the record relied on the original owner. Almost everything I knew when I was a teenager came from a cassette copy from the "older" guys in the scene who had the chance to buy records abroad. Those copies where even sold at punk gigs in São Paulo. Some punks even did a living out of it.

But nowadays we have few stores we like to buy records and attend, like "The Records", where we find great material of punk and hardcore in vinyl, beyond the "So What CD Shop", in Gallery of Rock, which already exists for many years.

We miss the old stores like historical "Punk Rock Discos" of the lead singer of Olho Seco (Fábio) who later became the "Decontrol Discos". All of them are in the center of São Paulo.

We also buy enough national stuff on the internet, especially in the store www.redstar77.com of "Red Star Recordings".

Is it important to get out physical records of your stuff? Why or why not? Vinyl, CD, cassette, what do you prefer if you could choose whatever ?
R: (Caio) Well, I'm not sure anymore if it is that important to get a CD or Vinyl out today. It helps in some aspects, but also represents a lot of effort and costs. This CD enabled some opportunities for us like making contacts abroad (we would probably never had the chance to answer to this interview without it). It also helps us promoting the band locally. What needs to be said is that we really earn almost no money with it, not even close to cover all costs we had to produce it.
Besides that, this CD has other important meanings for the band. In 2014, when we finished the "Meus Dilemas" album, the band was already about 15 years old and had never launched a full-length record (up to that point of time we only participated in collections, launched EPs, split albums, etc...) therefore we always had this odd feeling that we wouldn't be a true band until we did that.
We would also love to have it on Vinyl but this we still couldn't concretize. Funny thing is that during the mastering sessions we even thought about the maximum length that the album could have to make this possible. In Brazil we do not have many vinyl factories and the existing ones are overloaded and expensive. Many local bands somehow manage to launch their albums in vinyl by manufacturing them outside of Brazil, but they normally have good international contacts to other independent record labels and bands. Unfortunately we have never been good in setting up those networks.

Please tell me a funny thing which have happened during your career and under some gig?
R: (Raphael) There are three years ago, on a Saturday bitch sunny Saturday (35º C), we would play in a city close to São Paulo. We arrived just after lunch, we did a quick test to hit the set list, take a few beers to refresh and late in the afternoon we went to the venue to see the place and see if it was all right for the show. It was a shack not very new, but it had a very cool vibe and already had some people at the door waiting for the place to open.

At that time we still talk, "Today is a great weather for people to leave home and go have a beer enjoying a punk rock show".

After know the place, we've decided to set the stage and let everything right to showtime. During assembly of the stage we heard a loud noise that came from outside and like thunder, but discarded this hypothesis because the day had been sunny. After a few minutes another sound of the same intensity ... at this time, someone came to tell us that it was starting to rain bearing. Suddenly gusts began unroof the place, the light was over and it started to rain on stage. We started to dismantle all too fast to avoid damaging the equipment. After a few minutes, there were practically a waterfall on the bar counter ... After we keep all the equipment at the top and in a safe place, we went to door and we noticed that the street looked like a river ... the car had been dragged about 5 meters down the stream, a tree trunk was lying on the street ... war scenario. People who were passing in the street began to abandon their cars and run into the bar.

After 40 minutes the rain began to subside until it stopped completely. There was no infrastructure in place to realize our show, the audience would not come and who was there started to fix the damage.

At the end we took two acoustic guitars, played all night for the "bar survivors," drinking beer and eating a pizza the early morning.

We got back to that city after a year in another location, but finally we have played there!

How does your audience look like? Which people do you miss on your concerts? Which is the biggest band you ever have played together with?
R: (Caio) Our audience are teenagers and middle-aged people. There are several punks among our audience but our music also seems to attract other kind of persons that like rock music, sometimes even people that normally wouldn't go to a punk rock show. Now that the band is almost 20 years old, we already see different generations in our gigs. We can identify the punk, skins, mods and rockers from the 2000's and several of the 2010's generation. For the younger ones we are already "old school" which is a strange thing for us.
We never got the chance to play outside of Brazil, but fortunately we got to play with some of the international bands we love when they came to Brazil, like GBH, Stiff Little Fingers, Rezillos, The Adicts, TSOL and even on a show with Olga from the Toy Dolls.

Please rank your five favorite records, five favorite concerts and five most important things in life?
R: (Ronaldo) Sorry mate, but is impossible! I would have to divide it in more categories to not commit any injustice. So let’s see…
Ramones is the best band ever for us and we love their albums, but here are the top 7 in my point of view:

1 - Rocket to Russia
2 - Road to Ruin
3 - End of the Century
4 - Mondo Bizarro
5 - Leave Home
6 - Pleasant Dreams
7 - Ramones
This is killing me!!! I could put 30 or more albums in this list, because we really love it.
So looking at other bands now, I would rank it this way:
1 - London Calling - The Clash
2 - Never Mind the Bollocks - Sex Pistols
3 - Beware - Misfits
4 - The Undertones - Undertones
5 - Can't Stand The Rezillos - The Rezillos
6 - Love Bites - Buzzcocks
7 - Sound Of Music - The Adicts
8 - Absurd-Ditties - Toy Dolls
9 - Frustration Paradise/Fight Amongst Yourselves - The Carpettes
10 - Nobody's Heroes - Stiff Little Fingers
11 - In the City - The Jam
12 - Alternative Chartbusters - The Boys
13 - Shock Troops - Cock Sparrer
14 - Damned Damned Damned - The Damned
15 - Crossing the Red Sea With - The Adverts

We also loved the whole Beatles discography!

My five favorite concerts are:
The Ramones - Brasil - São Paulo - 1994/1996
Stiff Little Fingers - Brasil - São Paulo - 2000
Rezillos - Brasil - São Paulo - 2006
Buzzcocks - São Paulo - 2007
Cockney Rejects - São Paulo - 2008

Here are five important things in our lives:
Love, friendship, respect, creativity, music and a good dose of rebelliousness! Ops, this sum up six.

Is it boring with interviews? Is it much interviews??
R: (Ronaldo) It depends. It’s not boring to answer to good interviews like this one. What bothers, is when we have to answer to questions asked by someone who is not really interested in the band or in the interview. In this kind of interview, it seems that a set of predefined standard questions have been selected and could be made to any other band in any circumstance. Now and then we answer to interviews, but until now, only in Portuguese.

If you could choose five bands from the past and the history and nowadays and both dead and living bands to have a concert together with your band. Which five have you been chosen?
R: (Ronaldo) Regarding nowadays bands, we would have difficulties! Between dead or alive, we get the usual:

Ramones, The Clash, Misfits (with Glen Danzig), The Jam and Toy Dolls. All of them as old times in 70’s / early 80’s.

Is music a good way to get out frustration and become a nicer person outside the music??

R: (Ronaldo) We have no doubts about it, it happens to us! Obviously, not all styles of music require an intellectual depth, artistic and even spiritual, but usually it is a choice for live.

Which is the most odd question you ever have got in an interview?
R: (Ronaldo) Are you an EMO band?

Which is the question you want to have but you never get. Please ask it and answer it?
R: (Caio) What we like is to really have a chance to say something that is particular and personal of the band and its work. Many interviews don’t give us the chance to do so and at the end, it seems that our answers could fit to any other band without differenciation.

So if we launch a new album for example, we want to talk about how the recording, composition, mixing, partnerships, preparation for the first gigs, and the whole concept behind it was established. We made a totally DIY album, bought all recording equipment and did it everything at home without entering in any studio, without having formal recording lessons or external help. This kind of thing we want to say.

If we go on a tour, we want to talk about everybody who helps us concretizing it, all the funny stories, and all the interesting people we met, because all this is part of the bands history and tells a lot about who we are.

We also want to have the chance to talk about what inspires us, why we keep doing this, what we believe in, etc… but you already made all those questions. Thanks for that!

Future plans for the band?
R: (Caio) We really want to play as much as we can so that more people get to know us. We are not good by promoting the band and that’s why we feel that there is room to let more people know about us.

We are also already working on new songs for a second full-length album we have already selected one and a half dozen of ideas to work on. Ronaldo has hours of recorded riffs, refrains, bases, melodies, etc… that needs to be refined to build a complete song out of it and that’s what we are working on.

As I already mentioned, we would also love to have a chance to launch our material on Vinyl and have the chance to play outside of Brazil.

There are many other ideas we are working on parallel to those ones, but the ones I mentioned are the most important ones.

As you see, we have plans and dreams a lot but so little time to dedicate to them, so we go step by step as fast as we can. Important thing is that all of us in the band can’t imagine our lives without the band, so we keep moving on by any means.

For yourself?
R: (Ronaldo) Staying next to my friends, my girlfriend and my family to try to have as many happy moments as possible. Play and listen to lots of music, and keep writing music forever. Maybe this will help me to go through life with a little more pleasure and inner peace, because life can usually be very sad.
(Caio) Move away from São Paulo to a smaller city nearby, quit my current job that suck away all my energy and dedicate to things I like more, like my band and, my family, my ideals.

Wisdomword?
R: (Ronaldo) Question everything, do not swallow anything and be open to review all your conclusions for not to become a conservative idiot.

Something to add?
R: (Ronaldo) We love to do music and play in a band, it is one of the few things in our lives where we can really do things in our way, be who we want to be and act freely without having to play by someone else’s rules. We would love to have more time to dedicate to this, but we do the best we can to conciliate every aspect of our lives. What we do is honest and means a lot for us. Every now and then we see someone who connects and get touched by our music. This means that a little bit of what we believe and do, also makes sense and in some way affect other people's live and this is very gratifying. Hope you guy's like our stuff and that we can meet in the future.