Kiko Loureiro, one of the greatest metal guitarists, granted us an interview during the « Guitare en Scène » festival. Angra’s guitarist tells us about his relationship with music and with his six-stringed instrument.

Interview conducted by Claude Guillet and Eugenio Fortaleza September 2007. St Julien en Genevois (France)
Traduction : Eugenio Fortaleza

Radio Metal :You have already made several videos, albums and teaching handbooks about guitar. But what is the most important: learn by yourself or being taught by a music teacher?

Kiko Loureiro :Both are important. Self-teaching is different from a music teacher because the latter would only be there one hour a week or one hour a day. Self-teaching is a constant work, it should never stop. I think it is necessary to keep your mind always focused on your music. If you are alone, you would think about your music, about the things you are studying and you would discover new techniques by yourself. The music teacher’s role is different. It consists in giving you new guiding lines, new documents. In fact his role is to help you having a clearer view of your work. But it only depends on the one who is playing anyway.


Thomas Edison once said, “Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration”. What does this quote call to your mind?

This might be true. But he was an engineer, and when dealing with music, it’s a bit different. Music is language, a musical language. Just like fluent language, music has a grammar. You can learn grammar; you can learn everything from language structure to its construction, or its meaning, but the most important thing is your ability to think. Inspiration is probably the main factor… well I don’t know. Anyway I cannot give you a right proportion between perspiration and inspiration. Thomas Edison claimed that because he was an engineer. In fact, I think that we learn the theory or the grammar so that one day, we can free ourselves from all that. And this in order to use all the knowledge you have acquired to make some truly authentic music. As I said it is the same for the spoken language, you are not thinking about the grammar when you talk, you are only telling your idea. You are no longer thinking about the structure of your sentence, about the place of the verb or the object…


Indeed, about your creative process, how do you compose with Angra and especially with the other guitarist, Rafael Bittencourt

It’s true that we compose a lot of thing together with Bittencourt and that it is pretty easy. Angra is 15 and I know Rafael for about 18 years. We are closely connected with each other. I know what he likes, his style, the chords he is going to make, the following ones… There is a great complicity between us. We studied the guitar differently therefore we do not have the same approach to this instrument. And this is this mixture of our two ways of playing that creates this originality to our music.


Tarja Turunen, Nightwish’s former singer, asked you to play some guitar parts on her solo album called My Winter Storm. What did she expect of you and how did you live this experience?

I’ve only participated in three songs of that project. These are basic guitar parts, in which the acoustic guitar accompanies Tarja’s voice and two other entirely acoustic tracks. I recorded everything at my studio in Brazil…


So you never met Tarja?

No I never met her. I talked a lot with her producer on the phone and on the Internet. That’s the modern world my friend! For instance, on her solo album, she recorded the guitar parts in Finland and the orchestration in New York. So her album has the peculiarity to have been conceived in different countries.


Tarja also declared that you were her first choice because you were the only one that could grasp the spirit of her music and add your personal dimension. Even if you were still working on Angra.

She really said that? This is cool… I know that she really likes Angra’s music in which there is a lot of acoustic guitar with a very classical atmosphere. That must be why she asked me to work with her. She wanted a part of that spirit on her album. She didn’t only asked me to do some guitar parts but to create an atmosphere. And I really liked to do this.


Lots of guitarists have a kind of love relationship with their guitars… What is your relationship with the Brazilian guitar brand you’re using, Tagima?

Oh… (?). I like the way it looks… Some guitarists use women’s names to talk about their instrument but it’s the relation with an instrument that you love! It is something very special with which you spend a lot of time working, therefore you spend more time with it than with a woman. In Portuguese, you do not say “to play” but “to touch” the guitar. Thus this different feeling! You can therefore compare guitars to women… but I won’t!


Site Internet Kiko Loureiro : www.kikoloureiro.com.br