Felipe Andreoli - Bass

Here's his biography written by himself!

Music came into my life at a very early age. Back home, my mother taught me to like good music, and she always showed me the records, the lyrics, and a lot of new stuff. That’s how I discovered bands like Supertramp, Yes, Tears For Fears, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Led Zeppelin and many others. She also bought me my first vinyl, the Red Hot Chili Peppers album “Blood Sugar Sex Magic”. At this time, through some neighbor friends, I started to discover Heavy Metal. The first band that caught my attention was Metallica. It was the time of “grunge”, with bands like Alice in Chains and Soudgarden, that I still listen to nowadays. In school, some friends started playing guitar, and I was somehow attracted to that.
In ’92 I had the first contact with the acoustic guitar. My good friend André Brunetti was starting to learn it, for his father Cesar is a musician. It was Cesar that first handed me a guitar. I remember learning my first lick, the intro of Ritchie Valen’s “La Bamba”. From this point on, my interest only increased, and my father had to buy me a guitar and pay for some classes.
In school, my friends had formed a band, and they missed a bass player. Knowing that I played acoustic guitar, they invited me to be the bass player and also the singer. I said yes, and instantly bought my first bass, second hand, worth 80 Dollars! After 2 weeks of intense rehearsal, we finally played our first concert, in our school. We played tunes from Led Zeppelin, Guns n’ Roses and others.
Shortly after, I formed my own band, Holocaust, where we played basically Metallica songs, and eventually something else, like Megadeth. My original idea for this band was for me to be the drummer, and Andre the bass player, but as he was the one who bought the drumset, he had the right not to agree with me…too bad! From this point on, I played in countless bands, in many different styles, but I gave up singing for the sake of people’s ears!
The influences were also renewed, and my life really changed after I first listened to Yngwie Malmsteen. That was a shock! I couldn’t believe that was possible! That woke me up for new things to study, and made my musical vision much wider, seeing a whole lot of new possibilities on the bass. Many other influences came after that, and maybe the main one was Dream Theater, with the albums “Images and Words” and “Awake”. I practically learned all the songs in these two records, and some from the others. The next big shock came with Jaco Pastorius. That’s when the solo bass really started making sense for me, and at this time I focused in studying improvisation, and listening to more Jazz Fusion stuff.
My one and only bass teacher was the great Ximba Uchyama. I started having classes with him in ’97, and he helped me to unveil many misteries in music, and introduced me to many bass players that wrote their names in the list of my influences, and changed my way of playing the bass. Probably the main ones were Michael Manring, Victor Wooten, John Patitucci, Billy Sheehan, Victor Bailey and Stanley Clarke. A few months before, I had met a guitar player called Vandré Nascimento, and he offered me the opportunity to play with someone who was able to play all that “speed of light” licks, and that made me do a big effort to reach his level. With him and the drummer Renato Bon I formed the trio Metris, my first chance to apply all I had learned until then, all the techniques, improvisation and composition.
In ’99 I joined the Prog Metal band Karma. I always wanted to play some progressive stuff, and Karma was just perfect in this sense. I remember watching their rehearsal for the first time and being astonished, for I wasn’t aware of an underground Brazilian band with such high level of musicianship. They were recording the “Inside the Eyes” album, and I had a very short time to learn the complex songs and record them. In the end of the year, Karma’s manager invited me to take part in a project involving Paul Di’Anno, former Iron Maiden singer. In the year 2000, we recorded the Di’Anno’s “Nomad”, and toured Brazil. That was my first tour ever, with bigger concerts and structure.
After that, I rejoined my friend André to record some old songs in a project called FireSign. We recorded a demo with Karma’s singer and drummer, plus the keyboard player Mauro Chevis. Karma’s manager listened to this demo, liked it, and felt like releasing it as a real album, called “The Top of the Mountain”. And so he did!
In early 2001, I was invited to join Angra. They found me through indications from many different people we knew in common, and also trough Aquiles Priester, with whom I had played in the Di’Anno project. I joined the band officially in February 18th. Still that year we released “Rebirth”, which was a record that brought the band back to a trail of success. A big tour followed, covering lots of countries around the world, and consequently I left Karma.
The following year we released “Hunters And Prey”, which is an EP with some acoustic versions, some original material and a cover of Genesis’ “Mama”. We also released a CD and DVD called “Rebirth World Tour Live In São Paulo”, recorded at Via Funchal the previous year.
In 2004 we recorded and released “Temple Of Shadows”, which is one of the most acclaimed records in Angra’s history, considered by many a “masterpiece”. Again we had a huge world tour with over 130 concerts.
In 2005, something really cool happened, as I joined Karma again. I did it because I couldn’t stop listening to their new stuff, I really dug it! Luckily for me, their bass player left, and we started talking about my return. Shortly after, I re-recorded all the bass parts, and we remixed and remastered the record, which by the way sounds much better now! The album is called “Leave Now!!!”, and it was released that same year. Still with Thiago and Marcell from Karma, and also André Brunetti on guitars, we also recorded what was supposed to be the second FireSign album, but it turned to be totally different and we decided to call the band Vox. The CD is calle “Original”, and its style is much more like grunge and alternative rock.
The next year I recorded an instrumental record with the project Freakeys, consisting of me on bass, Fábio Laguna on keyboards, Aquiles Priester on drums and Eduardo Martinez on guitars. We released a record and did some shows in Brazil. All through the year I did shows with Kiko Loureiro in his solo project “No Gravity”, with drummer Fernando Schaefer, and Angra released Aurora Consurgens, the third record with the “new” line-up.
In July 2007, after the Aurora Consurgens Tour, due to several issues with the management, Angra stopped all activities. In the meantime I joined Edu in his solo project Almah, and we started doing some shows. In the end of the year Angra was still struggling to come back, but with no success, and we decided to make a new Almah record. At the same time I recorded another instrumental album with a project called Time Out, with Mello Jr. on guitars and Mauricio Leite on drums. The record is called “The Journey”, and it’s a CD and DVD, containing the making of the record, interviews, live studio performances and scores for the songs.
In January Edu, Marcelo Barbosa and I started composing the songs for Almah. By April we had all compositions done, and a new line-up with Marcelo Moreira on drums and Paulo Schroeber on the second guitar. We recorded at Norcal Studios in São Paulo, and the record is now done. It’s called “Fragile Equality” and it’s killer! Almost at the same time I recorded 5 tracks on Rafaek Bittencourt’s first solo album, which is soon gonna be released.
Right now I’m working on the release of “Fragile Equality” and “The Journey”.