Interview with Singer Ricardo Pereira of Moonshade
By Mick Michaels
COSMICK VIEW: Hello, Ricardo! Welcome to The Cosmick View. Thank you for taking some time out of your day to chat with me, it's greatly appreciated.
Ricardo Pereira: Most welcome, thank you for having me here!
CV:
What do you feel is a real game changer for an artist or band when it comes to
their career in the modern music industry? Is it something they do, or say, or
achieve…?
RM: To me, the real game changer for a band is when
they start becoming trendsetters. When you see a band break through with a
particular sound, then you see a bunch of smaller bands either partially adopting
that sound or even switching genres entirely, you know the aforementioned band
has made it. Artistically, that’s the goal – to be the original everyone
copies.
CV:
Years ago it was said that video killed the radio star. Has social media killed
what was left in your opinion?
RM: Killed? I disagree entirely, my friend. Social
media is the best tool an independent artist has ever had to promote their work,
albeit any tool is useless if you don’t know how to use it. There’s this
lingering feeling that technology is killing the art, but what social media
killed, or is mercilessly killing, is that gross habit of the music industry
spoon feeding music to the consumer, creating artistic bottlenecks, which are
the main reason why many people resort to those commonplace arguments of “no
one makes good music anymore” – they don’t search the web, and for the most
part, their tastes are defined by whatever was in fashion when they finished
high school, whatever music labels spoon fed them at the time. Now, through
algorithms, every independent musician can find their niche where people ‘get’
them, and I think that’s beautiful. Besides, never in History have there been
so many people recording and releasing music, so many new things being invented
and experimented with. How can we pronounce something dead when it’s more alive
than ever?
CV:
With the world now being post-COVID, how have things changed for you as an
artist? Has a new music industry really emerged in its wake as many are saying?
What are your thoughts?
RM: COVID did take a major toll on the music business,
but let’s be frank, the industry already had a bunch of serious issues before
COVID, so let’s not pretend it was COVID that demanded the rise of a new music
industry – the need was already there, COVID just reinforced it. The fact is
that, even before COVID, making a living out of the music industry was already
damn near impossible, there was (and still is) a mental health crisis, and in
most developed countries there is an absolute void of structural and societal
support for when one wants to work in the industry. In metal, particularly, I
think it’s abhorrent that many musicians that we consider to be ‘big’ and have
thousands of fans, still need to work different jobs to make a living. As far
as the industry ‘changing’ because of COVID, I may be wrong, but I didn’t see
much change. Fortunately for us as a band, COVID didn’t change much, as we,
like many musicians, got jobs to pay for our music addiction. We didn’t play
live for two years but that was okay, we needed to write the new album anyway. We
missed live shows dearly, but the impact COVID had on us was not significant,
we kept moving on.
CV:
If you knew the pandemic was coming, what would you have done differently as an
artist to prepare?
RM: We would’ve written an album about it. We had a
similar feeling on this new album – we wrote a song about the dangers of a
nuclear holocaust, and months later, Vladimir Putin started threatening to push
the big red button every other week. That feeling of being part of trying times
and helping people cope with the peaceful respite music offers, it’s brilliant.
CV:
Do you believe bands and artists who make the biggest impact on fans, as well as
other artists, are really ever aware that they are? Or do you think it’s more like
a tunnel vision sort of existence for them, where they’re somewhat in the dark?
Do you think such artists can actually see past their own work to even know the
ripples they make on others?
RM: I think they can see it perfectly, fans are usually
very clear about that. The real problem is when artists feel entitled to that
reaction, that’s usually when effort and quality go down the drain.
CV: Does music need to be
influential to be considered worth listening to in your opinion? Or can music
simply be just an enjoyable auditory experience devoid of substance?
RM: That’s the beauty of music – it can be whatever you
want it to be. Not all art has to be either pretentiously complex or
brain-numbingly, WAP-like simple, there is a whole range of possibilities, and
all are needed and necessary. You can be inspired, you can shake your ass, hell
you can even do both, see Mastodon’s “The Motherload.” Of course you’re going
to have to forgive us artists for having defined, even crass opinions on what
art should be, sometimes we’re going to bash certain types of music because we
aim towards the antithesis of what they stand for, and it’s harder to do that
when you empathize too much. However, understand that it’s the sheer
variability of opinions regarding what music should be that make up for this
incredibly rich cultural tapestry. Life’s too short, so by all means know what
you like and be honest about it, but do your best to be eclectic, don’t take
yourself too seriously, cherish diversity, and most of all, have fun – that’s
what it’s all about.
CV: What do you consider “being
relevant” is when discussing how artists and bands should present themselves to
the public? Does relevance translate into success in your opinion? In addition,
what do you feel an artist can do right now to stay relevant?
RM: That’s a good one, loving this interview so far!!
Well, I think that maybe defining the baseline for relevance will be hard since
it’s a very abstract concept. If one person likes it, it’s relevant to them,
and on a societal level, how many fans define ‘relevance’? 10? 100? Thousands?
Is Justin Bieber the most relevant artist of this generation, and if so, is
that a good thing, a bad thing, or neither? Besides, considering the average
size of the artistic ego, let’s pretend we could actually define ‘relevance’,
and we can agree that artists would move the goalposts anyway so their apparent
lack of relevance wouldn’t make an “ouchie” on their fragile souls. So, the
answer to the question ‘Does relevance translate to success,’ is ‘I wouldn’t
know, because I’m not sure what relevance is’. I know what an artist can do to
increase hype, and that is communicating with fans on social media, releasing
good music with top notch production quality, being original, and being catchy.
CV:
As an artist, what do you see as being your biggest lesson learned? And what
type of impact has that lesson had on you as a person and your career?
RM: Learning to stop waiting for someone to coddle or
‘discover’ me or my band. When you accept the world doesn’t owe you shit, and
are truly at peace with it, magic starts to happen – you start making things
happen on your own, learning, and gaining pleasure in the grind, which produces
results, and all of a sudden, music and life are a lot more fun. Now, that
doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be kind, always be kind, just don’t be a whiny baby
– if you’re not doing well, whether in music or in life, be analytical, find
the problems, experiment, get informed, be pro-active, be creative, find solutions,
ask for help where you can find it, always try again, and be brave. I see many
people my age get into this circle of whining where everything sucks and
there’s no way to fix it and ‘you’ll never get it’, they just want to complain
to the point where they have no idea you have bigger problems because you would
rather not dwell on them when not actively trying to fix them, and it’s sad.
This, excluding mental health issues, which are serious - I’m only talking
about mentality here. The best thing this unforgiving industry taught me is
that whining takes you nowhere, either play ball or don’t, and if you do play
ball, whenever you can, you should soften the path for those who come after
you, and be grateful to those who softened it for you.
CV:
What's next? What can fans expect to see coming from you?
RM: That’s easy! Besides our three singles that we
already released, two more singles will come before the release of ‘As We Set
the Skies Ablaze’, our sophomore album, which will be out on July 22nd.
It’s an incredibly ambitious, epic, symphonic, yet groovy and hard-hitting
piece of extreme metal which is guaranteed to blow you away, so don’t sleep on
it!!
CV: Thank you again Ricardo for
spending some time talking and sharing with our readers. It was such a
pleasure. I wish you all the best.
RM: Cheers to you guys for inviting me to do this, it
was an a honor. All the best!!
Check
out Moonshade at:
Official: https://moonshadeofficial.com/biography
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