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In next items you will see all details about the making of Execution, But before I tell the story of the album, I decided to tell the story of the friendships that came to be in the making of the album (such as Bruce Dickinson, Roy Z, Roland Grapow), starting with the first ones I knew.
Kiko Loureiro
In 1995, I was working in a Heavy Metal CD store in Rio De Janeiro called On Stage. My Boss, Vitor was the manager of the band I had at the time, “Horizon”. We were a prog metal band, probably the first prog metal band in the city. At that time I studied in the evenings and worked from 9.00 till 19.00 in the shop. It was a difficult period, but very positive for what I planned for my future. Vitor decided that he would throw a kind of "party-show" to commemorate the anniversary of the store. At that time, everybody was talking about a new upcoming band called “Angra”. Vitor got in contact with them if they would like to come to the party.
When the two musicians arrived, were they Andre Matos and Kiko Loureiro. I was 16 years old at that time but we ebded up jamming onstage at the party. We played 6 songs together, Time (Angra), Flight Of Icarus (Iron Maiden), Battle Hymn (Manowar) and others. Since then we have become good friends, but I kept more in contact with Kiko. Years later, Kiko produced my second band (Thoten) and has since helped in many ways as a new and dear friend.
Roland Grapow
I met him through Michael Weikath, also from Helloween. Weikath and I used to chat by ICQ, at the time Andre Matos had left Angra and rumours were out on the interent that I would join the band to replace him. I can remember clearly as if it was yesterday my first conversation with Weikath. We chatted for a while then he asked me "These rumors, thatyou will be the new singer of the Angra, are they true?" I was super scared because I saw that the rumours were bigger than I had thought. And before this creates more rumors, I want to clarify that it was all only RUMORS.
When Helloween came to play in Brazil, I met with Weikath and I was introduced to Roland Grapow who also gave his ICQ number to me in a funny meeting at the Ipanema Beach. Some time later, I was invited to sing in a tribute to Helloween in the commemoration of the anniversary of a rock periodical from Sao Paulo. I sent an email inviting Roland to play with me at the show; he had left Helloween by that time and was recording the first Masterplan album. But he accepted anyway and we spent three days together, becoming good friends.
Chris Dale
I had just returned from a European tour with my ex-band. When I arrived in home, I had an email from Magnus Rosen (the bass player from Hammerfall who I had hoped would record on the Execution album) saying that he couldn’t participate on my album, for schedule reasons. I’d originally met Magnus through a friend we had in common in Sao Paulo. But also I had in my e-mails box a message from Alf Olafson, our tour manager in Sweden. He sent his ICQ number, so that way we did not lose contact. When I connected, we talked a little bit and we started to talk about my CD, I mentioned that I was without a bass player, was when he said "Chris Dale, Bruce’s bass player is here in myhouse, would you like to speak with him?”. Sometimes I think it is simply incredible how destiny conspires to run things well when you dedicate everything to a project. That way I had my first contact with the person whom would be one of my best European friends. Chris entered in the ICQ and we started to talk, but the ICQ line failed and it wouldn’t connect again for anything in this world. But we chatted a few days later by email.
Chris recorded the basses of my album in Brazil and passed one week at my home. He is a fantastic person and one of my most dear friends. Months later I also passed some weeks at his house in London during the promotion of the album in Europe. Beside all those things, he is one of the people responsible for how I got to know Bruce Dickinson.
Roy Z
Kiko Loureiro invited me to go to the release party of the new Angra album, “Rebirth”. When I was there looking around, I saw a person who I’ve never would imagine finding there, Roy Z. At the moment I was paralyzed, because I was a great fan of his work. I stood there like a little boy, I did not have courage of approach him. I was really wanted to give him an album of my band and try to learn more about production, direct from the best source.
Two days later, I called Kiko and he gave me Roy’s e-mail. Kiko told that he was "really cool guy", so I plucked up courage and wrote to him. In the email I wrote about a thousand things, especially that I would like to show him some tracks which I was working on as a sketch of what one day would come to be the “Execution” album. Roy answered me the following day with the phrase, "Call me tomorrow", with his number on it. I froze, but in the following day, I was there calling for Roy Z. When he answered the phone, I started to talk some nonsense as I was so nervous and later I spoke of my music. I commented that Roland would also participate, but he already knew about it, because Roland had mentioned me to him. I was extremely happy to hear that, but still super nervous at the same time. A blank space filled my brain and all English words disappeared, it was terrible. I was starting to be really nervous when he said "If you prefer we can talk in Portuguese". He said it perfectly, his Portuguese was excellent, I was super surprised and relieved to hear that!
He is a fantastic guy and helped me a lot during the “Execution” recordings, teaching me many things about production and positioning of microphones. “Execution” was the first CD that I’ve produced and it was really good, but it was certainly with thanks to people such as Roy, who patiently took all my calls disturbing him to ask technician details. He is a great person.
Mat Sinner & Ralf Scheepers
The CD was taking form already, when Gustavo (ex-guitarist of my band) introduced me an album called “Nature Of Evil”. I adored the album. I was a great Primal Fear fan, but I was surprised to seeing that Mat’s solo band was as good as the proper Primal Fear. So, I decided that I would record a cover of the title track, because I simply couldn’t stop to listening to it. I wrote to Mat to ask his authorization to record his song. He answered me and he was very likeable in the first reply. Then I decided to invite him to interpret it with me. We started to chat a lot by email and we became good friends. Later I was introduced to Ralf. I only knew them personally one year later at a Primal Fear concert in Brazil. Mat was one of the people responsible for the “Execution” album being released so fast in Europe,
he helped me with some contacts and introduced me to people who he knew that would help me, and that was exactly what happened.
Bruce Dickinson
It took me three years trying to reach him. I spoke with some people in his record company, but had no help from there. Of course, I was just another fan disturbing the artist. Two people were very important in changing this, Chris Dale and Roy Z.
The first contact that I had with Bruce was through Chris, I mentioned to him that I would like to perhaps have Bruce on the album. Chris said that it would be impossible, because Bruce gets a lot of requests like this. But as a good Brazilian that I am, I disturbed him A LOT, every single day. Then Chris said to send a demo of the music that I would like to have Bruce on. I entered in the studio of a friend of mine and recorded best possible the demo version of "Beast In The Light". Everything was really simple, electronic drums, guitars and basses direct in the PC, but with a lot of serious work and energy. Then Chris received the CD and said, "It's really cool, I’ll play it to Bruce, but still it will be a miracle if he agrees to sing on it”. The following day, Chris sent me an email with the title "Miracles Happen”. I’ve opened the message and I read the following words, "Bruce liked the music and he will sing on it, but he has no time right now". I was completely speechless, it was incredible! I would sing music with the guy who is the reason why I’m a singer today. I spent a week without sleep, like a child excited about some gift he will get.
After this email, one year passed by, and I already had given up hope of recording with Bruce, because he had not sent more news. I thought he may have forgotten or something like that. Then he came to Brazil with Iron Maiden on the “Dance Of Death" tour. That day my telephone rang, in the other side a guy that nowadays is a great friend and worked with me in the DVD concerts, but at that time he introduced himself as "Here is Alfredo from CIE Brazil, I’m calling as a request from Bruce Dickinson, to arrange a meeting with you”. I freaked out, I got the address of the hotel and freaked out again. I arrived at the Intercontinental Hotel, many reporters were there, I passed through them and called Alfredo’s cell phone and said that I was in the hotel waiting for Bruce.
Alfredo came down, a strong guy, but very likeable and said "Hello, are you going to sing in the Iron Maiden concert?" I answered, "No, he’s going to sing on my CD", He looked at me for a while and said, "is it a tribute CD?" I answered "No, it is a solo CD, a Tribuzy CD". He was very surprised, I remember his face, it was really funny. Bruce came down to the hall of the hotel, came in my direction and said "Hello Renato, It is a pleasure finally to meet ya". It was fantastic, because had a lot of guests there and he came directly to me, he had looked at some photo or something on the internet to know who I was. We had a great chat and he gave me a VIP pass to see the show and go backstage. It was wonderful. The next day he invited me to come to the hotel at 10:00 for breakfast. We spoke about many things, our friends, the DVD he was already working on, his solo album and my CD. Since this day, I found and spoke with Bruce many times and we became good friends. Later I had the pleasure of having him here in Brazil for five days during the DVD concerts. He is a very real person and above everything honest and humble.
“Well, That was the way I knew everybody that goes to appear below. Now I hope you enjoy the Execution Report! Good Reading!’
“And a big thanks to the all the people who were involved in the work in different forms, but that I did not mention: Alberto Ferraz, Achim Kohler, Rod Smallwood, Van Willians, Suzan Tate, AnnaMaria Di Santo, Sebastian Vollmer, Michael Kiske, Luiz Correra, Vinicius Mello, Paulo Baron, Dennis Ward and many others.”
Renato Tribuzy.
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