Blue Mammoth

Brazilian neo-progressive rock band Blue Mammoth is the result of a fortunate encounter of bassist and musical producer Julian Quilodran as well as the keyboard player and composer Andre Micheli. Julian never gave up on the idea of setting up a new prog rock project since his band Octohpera, dissolved right after releasing their debut album in 2002. He met Andre Micheli in early 2003 and they worked together on a few projects, while Andre was studying musical composition at the Rio de Janeiro Federal University. This new friendship made Andre go much deeper into progressive music and several invitations to make a band soon appeared. At the end of his course, Andre was disappointed about the erudite music production and the academic milieu. Thus, he found in progressive rock a perfect way to show his artistic expression, where he could assemble the grip of the ever loved rock music and the harmonic colors and techniques of classical music. Right after that they began working on the project. The initial idea was for the project to only consist of studio sessions in composition/recording by the two members, since forming a band seemed unlikely at this time. At this time, some guitarists collaborated transiently on the pre-production of the songs, such as Pablo Marques and Cesar Aires. The repertoire gradually proved itself strong enough to motivate musicians to join the project permanently. Amongst these musicians, the first was the drummer Thiago Meyer and, soon after, guitarist Andre Lupac. They both did a great job with engagement and dedication, which made the accomplishment of a unity throughout the repertoire. As Andre Micheli assumed the lead vocals, the initial project now deserved to be called a band. Just a few weeks after three singles were released on the internet, the band was invited to sign with Masque Records and release their first international album . The work became intense and, due to personal issues, guitarist Andre Lupac decided to leave the band. We called Cesar Aires back, who had always been aware of the paths and developments of the production of the album. With the initial idea of getting into the band as a fixed member, which happened for a while, Cesar agreed to temporary collaborate with the band while the group tried to find a definitive guitarist. He did a great job mainly on most of the base guitar arrangements, some solos and first musical conceptions of the second album. Luckily, there was almost no break on the band’s working rhythm till we met Vinicius de Oliveira, a Julian's University colleague who is now fully incorporated to the band’s group. Vinícius completed the band with a modern grip, an opened and imaginative musical mind; and finished the second album working on almost every track of the album, with great solos and some extra base guitars recording sections.