FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Vice Blog

ALLOYHA COPACABANA EXPLAIN THEIR MESS

Brazilians Alloyha Copacabana describe themselves as a "visual band." They don't talk about seeing melodies or anything like that--they're just obsessed with dressing up and being looked at–stuff you expect out of people involved with fashion– but they...

Brazilians Alloyha Copacabana describe themselves as a "visual band." They don't talk about seeing melodies or anything like that--they're just obsessed with dressing up and being looked at–stuff you expect out of people involved with fashion– but they're amazing at it and are pretty famous in São Paulo.

Vice: You're more a fashion thing than a band, right? Fabio Gurjao: The first step is deciding what to wear, then come the stage props, then we fit the music around the look. So far we've

Advertisement

only

done four gigs and two of them were commissioned by Jeremy Scott and Gant.

That's kind of major, but you started off big. Your first gig was at Sao Paulo's Art Biennial – how did that happen?

I am part of the

Assume Vivid Astro Focus

collective; the Biennial gave us the space and freedom to create performances and experiences, so even though Alloyha Copacabana had existed since 2005, the Biennial finally gave us a big enough platform to launch it. [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="512" caption="Assume Vivid Astro Focus installation at Oslo's Museum of Art, Architecture and Design"]

[/caption]

*Is Alloyha Copacabana a full time thing? No, Rick Castro is an abravana artist. Vocalist Vanessa Monteiro is a stylist, Douglas Moraes does PR, and I have my own label,FKawallys and a fanzine, fur-uk.com.* [caption id="attachment_5350" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="A Rick Castro installation"][/caption] When you perform, you just lip-synch, don't you? You don't sing your own songs. Alloyha Copacabana is about exchanging energy. We spend ages listening to tracks, watching videos and trawling the web for the building blocks of our image. It's all about a fast turnover of information, which we consume and reproduce as performance.

*For "fast turnover" it took you a long time to launch this to the public! Will there ever be a record? There is a plan we will record an album next year, possibly with CSS's Adriano Cintra.*

Advertisement

What sort of music do you perform? Our references in music mainly come from Brazilian pop, axé, rock… there are no rules. But we like pop because the music sticks to your brain – you just walk home from the gig singing.

*So the performances are a way of promoting your aesthetic? Yeah, the band promotes my label (FKawallys). We look the same when we go out and people tend to love it; we are in the Brazilian press every week.*