EMQ’s With Leo Maia
EMQ’s With Leo Maia
Hi everyone. Welcome to another EMQs interview, this time with Brazilian Progressive Rock/Metal musician, Leo Maia. Huge thanks to him for taking part.
What is your name, what do you play and can you tell us a little bit about the history of the band?
My name is Leo Maia, I’m a singer first and a music theory nerd that loves to compose Progressive Rock / Metal. In order to fulfil my crazy compositions and turn them into music, I also play guitars, keyboards and learned to produce music so I can unleash my madness into the world.
I’ve always been composing, in fact the next single that I’m working on right now was composed 10+ years ago. I just had never put in the effort on recording and producing my music. I’ve always been trying to find musicians that could play with me in an actual band but I never found people who were both technically skilled to play Progressive Rock and willing to play my style of the genre (which is much less mechanical then modern Prog productions).
Then, after my terrible experience last year with a spontaneous collapse of the left lung, I found myself in a recovery mode at home not being able to sing, which pushed me to buying a guitar and keyboards, learning how to produce on YouTube and finally composing a piece inspired by the terrible hospital experience. Once I had written and recorded the instrumental parts for this 9 minute Prog song, I finally had sufficient lung strength to sing again and recorded Pneumothorax’ vocals, really not knowing if I would be able to sing it entirely since it was my first time singing after the lung collapse. The single’s reception has been so nice that I’m super pumped and working on my next single, not to mention collaborations.
How did you come up with your band name?
It’s my name 😀 (actually, my name is Leonardo Maia Carneiro de Novaes, but Leo Maia for short.)
What Country/Region are you from and what is the Metal/Rock scene like there?
I’m from Brazil, Rio de Janeiro. The scene there is pretty good, there are plenty of local bands and whenever the big bands show up the gigs are super energetic. One thing that I found to be really different when I moved to Canada was the energy on Metal shows. I went to an Iron Maiden concert over here and it was nothing like the ones I’ve been to in Brazil, people over there are really CRAZY about Metal and their idols.
What is your latest release? (Album, EP, Single, Video)
‘Pneumothorax’. It is a single about my experience with a spontaneous left lung collapse. It’s very dynamic and purposely crafted for story-telling. For example, it starts calm with a tranquil piano, which represents my calm day, until there’s an abrupt break, which is the lung collapsing. It then develops into ambient riffs that represent my fear of going into the emergency room, pain due to chest tubes being inserted, anxiety and eventually a heavy energetic solo hospital discharge, back to the piano tranquillity of home.
The song is not just a song but it’s the story behind it that’s very important for experiencing it in its entirety, and for that, I’m releasing an animated lyrics video on May 5th on YouTube that will surely help.
Who have been your greatest influences?
King Crimson is my greatest influence hands down. I lean heavily on the vintage Prog influences as I believe they were the masters of intentional composition and song-writing. Selecting harmonies and melodies that have a purpose in the song, Bill Brufford’s polyrhythmic drums, Mel Collins blow instruments, they all have a place in my compositions.
That said, I mix these vintage influences with more modern sounds, such as Mogwai, Dream Theater, Ayreon. All that while trying to make sure I am not leaning into mechanical technical execution of instruments and keeping the melodies simple in order to glue the music together, aiming to make Progressive music that is more accessible and organic. The songs are still extremely complex in terms of time signatures and harmony, but the objective is for the listener to feel it rather than consciously notice it and the band Oceansize is another big influence that sets a good example on how to do it for my own inspiration.
What first got you into music?
My dad, he always had a vinyl collection and when I was 6 years old my favourite playtime with him would be Pink Floyd – “The Wall”. He would put me in a chair and shake it as the airplane and bombs exploded in the background and we would go through the entire record like this. I eventually learned how to play guitar and music theory and then into singing lessons.
If you could collaborate with a current band or musician who would it be?
While I currently collaborate with Jeff Black (Gatekeeper), a local amazing metal musician and personal friend in the Vancouver area, if I could select one musician to collaborate with in the entire world it would be Arjen Anthony Lucassen from Ayreon. I absolutely love Ayreon, I have most of their vinyl records (signed by Arjen) and the singers in the project have always been an inspiration for me. I think singing on an Ayreon record is a personal dream for sure.
If you could play any festival in the world, which would you choose and why?
To be frank i would like to be at the Cruise to the Edge. The thought of being in a cruise ship with members of Yes, Gentle Giant and others playing is absolutely amazing, and being backstage with these people would be amazing.
What’s the weirdest gift you have ever received from a fan?
I haven’t received any gifts from fans (yet) given that I just released my debut single. But maybe someday 🙂
If you had one message for your fans, what would it be?
Thank you so much for supporting me on this journey and for the reception that ‘Pneumothorax’ had. I really like how you not only listen to it, but connect with the story and with my personal emotions / experience.
If you could bring one rock star back from the dead, who would it be?
That’s a tough one, there are so many! I’m thinking Chris Squire from Yes as his bass lines are timeless. That said, I absolutely would love to see Freddy Mercury live as I never had that opportunity…
What do you enjoy the most about being a musician? And what do you hate?
I really enjoy how music theory can connect to emotions. Being able to lean on the knowledge of how each note, chord, time signature can make the listener feel is extremely empowering and I love to think deeply about each piece when composing.
What I hate is that you get 80% of the work done quickly, and you feel like you have a great song, but the 20% remaining of arrangements, producing, selecting takes and so on takes so much more time than the composing and performing and you need to be resilient in order to actually release music instead of just composing them. Not to mention the music marketing effort that you need to put as an independent artist.
If you could change one thing about the music industry, what would it be?
I would love it if I could focus on simply creating music and performing my best. The current state of the industry, as an independent artist, means this is just part of what I do. The other part is constantly promoting, producing, dealing with releases that end up placed under another artist’s profile. I however love connecting with fans on a personal level through social media though.
Name one of your all-time favourite albums?
King Crimson – “Islands”. Yes, it’s extremely under-rated and a hot take here, but I am constantly reaching for it for the emotional message. It’s just stunningly beautiful.
What’s best? Vinyl, Cassettes, CD’s or Downloads?
They each serve their own purpose. I prefer to listen to music on Vinyl, the connection with the album imposed by not being able to quickly skip songs and how it forces you to pay attention in order to get up and flip it when its time makes the music experience more valuable when comparing to just looping music streaming platforms forever which almost makes the music become background instead of your attention focus. That said, being able to have music on the go on my phone is absolutely amazing 🙂
What’s the best gig that you have played to date?
I haven’t played my own compositions in a gig yet, I can’t play all instruments at once and sing, but maybe someday I’ll have a group of skilled musicians to perform with me. I have however played cover songs and that was awesome. The instance I’m remembering here had Deftones and Muse covers with other friends in Brazil.
If you weren’t a musician, what else would you be doing?
I am also a software engineer, but I’m considering this question as ‘what would i be doing with my free time when not working to pay my bills’ and the answer to that is probably traveling and exploring the world and in between travel and video games 🙂
Which five people would you invite to a dinner party?
If people around me, I’m always inviting Jeff Black (Gatekeeper) and a couple Spanish violinist musicians over for dinner. If people that I don’t particular know, then I would love to sit Arjen Anthony Lucassen at a table with Robert Fripp and Bjork and see what comes out of it 🙂
What’s next for the band?
I’m working on 2 things right now. One is my next single called ‘Sonhos’. I’m currently recording guitars for it and looking for a saxophonist to record the sax portions. Then, I’ll move into vocals, mixing and releasing in the next couple months. It’s a song with Portuguese lyrics about the everlasting chasing of your dreams, always almost within reach, and when you think you’ll get there you wake up, its morning again, time to brew coffee and go to work and live the mundane.
The second thing is a collaborative Power Metal song with Jeff Black, I’ve just written vocal melodies, lyrics and recorded many layers of vocal tracks that I sent him for the song called ‘Wintertide’. He’ll be producing and releasing it soon.
What Social Media/Website links do you use to get your music out to people?
You can find all my links in my koji linktree: https://withkoji.com/@leomaiaprog
But I’ll also link them here manually for ease of clicking:
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/0CdVWkG0ar9qoVmZC83K5L
Instagram: https://instagram.com/Leomaiaprog
TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@Leomaiaprog
Facebook: https://facebook.com/Leomaiaprogrock
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Leomaiaprog
Bandcamp: https://leomaia.bandcamp.com/
Jaffa Cakes? Are they a cake or a biscuit?
Biscuit!
Thank you for your time. Is there anything else that you would like to add?
Thanks for connecting through here! I would like to reiterate my philosophy for making Prog Rock / Metal that is both vintage and modern, by feeling organic and focusing on song writing rather than overwhelming difficult technical execution, with the hopes of making it accessible to even people who are not musicians or into thousand notes per second type of music.
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