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Highest Dream – AOR do Rio de Janeiro
By: Maila-Kaarina Riippa
Pictures: Virgínia Nuñez
 

The AOR project from Rio de Janeiro, Highest Dream, lead by the musician  Leo Mendes, respected keyboard player who has played with several artists besides being a member of one of the best AOR cover bands from Rio, Hard Hits, has just achieved a victory. In March of 2009 Highest Dream signed a contract with the British label ESCAPE MUSIC.
 
Highest Dream
 

Together with the singer Riq Ferris, his partner in the music making process, Highest Dream is getting ready to enter a new phase, in which according to the contract, the label will invest in promotion and worldwide distribution emphasizing the European and Japanese markets where AOR is still in vogue.

Hard Blast interviewed Leo Mendes to know a bit more about the process that made the project get a space and also to know some of the ways musicians with their own work should follow to achieve good results. Check them out at www.myspace.com/highestdream

Check it out and stay rock!
 

Hard Blast: How did the project idea came out?

Leo Mendes: After a long period without being so involved into music as I used to, I felt I had to go back into my musical activities.

I contacted Riq Ferris, who had worked with me in a cover band, and told him I had some things in mind. We Both had several songs and ideas in our personal collections, and that was enough to start recording the Highest Dream project.

Since then, songs started taking body and personality.
 

HB: How was the composing and recording process? Did it take long?

LM: Well, it wasn’t so fast  and neither took decades to be finished! From the beginning until masterizing it took us about 7 months.

The first step was choosing how many and which songs would be part of the set list. The second step was the pre-production and the arrangements.

This second one took a little bit more time to be finished, because it determines the sound and the personality of the work.

After that, the third step was the recording of vocals  and guitars.
The singing wasn’t a big problem, but the guitars…well…for some reasons I don’t want to mention here, ‘cause it would take a few pages to explain, I recorded the rhythm guitars and acoustic guitars by myself as well the drum & bass programming.

But in the end, everything sounded very pleasant.

HB: Highest Dream initial work is 100% independent. When you signed with Escape Music, was the album already set? Who took care of the executive production?

LM: The initial goal was to make a pre-production and then put together the other musicians. But I guess all the people involved with music here in Brazil know how difficult is to record a copyright work when you don’t have a sponsor or something like that to support you. That was the reason why only me and Riq kept doing the project. But along the  way, I had to take the business front to keep it going on until we signed with Escape Music.

HB: Can we say that Highest Dream is a Leo Mendes´project?

LM: All the compositions belong to me and Riq, but talking about the business, musical direction and the productions, I am the responsible.

HB: You have always played the keyboards working on projects where the main thing was to be “the guy who plays an instrument” How has it been for you now the mixing of this idea with the fact of being a “band leader”?

LM: Well, I don’t like to say that I’m the “band leader”, because I think it sounds like something selfish and I believe that all good things that happened to Highest Dream were made by the talent and the work of everybody involved on it.
But nothing compares to have your own work and play your own songs instead of doing  it for other artists.
 
Highest Dream - Far away from here

HB: How did you get in touch with Escape Music?

LM: After finishing all the musical production, the next step was to release the work and make good contacts.
I spent a lot of time and money sending our material to sites, labels, magazines and web radios all around the world. But my principal goal was to sign with Frontiers Records.

I met the president of Frontiers and I sent him our material.
He told me he liked the work, but couldn’t sign us ‘cause he had releases until after the summer of 2009. But he told me that I could sign with a label from a great friend of his (Khalil Turk) from Escape Music.

Even being a bit disappointed and wondering that it was just a polite way to say “I didn’t like your work”, I tried to contact Escape.
 
For my surprise, before I sent the email to them, Khalil wrote me telling that he heard the songs at Myspace, enjoyed a lot and wanted sign us to release in march of 2009.

Since then, Escape made all necessary things to make a great artwork for the CD and a great promotion.

HB: What do you expect from this partnership and what can we expect? Have you already got a schedule of concerts, tours...?

LM: Promotion has been great and I hope that many other good things come.
The rehearsals will start in April and we’re going to make a debut concert here in Rio de Janeiro.
We were invited to make some shows in São Paulo with other bands, but the AOR business is concentrated in Europe and Japan mostly.
I guess we’ll make some shows there in mid-2009 invited by Escape. I hope so! lol

HB: What made you leave behind the taboos of saying that “AOR from Brazil would never do” and invest on Highest Dream?

LM:Unfortunately, AOR isn’t a popular music style in Brazil, but there are lots of fans here. We really want to reach Europe and Japan, though.
All compositions and arrangements were made in a very spontaneous and genuine way, without the intention to create something biased. The  work was made to ourselves and  everybody else who may love this music style.

It was the exact realization of all the musical influences inside us.
I guess that’s the reason why people identify themselves with Highest Dream.

HB: We can clearly see Journey and Survivor influences into your work but besides AOR, as a composer and a musician, which artists inspire you most?

LM: Since I was a child, I´ve loved AOR, perhaps because I was born in its 'big time'
But I´ve always loved Progressive rock and artists like: Rick Wakeman, Yes, Rush, Gênesis  and Pink Floyd.
As a keyboard player, I like to hear Jazz, Funk, Pop & Fusion from artists like: Chick Korea and Eletric Band, Earth Wind and Fire, Oscar Peterson, Geoge Duke, Incognito, Bruce Hornsby and lots of other things like this.

HB: Tell us a bit about the feedback you´ve been getting from the audience on the internet.

LM: It was a big surprise the people’s positive answers about it, mostly out of Brazil.
They built Forums for Highest Dream saying good things about us.
But many people here in Brazil are helping us, mostly at Orkut and in the communities created for us there.

HB: You will play in Brazil of course, but the focus is abroad. Would you go abroad to invest on the band? Which conditions would you demand to play abroad?

LM: The first shows will be here in Rio, São Paulo and everywhere else people invite us.
There are many festivals happening every year and we want to be part of them.
There are no  inexperienced musicians in the band and we would never go to another country without having at least what´s necessary for our comfort and convenience.
Playing in Europe is our main goal but to eating dog´s food and sleeping on the floor,  are completely out of question. lol

HB: Tell us a bit about the musicians who were part of the Highest Dream project?

LM: Riq is my partner in the compositions and the lead vocalist. His voice, songs and ideas were always of great quality and competence. Most of  the lyrics are his.
I made all the arrangements and it was such a pleasure for me to work on these songs, ’cause until then I had just worked to other artists. That was the first time in my career I could concentrate all my musical influences in a very spontaneous and genuine way.
I had another great pleasure having great musicians playing on this CD, not only for their great competence, but also for our friendship. All of them are my long term friends.
The guitar solos ware recording by: Marcelo Nami, Marcio Loureiro and John Cassio.

HB: What is necessary to obtain a good quality independent work? Is you could enumerate the 5 main steps, how would you name them?

LM:  There are many steps from creation to the final master. Each band uses their own weapons to reach success. In my situation, I had to do my best with the things I had in my hands. To compensate the lack of technical resources, I had to make the best I was able to with the arrangements, detailed edition, the best sound effects and programming.

Summing it in just 5 steps, I could dare to say:

  1. quality in the compositions
  2. creativity in the arrangements
  3. competence during recordings
  4. the choice of the right sound effects
  5. detailed edition on each track

HB: Please, leave a message to Hard Blast readers!

LM: I really hope everybody enjoys our work ‘cause it was made in a genuine way and with  a lot of dedication.

I’ll write here a sentence that’s not mine, but I adopted it to my life and guess  it represents exactly what Highest Dream means:

“Imagination is more important than knowledge” (Albert Einstein)

 My best regards for everybody and thanks a lot for the support you’ve been giving us until now.
 
  Untitled Document
Hard Blast 2010