Interview: João Gordo (Ratos de Porão)
by George Henrique
Photo: Mateus Mondini
originally published in DOLL (Japan) #263
2009/07

CRUCIFICADOS PELO SISTEMA

The year of  1983 represented a strong change in the foundations of brazilian punk. The first generation with their bands, fanzines and people involved had  to manage more and more with the street reality and also, with their own lives. Few gigs, few rehearsals, gang violence, death, police repression, and other facts, turn it extremely difficult the punk scenary from that time.

Around this very bad atmosphere, a bunch of poor teenagers from the east and northside of São Paulo city, with age 15 to 18, had the chance to gather an only full length album all the fury, hate, urgency and wildness from a whole generation.

25 years ago Crucificados pelo Sistema came out. The first hardcore album from South America. The first full length of the genre in Brazil. The first time that a Brazilian band could put out on vinyl themes like death, war, militarism, nuclear eminence, the international monetary foundation, the poor areas in Sao Paulo, the church, pollution and others, under the last breathes of the military regime in Brazil.

The singer Joao Gordo talks in this interview about this intense period, the rehearsal practings, gigs, tours, the scene in São Paulo, what Crucificados means today and the 25 years celebration special reissue that is out now.

Crucificados was recorded a few months later you joined the band. How was this period? I imagine that it must had be a clash of influences.....
Certainly... when i joined Ratos they were the US hardcore punk wannabe kids, they played a lot and very well, they were very ahead compared to the other brazilian bands. I was a big fan of them. First time i listened them was through that split cassete tape with Colera. Then I met them in the SUB compilation recording sessions, cos I was a close friend of Redson of Colera. They were very into a lot of bands like Teen Idles, Neos, Minor Threat, and i came out with a lot of scandinavian influence, the Finnish and Swedish bands like Kaaos, Tervett Kadett, Shitlickers, Anti Cimex, and all that stuff. And we were all manic fans of early punk rock since the 70's and also very into the noisiest bands from that era like Chaos UK and Disorder. But behind all these influences was the main one, that was Discharge for sure.  

And the new material came out quickly? 
Some songs were done before i joined the band, songs like "FMI", "Caos", "Guerra Desumana", "Poluição Atômica", "Corrupção", "Periferia","Sistema de Protesto", etc. I Just joined in and put the vocals on it. After I joined the band, I did "Crucificados pelo Sistema", "Morrer", "Periferia", "Não em importo" (along with Clemente of Inocentes when we were inside an electric bus), "Obrigando a Obedecer", "Pobreza" e "Asas da Vingança" (this title i took from an old story from Thor of Marvel Comics). When an idea came out I also showed the guitar sound to our guitarist Mingau. I imitated the guitar sound through my mouth and then a new sound came out...

How were the early rehearsals in that time? Cos there were no professional studios for practicing in Brazil around 1983...  
So, our first practicings were at our drummer Jao's house… then we moved to other places , we changed a lot … I remember we shared rehearsals rooms with bands like M-19, Inocentes and Psykoze too.... these were crazy rehearsals, all instruments turned on in an only 60's big amplifier….  

And  Psykoze had some common punk hardcore style with you guys ...
They were our buddies. We hanged out together a lot. Around late 1983 we did together the famous gig in Salvador, Bahia (northside of Brazil, 36 hours by bus) that everything went wrong. The audience almost destroyed the stage and the booker didn't paid us. We stayed like 3 weeks walking like zombies around Salvador, with no money, no food, just eating shit on garbage. At the end we finally went back to Sao Paulo (southest side of Brazil).

Some other famous one was the first punk gig at Napalm Club(the main punk and new wave venue from SP at that time). The show ended cos some guys started a big riot and the venue closed the doors to the SP punks.

And how was the network with worldwide punk ? 
Personally we didnt keep it too seriously. We were tough kids without money  and sleezy too. So, sometimes some penpals sent us records and we didnt replied. So we got the records and sold them to buy pot, alcohol, food. I just remember sending Crucificados album for like 2 or 3 foreign guys.

But Punk Rock Discos Record Shop (runned by Fabio, singer of Olho Seco) was the place that connected brazilian punks to the worldwide network, right?
Definitely. Fabio used to release some tape compilations like "Swedish Hardcore", "Finland Hardcore, "Italian Hardcore", and thats how we all got into these bands.  Those compilations used had a lot of rare material. A few people here had the chance to grab the original pressings, it was out of our reality, we were poor kids. At that time a full length LP means to us our whole monthly salary. 

And then Fabio got the idea about releasing you guys....
The first idea was to put out a 7"EP, like Inocentes "Miseria e Fome", Olho Seco "Botas, Fuzis e Capacetes" and Lixomania "Violencia e Sobrevivencia" singles. The EP would be called "Esse mundo é um caos", which means "This world is Chaos". But Fabio realized that the pressing costs for a 7"EP and a LP were almost the same. Considering that we had a long set list, we choose the LP format for sure. And that's we moved to the title "Crucificados pelo Sistema".

Its funny to imagine that Ratos Porao recorded the álbum at the Vice Versa , which was a 60's bossa nova studio...
Yeah! But when we got there we had no sketchy plans for recording it. The thing was totally spontaneous, no plans, nothing.  Jao dropped out from his father's motorcycle repairing shop at the suburbs, got the bus and slept. We were waiting him at Punk Rock Discos record shop along with Fabio. We waited and waited so long and then we lost a lot of studio recording time. Finally he arrived and we recorded almost everything on a live session.  We just added the vocals and guitar solos later. The record was recorded and mixed on 6 hours!

And that guitar sound came from an old Big Muff pedal, which gaves the chainsaw noise in the whole album….
The Big Muff came from Miguel Barella, which was the guitarrist of the post-punk bands Voluntarios da Pátria and Agentss, and became our own style. The studio producer also did a lot of mistakes, because he had no experience about recording such fast hardcore punk act like us. So when you listened the album there is a lot drums mistakes that were a lack of microphones at the right places.

You recorded  it with your poor and own equipment... .
Some new wave friends from that time promised to lend us some  imported guitars and bass guitars, but they disappeared. Then we recorded with our own shit and Lixomania  gave us a bass guitar for help.

Crucificados pelo Sistema also represented a new generation of punk hardcore bands in São Paulo, mostly influenced by finnish, swedish and english hardcore. Bands like Ruidos Absurdos, Lobotomia, SP Caos, Armagedom...
Right. But talking about these bands, Lobotomia was the best so far. And they were musically connected with what we would do later, all those metal punk influence from bands like Onslaught, later Discharge, English Dogs, Anti Sect, etc...

And when the record came out, what was the impact?
Almost none. We also did no releasing gigs, there was few feedback because the punk scene in São Paulo was all around the gang violence, everything was empty and with no right direction. It took some years for the record be really recognized. Definitely we didn't had  this idea that we did a worldwide hardcore  classic album. But in the last three decades Crucificados songs were mandatory in our live set list for sure.

There were many pressings of the album in Brazil...  
Originally the LP came out on blue and red sleeves through Punk Rock Discos. The front cover was made by Marcos of Ruidos Absurdos. Then Fabio started New Face Records, and a grey sleeve pressing came out. Devil Discos also did a silver an white sleeve versions and also a blue sleeve CD version too. Besides that some foreign pressings came out like the CD version on Speedstate Records from Japan.

How will be the 25 years celebration LP reissue of Crucificados pelo Sistema?
This special reissue edition is out now through Munster Records / Beat Generation from Spain. They are a huge record label and always release our stuff there and worldwide too. We did a huge reseach in our photo archives and there is gonna be a lot of unreleased shots. I also prepared a cool text talking about the whole recording day. Its gonna be cool!  

Contacts:
www.ratosdeporao.com
www.myspace.com/ratos