Andre Matos

Viper, Angra and Shaaman

Matos grew up in his hometown of São Paulo, Brazil. Matos began his musical education at the age of ten, when he received his first piano from his parents. As a teen, he would gather with his friends to listen to their favorite bands. Soon they began learning to play music too, and Matos joined his first band, Viper. The band first performed on April 8, 1985, when he was just thirteen years old. That same year, they recorded their first demo tape, "The Killera Sword".

Matos continued on vocals, but he had no pretention of remaining a vocalist, a role he assumed only because his singing was the "least poor vocals of all of them", and because he physically resembled Iron Maiden's vocalist, Bruce Dickinson. His instruments of choice were always the piano and keyboard instruments. Matos left Viper when the band began to change its musical style. He had become interested in classical music, and felt that his musical vision had begun to diverge from that of the other band members, who wanted to focus on heavier, "crude" music.

After leaving Viper, Andre went back to school and finished his education in music, specializing in orchestral conducting and music composition.

In 1991 Angra was formed, and with the first album, Angels Cry, released in 1993, the band became famous in Japan and Europe. Later Holy Land and Fireworks were released. Angra's style evolved from a Helloween-inspired melodic speed metal to a unique blend of heavy-metal, classical music and traditional Brazilian influences which brought them worldwide critical praise.

Andre took part in a worldwide contest for replacing Bruce Dickinson in Iron Maiden and was in the Top 3 finalists alongside James LaBrie and eventual winner, Blaze Bayley.

In 2001, he left the band Angra alongside the rhythm section composed of Luis Mariutti (bass) and Ricardo Confessori (drums) because of a disagreement with guitar players Rafael Bittencourt and Kiko Loureiro concerning the band's management.

Andre stayed with Angra's former rhythm section and recruited Luis' brother Hugo Mariutti on the guitar : together they formed the band Shaman, who had to change names to Shaaman before the release of their second album for legal reasons.

The band was a sudden success due to the song Fairy Tale that was in a Brazilian Soap Opera Beijo do Vampiro (Vampire Kiss) and this fame reached worldwide in a little while... The first album, called Ritual, sold over 200.000 copies worldwide in the first year of its release and resulted in a tour with 150 concerts around the World and a DVD called Ritualive before an audience of more than 7.000 Brazilians in São Paulo.

Their second release, Reason, kept the fame and culminated in a concert in front of 10.000 people in Rio de Janeiro. After this, the band owner and former Angra Drummer Confessori fired Matos and Mariutti brothers from the band.

Andre Matos Solo

After leaving Shaaman along with the Mariutti brothers, Hugo and Luis, he released his first solo record Time To Be Free under the name "Andre Matos", in August 2007.

Time To Be Free

Nowadays Matos is carrying his solo career on along with Mariutti brothers. But he often says that calling it a solo career is a big mistake, because it's not a solo career; it's a band with his name, and they all decided so, due to the fame of his names around the world and the frequent departure from other bands. Their first release, called Time to Be Free, produced by ROY Z, a themed album which the lyrics take place in his departure from Shaman, due to his dismissal by the drummer Ricardo Confessori, as one can notice in the album's name itself, and it's the most symphonic album written by Matos. However the album reached good charts both in Brazil and Europe, getting the fourth place in Russian charts and second place in Japan. The album was a success both in the specialized critique and in the opinion of the fans. Time To Be Free is more personal, even though the guitarist Hugo Mariutti has written almost every song along with Matos and Pit Passarel, an ex band partner of Matos in Viper, who was also a guest in this album.

Besides all success heading the release of the album and the expectation over the album Matos decided not to record any worldwide video clip; he only recorded and released an exclusive video clip for the Japanese audience which features a cover.

Time To Be Free was followed by a tour with more than 50 concerts all over the world, Matos was invited to be touring with Scorpion and Edguy (This one is an old friend, and this friendship began when Matos was in Angra and Edguy was invited to be the front act for Angra's Fireworks tour) taking place in Europe, Brazil and Japan and in great festivals like Loud Park, Live and Louder and, for the first time in Finland, Finnish Metal Expo, Matos was also called to be headliner in ProgPower USA, but due to problems with their passport they canceled the concert, being replaced by another Brazilian band called MindFlow. At the very end of the tour, Matos joined Hangar (A Brazilian raising band in metal scenery which counts with Aquiles Priester, former Drummer from Angra) to a Metal Christmas Project, this was an exclusive Brazilian tour that had concerts in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and the whole country, then Andre Matos went back to the studio to record his new album.

Mentalize

Mentalize was released in Brasil and Japan first, at the end of 2009 and a tour started in Brazil, having concerts in Rio de Janeiro, Recife, São Paulo, Fortaleza and some other cities. It was released in early 2010 in Europe, then Matos would profit to play in some summer festivals.

Mentalize was produced by Corciolli, and mixed by Sascha Paeth.

Avantasia

In 2001, Matos was one of the many guests on Tobias Sammet's metal opera Avantasia playing the part of "Elderane the Elf" in the Metal Opera albums. He also toured with Avantasia lately in 2008's world tour as one of the main guests, singing his parts and most of Michael Kiske original parts in Avantasia songs. In 2010, he was featured in the album The Wicked Symphony doing vocals for "Blizzard on a Broken Mirror". Tobias Sammet chose not to call Matos for the 2010s world tour due to the presence of too many musicians at the current world travelling tour, including former Helloween members Michael Kiske and Kai Hansen.

Matos is featured on the live album/DVD The Flying Opera.

Symfonia

In November 2010, Andre joined Symfonia, a power metal supergroup formed in with Timo Tolkki, Uli Kusch, Jari Kainulainen and Mikko Härkin. They made their debut performance at Finnish Metal Expo 2011 and released their first and only album In Paradisum. As touring and second album plans didn't work as planned, Timo Tolkki (guitarist, ex-Stratovarius) announced that he would stop his life in the music industry and that Symfonia would not continue as a band.

Reunion with Viper

On April 20, 2012, it was announced that Andre had returned to his first well-succeeded band, Viper, to make a reunion tour to celebrate the 25-year anniversary of the band's debut album "Soldiers of Sunrise". The band played its first two albums, "Soldiers of Sunrise" and "Theatre of Fate" live in their entirety. After that the solo band and Viper joined each other on the secondary stage of the biggest Brazilian and one of the biggest festivals in the world, Rock in Rio, for a special concert and opening act for Helloween and Iron Maiden.

Andre Matos band members

Former members

Solo career

Viper

Angra

Virgo

Shaman

Symfonia

Other participations