Drummer from the London-based three-piece Heavy Rock band ELBRÅNO

http://www.soundcloud.com/elbrano http://www.facebook.com/elbrano

Why drums? I am not quite sure to be honest.. I suppose I have always been a very “rhythmic” kind of guy but drums were never my first choice but as it happened I became quite passionate for the instrument!

I believe it all started after several failed attempts to learn different instruments (e.g. guitar, bass guitar, the keys etc.) I was beginning to lose faith in the idea of being in a band until the day I attended my school’s music festival (in Brazil, the date is unknown but it was in the mid-late 90s).

My friends’ band was doing a soundcheck and played some Manowar, Maiden and Judas Priest and I will never forget how hypnotized I was by the drums and how awesome it sounded. The drummer also had a double bass kit set up and it looked so cool! That was the day that I decided I was going to invest in learning how to play the drums; then I invested all my savings into my first ever “air drums” (I’ve had many other “air drum kits” since then) and into a pair of drumsticks!

I spent a whole year playing in that “kit” and would play along to Melodic Metal, Power Metal, NWOBHM and some Thrash.. My heroes back in those days were (and some still are) Dave Lombardo, Uli Kusch, Alex Van Halen and Ricardo Confessori (he later became my drum tutor) and I would spend hours “studying” their moves.

My first attempt behind the kit was in another friends’ band, probably a year after I started practicing. They played blues, classic rock and some hard rock. I had been spending a great deal of time “deconstructing” some Rock and Metal classics and I was becoming good at understanding what was going on behind the kit. During the rehearsal they tried playing “We’re not Gonna Take it” from Twisted Sisters and the drummer did struggle with the intro… They tried a few times and they decided to go and get some fresh air. That was the moment when I was given my first ever chance to play some real drums. The first thing I tried doing was to play the intro on the Twisted Sisters song and my instinct led me to be able to play it right. I remember that all the guys rushed back into the room and were ecstatic about the fact that I was playing it and that was the precise moment when got bitten by the drumming bug. Two weeks later the drummer decided to stop playing and he asked if I wanted to borrow his kit for some time: Hell yes!

Then my journey through learning had begun. I started learning it on my own, following my instincts, and then I had classes with Marcell Cardoso (Karma) and from Ricardo Confessori (Angra/Shaman). I was still caught up into Melodic Metal and (to me) no one could go faster than those guys at Helloween or Rhapsody.. Then, one day, one of my mates gave me the album Death – Symbolic! That was a game changer and it sent me right into the Dark Side of Metal.

Nowadays, after having played in many bands of different genres, I play drums for the London-based band ELBRÅNO and have released our 1st EP in 2014. We’re now working on releasing our full LP in January 2016 and a couple of videos in 2015.

I would like to invite you to check us out on http://www.soundcloud.com/elbrano | http://www.facebook.com/elbrano and I hope to meet a lot of you along the journey my band and I are embarking on!

Bruno Tolosa