Dinho Ouro Preto reflects the 40-year legacy of Capital Inicial and reveals the secret of longevity: ‘Always looking to the future’ [ENTREVISTA]

Even with a 40-year career in music, Dinho Ouro Preto looks younger than ever. Sitting in a corner of his studio, surrounded by instruments and records, the singer is at home in the capital of São Paulo, despite having been born in Curitiba and raised in Brasília – the city where he had his first contacts with rock, as he recalled in an interview with Rolling Stone Brazil.

By revisiting the 1982 generation of Brazilian rock, Dino tell the stories as if they happened yesterday. Since the age of 11, when she met Herbert Vianna and Bi Ribeiro – which would found the Paralamas do Sucesso later – even when he went on stage to play for the first time. The excitement in the voice is undeniable and reveals someone with more stories to tell than could ever fit into just under an hour of interview. Even so, the singer knows how to enjoy every second in the same way that he enjoyed the last few years with the Initial Capital.

At first, Dino was just a music fan who had the company of Herbert and Bi time to skate and listen Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Rush, among other artists that dominate his playlist to this day. But when the friends left for Rio de Janeiro, after entering college, the younger generation that stayed in Brasília had to learn to make their own music.

“O Herbert was already playing at that time, and the Bi it was nail and flesh with him and played down too. A few years later, they went to college and moved to Rio. And we, the younger generation, stayed in Brasília. I, Pedrothe younger brother of Biit’s the Given away – that some would come to touch the urban Legion years later,” he recalled. “The three of us bumped into the Electric abortion. O Electric abortion it was another rock group in Brasília, it was the punk group. the class of Renato [Russo]of Faith [Lemos] It’s from Flávio [Lemos]which today play in the Initial Capital.”

It was there that it all started. from the ashes of Electric abortionwhich ended in 1981, the Initial Capital it’s the urban Legion, with a punk feel that required nothing more than a few chords and a lot of desire to make music. “It was a watershed. Mainly because of a punk rock idea that was ‘do it yourself,’ or ‘do it yourself.’ It wasn’t necessary for you to go through years and years of learning, you know? Three chords resolved the matter, the most important thing was to have something to say, to produce something and not surrender to something that seemed alien to our generation.”

Practically “isolated” in Brasília, the new musicians had no idea of ​​the cultural movements that were taking place in other parts of the country. “The sound that we listened to, punk rock or even post-punk new wave, we didn’t hear that from anyone. Not that there weren’t, they were people I didn’t know,” he recalled. And what started out as a joke has suddenly become a profession.

According to the musician, at the time there was not much hope that the music they produced, in the midst of a military regime, could become a career. International concerts and major festivals were almost non-existent and making a living from music still seemed more like a dream than reality. Even so, the determination and belief that that sound would go down in history never left.

“It was all more innocent, you know? Because there was no calculation in terms of career. Nobody thought it could happen, to take on the dimension it eventually took,” he said. “I think it was pretty pretentious as we saw each other. We perceived them as subversive, as if what was being done there could contribute to hasten the fall of the regime, as if it was fundamental that what we were singing and describing contributed to the fall of the military regime. When, in fact, they were dripping cats, teenagers in Brasília, but we thought it was relevant.”

And from the 1980s to 2022, there was no shortage of stories. There were fifteen albums, several tours in Brazil – and abroad –, member changes, re-recordings and much more. “We didn’t invent Brazilian rock. It precedes us, since the 1950s, later with the young guard, the Mutants, Raul, Rita. But we helped to set up an infrastructure, radios, sometimes magazines. This is part of building our generation’s legacy,” he said.

Dino added: “Sometimes, for kids, it’s hard to understand that none of this existed. Did not exist Lollapallozadid not exist Rock in Rio, had none of that. In a way, it all came along with us. And it’s a symbiosis. We got it on our feet, but it helped get us on our feet as well. That’s what the capital is celebrating, to be able to look back and say ‘we were a part of it’.”

“My greatest pride is the legacy of the songs, of you being part of popular music. Of having helped to create, what I call, Brazilian urban music. It’s not the only one, I think hip hop is too, I suppose funk is too, but rock is, above all, urban music.” Even though, Dinho, Fe, Flavio and Yves Passarell are far from retiring from the stage and reveal the secret of the longevity of the Initial Capital: “Always looking to the future.”

“At some point you could have stopped and said, ‘Look, I produced everything I had to produce, I’m going to live off the glories of the past, live on nostalgia.’ But, inexorably, if you do that, you’re going to smell like mothballs,” he joked. Dino. “The business is always keeping an eye on the next project. Always be thinking about new songs, new partnerships, new records, what the sound is, what direction are you going to go.”

And speaking of a new project, the band will release an album and DVD in celebration of the 40th anniversary of their career, which will feature re-recordings of great hits from Initial Capital and B-sides, in addition to partnerships with artists such as Marina SenaVitor KleyPitty and Carlinhos Brown. Initial Capital 4.0 (2022) arrives on digital platforms on August 26.