“I’ve never been a party member, I’m not a PT member”, says Nando Reis

Be with the Titans or in a solo career, Nando Reis addressed politics several times. However, although he has taken a stand on different occasions, the artist guarantees that he has never been involved with any party denomination or any type of activism.

In an interview with Lucas Brêda for the Folha de S.Paulo, Nando recalled that even when he was at Colégio Equipe — a middle-class school in São Paulo, where he met several of the musicians who would become his classmates Titans —, he had no party affiliation. His positions are expressed based on his own ideas, he says.

About this, Kings declared:

All you had to do was look around to see the unacceptable things that were happening in Brazil and around the world. And I say this because I have always remained distant from a certain militancy, from student movements. I’ve always been an artist. It’s funny because in the Team we were called alienated, crazy, crickets. I’ve always been interested in people with their own thoughts. I’ve never been a party member, I’m not a PT member.”

Despite avoiding labels, the musician points out the longevity of critical songs by Titanscreated shortly after the period of the military dictatorship. The artist highlights that there is room for different interpretations and that even groups that think contrary to him have already used the lyrics.

He states:

Those songs never stopped making sense. Regardless of the context in which they were inserted, there is a degree of openness in the interpretation — so much so that some were used by the extreme right. For example, ‘Bichos Crotos’ at the time of Lava Jato, and ‘Desordem’, in Bolsonarist videos.”

Criticism of Jair Bolsonaro

Still during the interview, Nando Reis drew a parallel between the post-dictatorship and the post-government of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil. It was in this second era, in 2023, that the musician met with current and former members of Titans for the tour “Meeting”ending with a performance at Lollapalooza Brasil, in 2024. For these shows, the former president’s name was included among those mentioned in “Name after Ox” — ranging from Adolf Hitler to Josef Stalin.

I was attacked a lot, slandered, a victim of fake news. But we remained coherent. It was the opportunity to reiterate what we have always been, and outline the similarities of political and social moments — the post-dictatorship and the post-Bolsonaro. This right wing wants to flatten individual freedoms and diversity and, in this sense, we think the opposite, we defend real freedom.”

During one of the tour’s shows in São Paulo, Nando gave a speech before the band performed the title track from Jesus Has No Teeth in Toothless Country (1987), where he criticized Bolsonaro. At the time, the artist said (via State of Minas):

Brazil, right after redemocratization, when we basically started, had a promise of the future, a shadow of the past, a perspective. And, in a way, we have experienced a terrifying situation in the last four years that makes this reunion also have a connection with the moment in which we wrote those songs. Therefore, they are even stronger, firmer, more current and express what we have always believed and are here to reiterate.”

Already in a solo show, in Maceió, last January, the singer called for Jair Bolsonaro’s arrest on stage, saying that only when that happened “Brazil would be able to do it”. The statement caused the councilor of the capital of Alagoas Leonardo Dias (PL-AL) to demand the suspension of the fee paid to the artist, who performed at the Festival Verão Massayó, an event promoted by the city hall.

Collaborated: André Luiz Fernandes.