Interviu: Paulo Furtado - Legendary Tigerman

The Legendary Tigerman is one of the many artists that graced us with their presence at the Europavox Festival. Little known in Romania, he left a very memorable first impression through his talent, his down to earth attitude and all around friendly personality. He is now looking for a record label to promote his newest album Masquerade in Romania. His style is difficult to place but easy to get into. A combination of folk, blues, rock and roll and country, fused together by a contagious form of energy.

He has been called a one man show but maybe he's a show in the form of a man. And if you think we're kissing his ass, hey, at least we didn't call him the revelation of the festival. :) Either way, he was kind enough to answer some of our questions.


So the first question to ask and this should influence the rest of the interview...  what is your relationship with the press usually like? Do you like this aspect of giving interviews or does it feel more like a hassle?

Well it depends. I've had a few interviews that I really liked doing and were interesting, but there are times when you do more interviews, like 10 or 12 in the same day and it's all the same, same questions. And it's really not that interesting.



Let's hope I can stay away from that sort of stuff. You have been called a one-man-band. In that regard, I'd like to know what is the relationship between you and your instruments. Are they your "babies" or just objects that you know, you could easily replace?

I have one guitar that's... my baby, and the rest are just instruments. My music and myself and I really don't care. One day I play with an instrument, the next day with another. In the end I don't care. The instruments are just objects.

A lot of your songs are in English. Do you consider yourself an international artist and how important is that to you?

That was always there for me, the fact that I was making music for people from different cultures. And I always wanted my music to go as far as it could, geographically included. I think my stuff deals with very basic human emotions and it's international. Also since I studied working old bands... what I did in my first album is very close to what bands were doing 100 years ago and my biggest influence is the blues from Mississippi, I had to do it in English. I don't think Portuguese, or French or whatever have this connection. So I lost a little bit of that original connection with the old stuff from the original one-man bands but I think I keep true to their spirit.

How important are festivals like this where the focus is on diversity to your international exposure?

It always depends on a lot of stuff but this is very important because it gives me a lot of press, a lot of agents, a lot of stuff that's happening and a lot of connections that might happen or might not happen. The way things are... I think there should be more events like this.

This festival has a lot to do with intercultural dialogue. Is there another special cause that you'd like to get involved with? Like a charity concert or something like that...

The question of causes and... for me there's a line that's a little be strange. I think with most of these causes, just the fact that your face or your picture or your music is used, doesn't mean you actually care about that cause. When I'm involved in anything, I like to be involved with my hands, my mind, my body but keeping my music out of it. Because I don't think it's very honest. My music doesn't have anything to do with any cause and I don't think it's honest. It's not as if people are dying in Africa and you get a song on this event to raise money... I don't think that's the way to do it. I think you should go down there yourself and do something.

So music and politics should not mix?

I think they can mix, they've done it in the past and in the present... and will always mix.

This is something that I asked most of the bands and artists I interviewed. Is it better to be indie or mainstream? One of the answers I got is: "indie, because the fans are better". So I'm going to ask you the same thing, indie or mainstream, and also ask you if there's anything different about being an indie fan?

I think the concept of being indie or mainstream is not really relevant to the artist. I think it's related more to sales. Because there are a lot of bands that made the transition... like The White Stripes. They were indie and they had a hit single that brought them a mainstream audience and now I think they're returning to their indie roots. I really don't think of music and fans in terms of indie/mainstream.  I think bands can have a lot of different stages in their lives and you might by accident get to a mainstream audience and then return to your smallest audience.

It depends. I don't think originally anything is... obviously if you put out a hit single, you expect to attract a mainstream audience. But if you just do the music that you like, I don't think the concept of indie or mainstream really means anything at that point.

Have you ever met an artist that is a little bit arrogant about his indie status? Oh, I'm indie, I'm not commercial...

Yes, I think so and I think it's a good show to protect yourself from the world and from rejection. 'Oh, I don't have a lot of fans, but the fans I do have are really into my stuff'. And I think it's all bullshit. Of course anyone that's doing any kind of art wants to get to as many people as they can. If I could play o 500.000 people it would probably make me very happy. I think it's always an argument when you wanna justify your choices. And I don't think it's really important. If there's only 3 people in the audience. It's still real.