Gonçalo Pereira tells about the whole story of How Comes The Constellations Shine.
New HCTCS release “Mémoire” is out. The album contains outtakes from the projects history. If you haven’t heard it yet, take a listen, buy or download here. Let’s listen to Gonçalo and refresh our memories.
“We were young and ready for rock. My guitarist and best friend Tito, listen to my songs for a long time before join the band in mid 2006. We met at a record store where I started to work. I knew a friend in common that Tito listen to my songs and love them. One night we decided to work together in what will be my supposed debut album. Tito will be the producer and we moved to his home studio to record that album. After a few sessions, we just have recorded a guitar line and set some beats. We never finished that album. In early 2006 I recruited four friends to start the band.
But the band did not worked as i planned so, some member disbanded after a few weeks and we set as a four piece. My long time friend André Abreu replaced the original drummer and Tito was called to join the band as guitarist. The band work every week in my songs and in a few songs that we have written together. In mid 2007 we played our first gig ever. During this year we have continued working in our stuff but our relationship was not the best. I always wanted the best guitar lines, the best drums and a superb bass to balance my songs. My position in the band was getting bad with a lot of discussions. I was the one who wanted to be part of the best band of our music scene. I wanted to be the best and I wanted the band to do the things with my vision. Of course things did not work as i wanted and our bassist quited. We leave the band for a while.
In april of 2008 me, André and Tito started to work as a trio. But as you know, working in this kind of music without a bass is almost impossible to get good results. So, we put a add in the web asking for a bass player or a third guitarist. After three mouths, Nuno Fragoso replied to the add. We were back in town again. Just with a few weeks to rehearsal, we accepted an invite to play in a festival in July 2008, Mub Festival Braga. Fragoso learned all the songs in two weeks and we head to Braga to play after one year since our last concert. We played Alaska to open the concert. It was the only moment we play that song live. After that we started to work in new songs. On Rascals and Western Media Avenue were the songs we played in our second gig. Our second gig was in october 2008 in one of the best venues in Lisbon, Santiago Alquimista.
In 2009 we played our third gig in a club in Lisbon. The show was great, we have a lot of new songs and our sound was getting better since the last gig we had. 2009 was the greatest year of band life’s. For the first time our songs were written together as band. We wrote a wonderful songs called Helena and Bishop Ate The Pope. Those two songs were the best thing we have done as a band and I know that if we had continued together until today we could be a great band in our country, we could be one of the great post-rock bands in this little country called Portugal. But, past is the past and as we all know, the show must go on. In 2010 our bassist left the band, and we continued as a trio for a short period. In 2011 my fellow mate Tito left the band as well. After that, i wrote and recorded Belongs To Mafra.
André asked me to recruit some people to continue the project, so after a few conversations and one audition we reformed the band with a new guitarist and a bassist. Our sound changed dramatically. We were playing short but loud songs. Our sound turned more powerful than ever but less dramatic, less melodic, less cinematic, and in a sort of way, we lost our passion, love and chemistry. In the end of 2011, How Comes The Constellations Shine broke up for the last time and became again to it’s original form.”
Listen to new HCTCS album
Listen to previous album Belongs to Mafra