Os Paralamas do Sucesso

There are bands that are enormous at home and barely a name abroad. Os Paralamas do Sucesso are one of those, and it is an injustice, because they are one of the best rock groups the whole of Latin America has produced.

So if this is the only time you are ever going to read about them, let it count.

This is the story of three friends who put rhythm and sunshine into rock, who conquered a continent, and whose leader survived a tragedy that would have finished off anyone, and went on singing.

The worst possible name

It all started with two boys.

Herbert Vianna, son of an air force brigadier, and Felipe "Bi" Ribeiro, son of a diplomat, met as children in Brasília, where their fathers' postings had taken them, and years later they ran into each other again in Rio de Janeiro.

They rehearsed in the flat of Bi's grandmother, in Copacabana, played songs half as a joke, and to choose a name they held a competition in reverse: the winner would be whoever came up with the worst one. The first candidate was "As Cadeirinhas da Vovó", granny's little chairs. Bi won with "Os Paralamas do Sucesso", which means, more or less, "the mudguards of success".

It struck them as so absurd and so funny that they kept it.

The band has existed since 1977 and took that name around 1981, but the definitive trio came together in October 1982, when João Barone joined on drums: Herbert on guitar and vocals, Bi on bass, Barone at the back.

Sun, reggae and glasses

What they sounded like was different from everything else in Brazil.

Os Paralamas took rock and crossed it with reggae and with ska—that Caribbean mixture, bouncing, luminous—in a country where rock was only just learning to walk.

In 1984, the album "O Passo do Lui" made them explode. That is where "Óculos" is, their first big hit, a song Herbert wrote out of something as simple and as much his own as his own short-sightedness and his glasses, and that is where "Meu Erro" is.

The following year they played at the first edition of Rock in Rio, on 13 and 16 January 1985, in what many remember as one of the best performances of the whole festival. "Rock in Rio was our consecration", Herbert would say.

Brazilian fans began naming them alongside Legião Urbana, Titãs and Barão Vermelho as the "Cuarteto Sagrado", the sacred quartet of national rock: the generation that gave the country a rock music with an identity of its own.

"Alagados": an X-ray

In 1986 came "Selvagem?", and with it the song that perhaps defines them: "Alagados".

It was not just any track. Herbert wrote it as a social X-ray, and its boldest move is geographical: in one breath it names three slums in three different cities. Alagados, in Salvador. The Favela da Maré, in Rio. And Trenchtown, the Kingston ghetto where reggae had been born.

Three settlements of stilt houses, three countries, the same poverty.

And it said something very hard and very beautiful about hope: that in the favelas hope does not come from the sea or from the television aerials. Nor from the faith that watches over from the Corcovado, nor from the dream sold on the screen.

It was danceable pop and it was, at the same time, an accusation and a question about where on earth to put your faith. "Alagados" has endured as one of the best Brazilian songs in history, and it is one of those an entire continent knows by heart.

From then on they were giants. They sold millions of records, played at Montreux, and worked with Gilberto Gil on "A Novidade"—Gil wrote the lyrics in half an hour, over a melody they already had, after receiving the cassette in the post. Years later, on "El Vampiro Bajo el Sol", they gave themselves the luxury of having Brian May, Queen's guitarist, and Fito Páez on the same song.

Idols across the continent

And here is something that makes them special for us: Os Paralamas did not stay in Brazil.

They were among the very few Brazilian bands that genuinely crossed the language border and got into the heart of Spanish-speaking America.

In Argentina they were absolute idols—people called them, half in jest, "the best Brazilian band in Argentine rock"—they recorded Spanish-language versions, became brothers with Fito Páez, who called Herbert his brother, and when sales were falling in Brazil during their most experimental period, it was the Argentine audience that held them up.

They played all over Latin America. In Chile they have been touring since the late eighties, they appeared on the 2012 Teletón and came back in 2022 for the band's fortieth anniversary.

At a time when each country listened to its own music, Os Paralamas were a bridge: Brazilians who sounded Latin American, who got people dancing just the same in São Paulo, in Buenos Aires and in Santiago.

4 February 2001

And then, at the very top of everything, Herbert Vianna's life broke in two.

On 4 February 2001, Herbert was piloting his ultralight aircraft over Mangaratiba, on the Costa Verde of Rio de Janeiro, when the aircraft fell into the sea a few metres from the beach. A later investigation attributed the accident to a manufacturing defect in the model's tail.

His wife, Lucy, the mother of his three children, who was on board, died in the crash.

Herbert was pulled out alive, but in an extremely serious condition. He spent forty-four days in hospital, part of them in a coma, and the doctors gave him almost no hope.

And he woke up. Against all logic, he woke up.

But what was waiting for him was brutal: he had been left paraplegic, and the blow had damaged part of his memory. During his recovery he managed to communicate in English and in French before recovering Portuguese.

He had lost almost everything at a single stroke: his life companion, the freedom of his body, and pieces of himself.

Anyone would have given up. It would have been understandable if he had never come back.

The return

But he came back.

Little by little, with an effort that is hard to imagine, Herbert went about relearning his own music, his own songs. Bi and João, his two lifelong friends, did not abandon him: they finished the record the band had half-made and waited for their brother as long as it took.

His first appearance on a stage, in June 2002, was as a guest at a Fito Páez show in Rio, where they sang "Trac Trac" together. Then came "Longo Caminho", the comeback record, with material that had mostly been written beforehand.

And in 2005 came the real test: "Hoje", the first record with songs composed entirely after the accident. He had not only gone back to playing: he had gone back to creating. Taking part on it are, among others, Manu Chao and Andreas Kisser, of Sepultura.

João Barone called his friend's recovery "a miracle". Herbert himself said, with a sobriety that gives you chills, that he had had to heal a very deep physical and emotional wound.

He did not come back because it was easy. He came back because music, for him, was stronger than the catastrophe.

What to remember

Os Paralamas do Sucesso are one of the great Latin American bands: the sun and the rhythm of Brazil crossed with the energy of rock, songs that gave a soundtrack to a whole generation of a continent.

If you put on "Alagados", "Óculos", "Meu Erro", "Lourinha Bombril" or "O Calibre", you are going to hear rock that is cheerful, warm, danceable and, when it needs to be, with something important to say.

But behind their leader's guitar there is also one of the greatest stories of courage in music: that of a man who lost almost everything in a second and who, against everything, went back to composing and to singing from a wheelchair, because the songs were waiting for him.

Remember them for the music, which is enormous. And remember too, the next time "Alagados" plays somewhere, that the man singing it came back from the edge of death to go on doing it.

Few things say as much about what music is finally for.

Sources

Os Paralamas do Sucesso, Brazilian rock band that emerged in Rio de Janeiro in 1977 around Herbert Vianna and Felipe "Bi" Ribeiro, which took that name around 1981 and settled its definitive trio in October 1982, when João Barone replaced the original drummer Vital Dias. Herbert Vianna (guitar, vocals and main composer) was born in João Pessoa, Paraíba, on 4 May 1961, the son of an air force brigadier; Bi Ribeiro is the son of the diplomat Jorge Carlos Ribeiro, and the two met as children in Brasília. They rehearsed in the flat of Bi's grandmother in Copacabana; the name—"the mudguards of success"—came out of a competition to propose the worst possible name, in which "As Cadeirinhas da Vovó" was also considered. They mixed rock with reggae and ska, and later with Latin rhythms and Brazilian popular music. They found fame with "O Passo do Lui" (1984, with "Óculos"—inspired by Herbert's short-sightedness—and "Meu Erro") and their performance at Rock in Rio 1985, on 13 and 16 January. Brazilian fans include them in the so-called "Cuarteto Sagrado", the sacred quartet of national rock, alongside Legião Urbana, Titãs and Barão Vermelho, a popular rather than critical label. "Alagados" (from the album "Selvagem?", 1986, credited to Herbert, Bi and Barone) mentions Alagados, in Salvador; the Favela da Maré, in Rio; and Trenchtown, in Kingston, and is considered one of the best Brazilian songs in history. They collaborated with Gilberto Gil on "A Novidade" ("Selvagem?", 1986) and with Brian May and Fito Páez on "El Vampiro Bajo el Sol" ("Severino", 1994). They were enormously popular in Latin America, especially in Argentina, with Spanish-language versions and ties to Fito Páez, with whom they recorded "Trac Trac" (1991); in Chile they have toured since the late eighties, took part in the 2012 Teletón and returned in 2022 for their 40 years. On 4 February 2001, Herbert Vianna was injured when the ultralight aircraft he was piloting fell into the sea at Mangaratiba (Rio de Janeiro); his wife, Lucy Needham-Vianna, aged 36, died. Herbert spent 44 days in hospital, part of them in a coma, and was left paraplegic and with cognitive after-effects from which he partially recovered. His first public appearance afterwards was in June 2002, as a guest at a Fito Páez concert in Rio. The band released "Longo Caminho" (2002), with material mostly predating the accident, and "Hoje" (2005), the first with songs composed afterwards, with contributions from Manu Chao, Marcelinho da Lua and Andreas Kisser. They remain active. Externally authored text, edited and verified for Rebobinados. Readings of the meaning of their work are offered as the author's interpretation. No song lyrics are reproduced, for copyright reasons; the reference to the content of "Alagados" is descriptive. Information drawn from Wikipedia, the Chamber of Deputies of Brazil, Diário do Rio, Nova Brasil, BioBioChile and other press coverage.