Shaman

On June 29, 2018, Shaman announced a reunion of their original lineup to tour in celebration of their 17th anniversary, which was interrupted with the unexpected death of the vocalist, Andre Matos, on June 8, 2019.

A year earlier, he launched the Virgo project, more focused on Pop rock, in partnership with Sascha Paeth. Paulo then says that he managed to convince Andre not to give up and look for Luis and Ricardo to continue a new band together.

Paulo Baron also says that the band's first shows, more precisely in Balneário Camboriú/SC, didn't even have 100 people in the audience, what happened worried the band, and they were thinking about giving up right at the beginning, claiming that the band would not succeed. The businessman asked them to be persistent, and as the dates went by, the audience increased.

The group tried to bring the name Angra as the name of their group, but the name belonged to managers linked to the old band of Andre, Luis and Ricardo. So they had to choose another name for the group. The name chosen for the new band, Shaman (suggested by Luis Mariutti inspired by the title of the song "The Shaman", composed by Andre Matos for Holy Land, Angra's 1996 album), means "he who sees in the dark", and is represented generally by priests who heal through the elements of nature. Of Siberian origin, shamans conquered the world and spread to practically all cultures. In Brazil, shamans (also spelled as shamans) are mainly represented by indigenous shamans.

Shaman soon began working hard to make himself known and establish its name within the Heavy metal scene. It started with a debut tour in early 2001, which went through Europe and Latin America, obtaining great reception from critics and the public, the band's first show was held on February 10, 2001 in the city of Recife. The first international show took place at the NTS Records Festival in Columbes, France, on May 31, 2001. In all, there were 13 shows in 2001, passing through Mexico, Argentina, Chile and France; this year, in Brazil there were only 3 shows, São Paulo, Recife and Curitiba. Even the show in São Paulo was professionally recorded on video, a few years later it was posted on Youtube. At that time the band also played on the program Musikaos on TV Cultura, the presenter was Gastão Moreira.

The curious fact is that for this first mini world tour, as there was no album released until then, the set list consisted of a few new songs, many Angra songs, in addition to covers by Viper, Metallica, Iron Maiden, Deep Purple , Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath, Motorhead, Judas Priest and Avantasia. It is worth noting that the song "Be Free" was played on the tour, but later did not make it to the album.

To play the keyboards live, the band can count on the friend and ex-partner of Angra, Fábio Ribeiro.

Sascha Paeth, is the rescue of all the weight, feeling and spirit of 80's heavy metal, including the presence of electronic elements. While Ritual privileged the undeniable virtuoso of the musicians. The music became more organic, which helped to highlight the contrast between heavy guitars, new age-style keyboards and tribal world music beats. This change, however, displeased a large majority of fans, leading the band, once again, to rethink their career.

Even so, the band was still strong on the scene and the single from the album, “Innocence”, reaches the radio and soon divides the ranking among the most requested in the country. The success is repeated on TV with the premiere of a music video. Despite the good publicity, logistical problems would affect the distribution of the disc. The same can be said of the internet factor and even a high level of rejection of the “new phase” of the band's sound, had contributed to a low sales of records. Added to the band's entry into a smaller label, the overall results would not be up to what the band had already achieved. The second single and video would be "More", a cover track by the English band "Sisters of Mercy".

Highlight for the show held at Estádio Canindé, at the Live N' Louder Festival, on October 12, 2005. On that occasion, the bands Tuatha de Danann, The 69 Eyes, Dr. Sin, Rage, Destruction, Nightwish and Scorpions.

The tour started in Rio de Janeiro in March 2005 and ended in May 2006; the last show with the original lineup was at Bar Opinião, in Porto Alegre. On this tour, there were only two performances outside Brazil, which took place in Argentina.

Paulo Baron (Shaman's first manager) in an interview with Heavy Talk in July 2019, says that he ended up leaving the business part for his personal reasons. Paulo Baron says that only he could deal with each member of Shaman, making them all get along, since the members were very different when it came to taking action. He also claimed that if he had continued to manage the band, perhaps the band would not have broken up.

In 2009, Paulo Baron hosted a 20th anniversary celebration of his company, TopLink, revealed that all the members of the original band were at the party, but no members met during the party.

Caxias; Guatemala, Venezuela, Czech Republic, as well as cities in the interior of Brazil. The tour ended in July 2009. The last two dates were in Slovakia.

Highlight for the opening show for Deep Purple in February 2008, unfortunately this concert was hampered because the band had to reduce their set list because of the time, the English band wanted to start their show punctually at 10pm.

Also noteworthy was the show at the Festival Roça n 'Roll in Varginha in BH, held in June 2008, also played at the festival: Ars Tenebrae, Mr. Zé, Hyksos, Tormenta, Apokalyptic Raids, Vanquish, Liar Symphony, Deventer, Voodoo Shyne, King Bird, Direct Action, Korzus, Old Virgins, Baranga, Martin Walkyier and Tuatha de Danann.

The Origins tour started in Guarulhos, in June 2010 and ended in June 2012, the last show was at the Roça N' Roll Festival. in Varginha, MG, Dr Sin, Samael, Carro Bomba, Maestrick, Nervosa, Dominus Praelli, among others, played at the festival. This was the last show with this lineup.

The highlights are the acoustic show at Livraria Cultura, the opening for Grave Digger and Blind Guardian, and the Festival Dia do Metal Nacional, where the bands: Hangar, Almah, Hibria, Nando Fernandes Forward, Illustria and Wizards played.

The band also performed at Metal Open Air, in São Luis, Maranhão, the festival was marked by having been a fiasco and having had many structural and security problems, having been canceled on the last day, only a few bands performed, 80 % of the planned shows did not happen.

Keyboardist Fabrizio Di Sarno, who had been in the band since 2007, left in 2012, giving way to Junior Carelli.

On March 13, the band released the single "Brand New Me", Shaman's first work with Alírio Netto on vocals. The single was released in digital format and is available on major audio streaming platforms. In the same period, a music video of the song was made available on the band's official YouTube channel.

On May 1, Shaman released on their official YouTube channel a music video of the band performing the song "Turn Away" (from their 2005 album Reason) live, with Alírio on vocals. The recording was taken from the first concert of the "Nagual Fly Tour", which took place in São Paulo.

On January 10, 2023, on his official Instagram, Luis Mariutti announced his departure from the band, after the political positions of drummer Ricardo Confessori on his social networks, and some political differences with him. Soon after, on his official Instagram, Hugo Mariutti announces the end of the band.

"Today's episode of Ricardo served to alert me to a lot of things. There were very serious things there, spoken about, things that nowadays don't fit anymore, right? We, with our family, with our children, are things that people don't preach, on the contrary, we're always there checking to see if things really change. So, this episode made me see that nowadays I'm feeling very out of Shaman".

Although the bassist did not mention what the episode was, it is worth remembering that Ricardo Confessori made posts and comments about the terrorist acts committed by followers of the former president of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro last Sunday (January 8) and was involved in heated discussions with followers on social media.

In an interview with KazaGastão, the YouTube channel of journalist Gastão Moreira, Luis Mariurtti broke the silence about the end of the band, which had nothing to do with the political positions of drummer Ricardo Confessori, but because of his prejudiced lines.

On January 9, in addition to having published criticisms on his social networks related to the current president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, after he condemned the coup acts in the Federal Capital, he also made homophobic offenses to the veterinarian and musician Mateus Ferreira, who even promised to sue the drummer.

Commenting on the subject, Mariutti revealed that, while living with Ricardo, he had already heard other prejudiced statements, including those directed at his wife:

It wasn't for politics. It was out of prejudice, out of prejudiced statements. There is a sentence there, for example, about feminism. My wife is a feminist and passes on these concepts of equality to our daughter. And it is she who produces our events, it is my wife who hires Ricardo. Then sometimes, because she was with me, [I've heard] 'does the guy want to give a tip?', or 'ah, that Yoko Ono'.

For those who don't know, Yoko Ono Lennon is a Japanese activist, singer, songwriter, filmmaker and avant-garde visual artist, and is also the ex-wife of the late singer and vocalist John Lennon, murdered by an obsessed fan.

The group's lead singer, Alirio Netto, lamented the end of the band but made it clear that he also does not agree with Confessori's attitudes.

Drummer Ricardo Confessori also broke the silence and spoke about the end of Shaman, which occurred after the musician's statements in support of the Bolsonarist movements that destroyed Brasília. Ricardo Confessori spoke about his next steps in rock in a live stream on his YouTube channel, which he began to like the members of Black Sabbath who made a heavy sound, also saying that the members of Sabbath "were alpha guys, they were not there for anyone , stuck their foot in sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, that the crowd went crazy for the lifestyle that the guys had and that they are what we call red pills today."

He also said that he was interested in Brazilian rock and wants to make it grow, that he saw other musicians from Brazil wanting to rock abroad, in Japan, the USA and Europe and that he didn't want to "do an Edu Falaschi".

He also mentioned returning with his band, the Confessori Band.

"I'm interested in rock from here. I want to make it grow. I see other musicians from Brazil wanting to rock abroad, in Japan, the USA and Europe. I don't want to act like an Edu Falaschi.

No one is a gringo sucker.

The public wants to see the real rocker. I always got into music not because of the technique. I was never an extremely technical guy. I could be, but I always preferred feeling and attitude.

I have my Confessori Band back. We're back in action. We'll be coming out with new material soon. It's my solo job and the people who will play with me fit that profile. No more blue pill musicians, who are afraid to say anything. Who put their tail between their legs for anything. We rock!".

At the end of April of the same year, the band also participated with some of its musicians in the tribute to Andre Matos at the Summer Breeze 2023 festival, along with the other bands Angra and Viper.

Albums

Former members