Andre Galiano is a country pop artist from Brazil and Argentina with ties to Folk, Southern Rock and Americana. He’s released 8 albums on a 20-year career while never “officially” being a musician – he serves as Senior Partner at Kantar Vermeer, one of the world’s leading marketing consultancies and part of WPP Group. He is also a graduate professor, frequent speaker at several universities and business seminars and is a husband and father of five kids, which makes his prolific artistic production all that more impressive. Galiano was born in São Paulo, Brazil, on February 12, 1977. At age 11 he moved to Resistencia in Argentina and at 14 moved back to Brazil, this time to Bebedouro, a small town in the countryside of São Paulo state, where he finished high school and, after a short period in Cordoba, Argentina – where he started and gave up Med School – and Brighton, England, he returned to São Paulo in 1995, where he lives today with his wife and 5 children. His father is Argentine, a cardiologist, professor, PhD and Master at Universidade de São Paulo and was the first to perform a coronary patency in 1977 and is considered the worldwide precursor of angioplasty. His mother, a Brazilian, is a psychologist. Since a very early age, Galiano expressed passion for art. At the age of 4 he sang "In Manger in Bethlehem", alone on stage during the kindergarten’s end of year presentation. The teacher of the nursery said he was a good student but spent "too much time drawing and imagining stories." At the age of 6 he dressed-up as Kiss in school little parties, while his friends preferred Balloon Magic. At 8 he danced like Michael Jackson in Sunday family’s gatherings. Around this time he wrote his first book, "The Wrong Boy". Months after that, the third grade teacher asked students for an essay, and he goes over the top and writes his second book, "Rannieri – an adventure of a man and his horse." The teacher recommends his parents to publish them. Before they can get to doing that, the two books are thrown away in the trash by the cleaning lady, who later claimed she thought they were old notebooks. Resigned, he writes his third, "The Fantasy Boy", at age 9, safe-kept until this day. And cleaning ladies-proof. At age 10 he had a band with cardboard boxes with his brother. Soon after that he took piano and creole guitar lessons, learning how to play Chamamé to please his father. With his mother he learned "Tibum Tibum". At 15 his father gave him his first guitar. Galiano made his first demo recordings in the same year. The first presentation on a stage was at a birthday party at the home of friends. Delighted with the experience, he decided to organize a show in the biggest club in the city, which marks his first official concert, for his hard rock band Angel Hammer, in 1992. All concerts, from then on, would be funded by sponsors that Galiano managed to bring in (already showing his business development abilities, at such an early age). At 17 he had already written around 30 songs, all of them recorded in cassettes and played in different venues. After a short tenure in Cordoba, Argentina and Brighton, UK, he moved back to Sao Paulo, his hometown, in 1996, as an undergraduate student in Social Communication at Universidade de São Paulo. In 2000, with college friends, he started the pop band Vodka Frog, which released two official albums, signed to a minor label ran by an ex-executive of Abril Music and the then manager of the rock band Capital Inicial. Galiano was the main songwriter, lead guitarist and occasional lead singer. Their second album was produced by Brazilian 80’s pop star Kiko Zambianchi. The video for the single “15 minutos” (“15 minutes”), written by him, received heavy rotation on MTV and Vodka Frog played regularly in rock venues in Sao Paulo, opening for Capital Inicial on a few occasions. The success was short-lived though, and Galiano left the band to pursue his solo career in 2005. He released “Em Qualquer Lugar” (“Anywhere”) in 2006, which was recorded in Rio de Janeiro and produced by Christiaan Oyens, the man behind Lulu Santos and Zélia Duncan. The album was independently released and received very little attention in the media, despite showing a lot of promise in its folk and MPB approach. Galiano decided to come back to a full band format and alongside Felipe Tamburello, his childhood friend and first drummer, formed Bastidores in 2008, a rock n’ roll band that would get to release three albums and raise some level of awareness in the alternative scene in Sao Paulo. Bastidores was never signed to a major label, but still managed to maintain an intense calendar of shows in its 8 years of tenure. Galiano was again the main songwriter, lead guitarist, but this time around he also assumed lead vocals. Their first album, “Discos De Vinil E Fitas” (“Long Plays and Cassettes”) came out in 2009 and was produced by Galiano and his friend Gustavo Carmo, a superb guitarist and member of the Brazilian heavy metal outfit Vers’Over. The overall sound was rooted in the seventies with big choruses and riffs. Their second album, “Peligroso!” (“Dangerous”) was released in 2012 and paid homage to 80’s hard rock. It was produced by Brendan Duffey, an American based in Sao Paulo and a veteran in the hard rock / heavy metal local scene, having produced albums for Angra, Dr. Sin and many others. Their third and final album, “Império Ultraviolento” (“Ultraviolent Empire”) came out in 2015 and was self-produced. The album marked an abrupt shift in sound for Bastidores, having embraced the grunge era with a meaner, simpler and more direct approach, with a raw taste. Again it was a Galiano-penned song that made it to the radio, “A Face Oposta” (“The Opposite Face”). But the scene for a minor-key, pensive and dark rock band was limited, even though Brazil was facing one of its hardest economical and political crisis – which would have made the perfect fit for a protest rock band. Besides, Galiano had been working on side projects for a while and decided to put Bastidores to rest, to give his full attention to his now renewed solo career. In early 2016 he released a double album: “Outras Estradas, Vol, 1” and “Otras Rutas, Vol. 2” (“Other Roads, vol. 1 and vol. 2”, respectively). “Outras Estradas” was produced by Adriano Daga, a Brazilian Grammy-award winner and also drummer and leader of the pop band Malta, which made it all the way to number one in the Globo TV reality show, “Superstar”, in 2014. The album was rooted in country rock, with a clear influence of Keith Urban. For the album, Galiano learned how to play banjo and mandolin, and also recorded piano and hammond tracks. 10 songs were sung in Portuguese and 1 in English, “Put On Your Boots”, which came to be a concert favorite. “Otras Rutas” was produced by Galiano with the help of Tamburello, who also recorded drums, and it was mixed and mastered by Eric Greedy in LA, an experienced engineer with Ringo Starr, Alice In Chains, Smashing Pumpkins, Vince Neil and South Park’s soundtrack in his impressive resume. For this album Galiano played bass for the first time and wrote arrangements for strings and horns. The album incorporated a Memphis-sound to the country rock presented in Volume 1, much in the likes of Springsteen, Galiano’s declared most beloved hero. The album was sung in Spanish, with 13 different tracks, and again an additional track sung in English. These albums were Galiano’s testament and homage to his childhood years, divided between Argentina and Brazil, and marked his greatest musical accomplishment. The first single, “Voltar A Amar” quickly rose in Youtube charts and the second single, “O Dia Seguinte Com Você”, was picked by several rock and pop radios in Brazil. Galiano started a tour in support of the albums in late 2016, with his newly formed The Long Gone Band. By the beginning of 2017, he already started working on the follow-up of his double album, this time with renowned producer Alexandre Basa behind the tracks. In January, the first single was released, “Meu Lugar” (My Hometown) going straight to number one in the pop charts.