Bonde do Role's Marina Talks Tongues, Diplo, Go! Team
"Once I got onstage and I saw people dancing and feeling good, I forgot and started having fun. You remember why the band started: to have fun."

Reviewing Bonde do Role With Lasers, the debut full-length from Brazilian baile funk barnburners Bonde do Role, our own Jess Harvell made particular note of lead singer/MC Marina Vello's (aka Marina Ribatski) "universal party-starting sex-urge noises that go beyond language." Indeed, whatever it is Marina's saying all over the monster-movie breakbeats of With Lasers, it's getting to a lot of people who can't understand a lick of Portuguese.

Run through a translator, though, it becomes clear that the Bonde do Role crew are on some Too $hort. Tales of drugs, doin' it, and all other manner of debauchery are part and parcel of Marina Vello and co.'s lyrical fixation, though-- as she characterizes most of the band's actions-- Marina claims it's all in good fun. "For example, when my Mom first heard it, she was really tough. 'Why do you sing these things?' My mom, you know." But the surprise at some of Bonde do Role's more risqué lyrics isn't all in the family. "You can see people [at shows] getting really shocked, but it's really just a silly joke. It's heavy, but it's like a ten year-old's joke: 'I learned a new way to swear, I'm going to use this forever'."

Marina sees Bonde do Role's popularity among the English-speaking crowd as a role-reversal of sorts. "When I was ten, I used to listen to songs in English. I couldn't understand bullshit," Marina recalls. "It was something more about the music than lyrics, because I couldn't understand the lyrics, you know? And now, we're giving this back now. There's something above language that is music, you know? That's a universal language."

There are snatches of English to be found on With Lasers, which Marina attributes to the influence of her friend-- and perhaps Bonde's most visible champion-- Diplo. "Diplo was in Curitiba to help us with our CD, and I went out to run with him in a park. We were talking about making a song. And I was talking with him about the lyric and it became something in English because I was talking to him, and he doesn't speak Portuguese. I think it was really funny to mix really cheesy things in English with Portuguese, you know?"

Marina suspects the reason Bonde do Role have captured so many non-Portuguese speakers like Diplo lies in the music's deep pockets. "I think the baile funk beats get stuck in your mind," she offered. "It's really energetic and powerful, I think. You can see on people's faces, when you're in the party, the song goes down and the baile funk beats start, people start moving more and more and more. This helps a lot."

Beyond the baile, American hip-hop-- and, in particular, the hip-hop of electro pioneer Afrika Bambaataa-- is clearly one of Bonde's sonic touchstones. Despite her skills rocking a mic, Marina says she'd never touched the stuff before meeting DJ Gorky. "I was more like a rock and roll thing. Really girl things, girl bands like Sleater-Kinney, Babes in Toyland, 7 Year Bitch-- this kind of shit I listened to a lot. Of course, there were lots of things I used to like, some kind of shit, but I wasn't really into hip-hop things. Gorky introduced me to lots of really, really good things; mainly, like, baile funk old-school. Even Afrika Bambaataa. I only knew his name, and one or two songs. Butch Crew is something he's showed me and it's amazing. He was the person who showed me Ed Banger's thing, for example. It's something I really like. Gorky is like a musical encyclopedia."

Marina's voice will pop up on another encyclopedic crew's forthcoming album, the Go! Team's Proof of Youth. Though the two seem made for each other, Marina says the collaboration came together more out of business connections than musical ones. "Our manager is a friend of the manager of Go! Team, and was talking about special participation. Our manager mentioned 'Marina, she could sing,' and they really liked the idea of it, so they invited me. They sent me the song. I was really nervous about doing it: 'Oh, my god, I'm going to sing with a band I really like! Oh my God! I'm not going to be able to do anything good. I don't think I can do this.' And when I recorded with him, I showed him my ideas and he really, really liked it, and I recorded something he did and it was really, really nice."

Pressed to describe the track, Marina coyly responded, "it's just a happy thing. I sing with Ninja. It's a really Go! Team-type thing." Sounds good to us.

In touring, Marina's apparently found another 'happy thing.' "We tour sometimes and we're really pissed off. Yesterday, we were in Paris and I was really, really moody and I was like, 'I don't wanna play, I don't wanna play, I don't wanna play.' But once I got onstage and I saw people dancing and feeling good, I forgot and started having fun. You remember why the band started: to have fun. Which is a really nice thing, you know? Of course I need a break sometimes, but if I have a Bonde do Role show every day, if I'm moody, the thing will get better, because I'm going to play."

There's a lot of touring in the works for Bonde do Role throughout the year; in fact, it's just about everything Marina can think of when asked what they had planned throughout the rest of 2007. Touring, and surgery for her voice, which she claims won't harm her if she puts it off 'til later in the year. "Yeah, I'm losing my voice. It's better for me to do [the surgery] now then one day [later]," Marina claims. "My voice is tightening, but if I stay like this singing for like three years, it'll get really fucked up." Perhaps Gorky turned her onto surgery as well?

Apart from elective surgery and months of tour dates, Bonde do Role have precious little going on. "We're recording some small things, but nothing big for a new album, " Marina says. "This has just come out now, so we need to stop a little bit. We're thinking too much about touring now. Too much work this year."

Bonde:

07-06 Amsterdam, Netherlands - 5 Days Off
07-07 Roskilde, Denmark - Roskilde Festival
07-08 Leipzig, Germany - Splash Festival
07-13 Suffolk, England - Latitude Festival
07-14 Munich, Germany - Muffathalle Anniversary @ Ampere
07-18 Nijmegen, Netherlands - Valkhof Affaire
07-21 Moscow, Russia - Club Ikra
07-22 London, England - Lovebox Festival
07-27 Glasgow, Scotland - Trochabrahma @ Classic Grand
07-28 London, England - Trochabrahma @ Cargo
07-29 Liverpool, England - Trochabrahma @ Bumper
08-03 Zambujeira do Mar, Portugal - Sudoeste Festival
08-04 Berlin, Germany - Popdeurope
08-08 Oslo, Norway - Øya Festival
08-11 Tokyo, Japan - Summersonic Festival
08-12 Osaka, Japan - Summersonic Festival
08-16 Hasselt, Belgium - Pukkelpop Festival
08-18 Chelmsford, England - V Festival
08-19 Staffordshire, England - V Festival
08-25 Cardiff, Wales - Get Loaded Festival
08-26 London, England - Get Loaded Festival
09-01 Dublin, Ireland - Electric Picnic
09-05 Marina de Ravenna, Italy - Hana Bi
09-06 Bari, Italy - Acqua in Tiesta
09-08 Isle of Wight, England - Robin Hill Country Park (Bestival)
09-11 Washington, DC - Black Cat *
09-12 Baltimore, MD - Sonar (Tax Lo party) *#
09-13 Philadelphia, PA - Johnny Brenda's *
09-14 New York, NY - The Powerhouse @ American Museum of Natural History *
09-15 Brooklyn, NY - TBA
09-17 Allston, MA - Harper's Ferry ^
09-18 Montreal, Quebec - La Sala Rossa ^
09-19 Toronto, Ontario - Cabaret ^
09-20 Detroit, MI - Magic Stick ^
09-21 Chicago, IL - Empty Bottle ^
09-22 Minneapolis, MN - Triple Rock Social Club ^
09-25 Vancouver, British Columbia - Richard's on Richards ^
09-26 Seattle, WA - Neumos ^
09-27 Portland, OR - Holocene ^
09-28 San Francisco, CA - The Independent ^
09-29 Los Angeles, CA - Echoplex ^
10-01 San Diego, CA - Casbah ^
10-02 Tucson, AZ - Plush ^
10-04 Austin, TX - Emo's Jr. #
10-05 Dallas, TX - Palladium Loft #
10-06 Baton Rouge, LA - Spanish Moon #
10-08 Tallahassee, FL - Beta Bar #
10-09 Gainesville, FL - Common Grounds #
10-10 Jacksonville, FL - TSI #
10-11 Orlando, FL - The Club at Firestone #
10-12 Atlanta, GA - MJQ Concourse #
10-13 Chapel Hill, NC - Local 506 #

* with Plastic Little
# with the Death Set
^ with Juiceboxxx