Meet Zeh Monstro, Vini Marmore, Gabriel da Rosa, and Beto Kauer of Name The Band

Today we’d like to introduce you to Zeh Monstro, Vini Marmore, Gabriel da Rosa, and Beto Kauer.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Zeh, Vini, Gabriel, Beto. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
Name The Band was formed by Zeh Monstro, Vini Marmore, Gabriel da Rosa and Beto Kauer in Brazil. Down there, we played in the world famous Lollapalooza, as well as toured around, establishing a loyal fan base. In 2014, we relocated to Los Angeles, CA, and have been playing shows and touring, having played in Nevada, Arizona, Oregon, Texas and more. In Los Angeles, we’ve had great residencies in legendary local venues, such as Harvard and Stone and Three Clubs. Coming to Los Angeles without any local contacts was difficult at first, but the local scene, especially in East LA, has embraced us, making us feel at home.

In 2016, we hit the one million plays on Spotify, a huge accomplishment for us personally and as a band. Via Spotify and other streaming platforms, we are able to reach many key territories such as Mexico, Europe, all of South America. Great part of that success is due to our universal sound, having chosen to sing in English early on, instead of our native Portuguese. We have released two full-length albums, Just Add Sugar and Summer Lush and now we’re working on our next EP, Spark.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
When we discovered our visa petition had been approved and we were actually moving to Los Angeles, we were in the middle of a tour – so we’d been having expenses like gas, food, hotels – and we had around 6 weeks before we had to get our stuff, kiss our families goodbye, get settled, and play our first show in San Francisco. So that was a huge thing for us at that time, and the clock was ticking fast! The biggest challenge for us once we arrived in Angelino soil was certainly the language barrier – even though we spoke English, we had to learn how to communicate with the locals and connect with their culture. Networking seemed daunting at first, but it came easily for us as we’d been playing for a good part of our lives and were used to connect with different people.

Starting fresh in a new country is, however, never easy, so we had our moments of struggle with housing, making money and putting our names out there. Now, after almost four years, we’re fully integrated and live our lives like locals. Los Angeles is definitely our home now, it’s where our hearts are.

Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Name The Band – what should we know?
Name The Band’s sound is the result each of our own personal histories – all four of us have been musicians for as long as we can remember, and coming together in Name The Band has allowed us to explore our own instruments and mix and match our influences. So we sound like an upbeat mix of 70’s punk rock, indie rock, with sometimes a little jamming, but always very dancey and catchy. Our first album Just Add Sugar was recorded by Zeh Monstro before he met us, so he came to us with all of those brand new songs and asked us to join him for gigs. We all clicked pretty instantly, we have great chemistry and work super well together. We actually started working on new songs almost right away, and then recorded a few of them in Brazil – which were later combined with the other songs we recorded in Los Angeles and that all became our second album, Summer Lush.

In Los Angeles, we’ve been playing shows non-stop and that’s one of the things that set us apart from other bands – we play hard, our performances are never dull, never unmotivated, we always bring 100% to our gigs. It doesn’t matter if it’s for a large crowd or if we’re playing a small venue with only 10 people there. We will make those people dance and we’ll give them a night they will not forget – or maybe they’ll forget the specifics, depending on how much they’d had to drink, but that spark, that stamina, our crowds never forget that. And that’s why they keep coming back to see us play. Right now we’re working on our next album, a 4 track EP titled Spark, which is the result of our hard work here in Los Angeles and the combination of four very creative minds who love and care about what we do. We’re working with producer Al Sgro and decided to release only four curated tracks that say: this is Name The Band. It sounds a lot more mature than our early works, we’ve put a lot of thought into it. Our style is more precise and, at the same time, simpler, more direct and less improvised.

Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
None of this would have been possible without our Brazilian manager and “father” Jonathas de Vargas, who orchestrated our move, figuring out visas, housing, booking shows and giving us the support necessary to start over in America. Once in Los Angeles, American manager Brandy Provenzano started booking our shows and connecting us with the right people, being responsible for our local tours and other out of state shows. She was able to connect us with amazing people, such as Mark Stoermer (The Killers), who has helped us and supported us throughout the years. Another person who gave us amazing support was Mike Watt – he premiered our single Flash Flood on his podcast back in 2014. We also attribute our success to our greatly supporting families, wives and girlfriends, friends and, of course, to our kick-ass fans.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://www.nametheband.com.br/
• Email: jonathas@farrapo.art.br
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nametheband/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nametheband
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/NameTheBandSux
• Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/47S8rFwmF0OVghILRJhjZk?si=KgVSMmHFTD2Fqil9Xrs_9A

Image Credit:
Tami Lima

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