Remo Fernandes

Name: Remo Fernandes












BIOGRAPHY

Remo Fernandes is a popular pop/rock artist and playback singer from Goa, India. After breaking out with his first hit Album "Pack That Smack" in 1986 and "Bombay City" the next year, he became the highest-selling english-rock musician and the only one in the country to be awarded Gold Discs in this category [1]. Writing and singing songs in English made his sucess more unique in the largely Bollywood dominated non-english Disco music that was popular back in the 80s and 90s. His music, reflecting life and socio-political happenings in India which every Indian could identify with, became largely popular with the educated in english, and growing, Indian middle class. A popular stage performer in India, he has also taken part in many music festivals around the world [1].

In 1995 Remo Fernandes moved into Hindi Pop and film music to become a playback singer, by teaming up with the legendary director Mani Ratnam and composer A. R. Rahman, he sang the song "Humma Humma" in the Hindi version of the hit movie they produced - Bombay. The song went on to earn Remo a Double Platinum.

Remo made the decision to make his original music his profession (he is a Bachelor of Architecture) at a time when there was no pop music scene in the country. In 1983 there was no air play on radio and television (they were both monopolized by the government, who refused to accept pop music's existence); no record companies willing to sign a contract (specially as Remo wrote and sang in English; they said "Give us Hindi disco and we'll sign you on right now!"); and the only concerts where one could play were so-called charity ones where the organizers mainly took artists for a ride.

Remo knew that his songs, though in English, had nothing foreign about them, and reflected life and socio-political happenings in India which every Indian could identify with. So ignoring record companies' lack of vision he invested in basic home recording equipment, recorded and released his first album called "GOAN CRAZY!" on a 4-track cassette Portastudio in 1984 (on which he played all instruments, sang all voices, composed all music & lyrics, engineered the recording and mixing, designed the album cover, etc), made a thousand copies in Bombay, distributed them to record shops around Goa on the yellow scooter he drove at the time, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Besides his tremendous success with records, Remo is known as a stage performer and entertainer without equal in this country, and is the only Indian pop/rock artist to perform totally LIVE, without fake lip-sync or even backing tapes. He has represented India at the Tokyo Music Festival, the Festival of India in the USSR, the MIDEM '96
Music Festival in Hong Kong, besides Festivals in Germany, Bulgaria, Macau, Seychelles and Mauritius. He has performed in Europe, the USA, the Middle East, Australia, Africa, Reunion Island, etc.
PEPSI USA chose him, as India's leading pop/rock star, to endorse and star in Pepsi's first two launch films here - films which made advertising history in India.

Remo has also collaborated with Rock n Roll legends such as Led Zeppelin and Jethro Tull.

In 1995, during the Channel V Music Awards, Remo(on bass), Jimmy Page (guitars), Robert Plant (vocals), and Roger Taylor (drums) teamed to belt out the Led Zeppelin Classic Rock n Roll. [2] More Recently, in February 2005, Remo collaborated with Jethro Tull for their concert Dubai. Sivamani, the renowned Indian percussionist also joined in. They performed tracks such as Mother Goose, Locomotive Breath, and Remo's very own Flute Kick, which was appreciated by everyone.

Remo has a band called the Microwave Papadums.