INDIE POP WITH A INDIE FOLK-ROCK TWIST WE WANT TO INTRODUCE YOU TO SINGER-SONGWRITER ‘CRISTÓVAM’ WHO TALKS MUSICAL HISTORY, INSPIRATIONS AND NEW MUSIC. READ THE FULL CHAT HERE.

What is your name?
Artist name: Cristóvam
Full name: Flávio Flores Cristóvam

What is your genre of music?
Indie-Folk / Indie-pop / folk-rock

Give us a little bio about you.
I was born and raised in Terceira (an island in the middle of the Atlantic), Portugal. When I was 11, I started playing guitar and quickly fell in love with creating my own melodies and lyrics. After that, I was in several bands and then decided to become a solo artist. In 2015, I started recording my debut solo album Hopes & Dreams, which came out in 2018. Since then, I toured in Europe and joined artists like Stu Larsen, Scott Matthews and Tim Hart on the road. Had a bunch of song synchs on tv and received a couple awards (1st prize at International Songwriting Competition – Unsigned Only Category, 2 IPMA Awards and 1 Composer of the Year Award and Festival CCP).In 2020, I wrote a song at the beginning of the pandemic called “Andrà Tutto Bene” that became viral, and after that, I signed a record deal with V2 Records. In 2021 I recorded my new album “Songs On a Wire” which was produced by Tim Hart (songwriter and drummer for Australian band Boy & Bear). The first single from Songs On a Wire was called “Golden Days” and came out in March this year, the album was released on October 7 this year.

What made you go into music?
As a child, I grew up surrounded by music, my grandfather was the founder of a radio station and my parents always loved having their music blasting everyday. So music was always a strong part of my life, even before I started playing guitar. We had a long time family friend, his name was Peres, he was an exceptional guitar player and used to play at my parents house parties. He would play songs from bands that me and my parents would listen to a lot, like Pink Floyd, Dire Straits or Supertramp. I fell in love with the guitar by watching him play and asked my parents for one. When I was 11, my parents got me my first guitar and he thought me how to play “Wish You Were Here” by Pink Floyd. After that, I started trying to play other songs by myself, and after learning a few things, I quickly fell in love with creating my own melodies and eventually that led into trying to write my own words. I think that when I was 14 I already had written a bunch of songs.

Who are your influences?
Oh, so many. From Dylan, Dave Van Rank, Mark Knopfler to Ray LaMontagne, Jason Isbell or Gregory Alan Isakov.

Who are your influences?
Oh, so many. From Dylan, Dave Van Rank, Mark Knopfler to Ray LaMontagne, Jason Isbell or Gregory Alan Isakov.

You released your new album ‘Songs On A Wire’, tell us more about the album.
It’s an album where I was looking to mature my sound and sort of minimize the amount of tracks in each song. To be more objective, you know? The older you get, the more straight to the point you want to be and that usually leads to records that are a bit less polished, which is what I believe we did on this one. I also wanted to grow a bit as a lyricist and it’s an album where we worked a lot on each lyric until we had the final result.

Describe each track in two words.
1-The Spin – Train Ride
2-Golden Days – Sea Salt
3-Me Oh My – Bar talk
4-Away We Go – Bonnie & Clyde
5-The Smoke – Rock & Roll
6-Luna – Twin Peaks
7-Broken Arrows – Astronaut talk
8-Crooked Lines – Dark stuff 
9-Chin Up – Good vibes
10-Thick and Thin – Wedding Song
11-Lifeline – Dream on
12-Ferris Wheel – Necessary egocentrism

What was the writing and recording process like?
It ended up being quite unique. Tim Hart (Australian singer-songwriter and drummer for Boy & Bear) produced this record. At first, I was meant to fly to Australia to work with him on the record, but because Australia had its borders closed during the pandemic, that became impossible. Then, we thought about flying Tim to Portugal, but if we did that, he would have to quarantine for 30 days in Sydney afterwards, and that was both too expensive and too much time for him to be away from his family. So we decided to try to make a record through the internet, which we did! I would set my alarm clock at 4 am to match his timezone, and we would work on lyrics and song structures over zoom until they felt right. After that, I would track guitars and a vocal on my studio and send it to him, then he would track drums on his side and send those tracks back and so on. So I t was this sort of virtual ping- pong that went on for 5 months until we were 100% happy with what we had.

Who did you work with on the album?
Tim Hart from Boy and Bear produced it and recorded a lot of stuff. We also had some of his bandmates tracking on it (Killian Gavin, Jon Hart & David Symes) and a lot of musicians from my side (Timothy Lima, João Félix, Francisco Santos, Chico Santos, André Gomes and few more). Simon Berckelman mixed it at Golden Retriever Studios in Sydney Australia and John Ruberto mastered it at Mastersound.

Will we see a music video for any of the tracks off ‘Songs On A Wire’ and if so what can we expect from the creative process?
Golden Days has a music video out, it was directed by portuguese director Manuel Casanova, and just like the music, we wanted to go for an aesthetic with retro vibes. The script is very connected with the lyrics and I think he did a wonderful job at capturing the essence of the song and it’s message.

What else can we expect in 2022?
I think 12 songs, 1 music video and 3 lyric videos is okay for one year… haha. I’ll be doing a bit more touring until late November and then I’m getting back at the studio to work on acoustic versions of some of these tracks.

Where do you see yourself now in 5 Years?
Hopefully putting out new music and touring a lot.

What quote or saying do you always stick by?
Shoot to the stars and you might catch the moon.

When you are at a gig, what are 5 things you cannot forget?
1- Saying hello
2-The lyrics
3-The chords
4-Thanking people or entities that need to be thanked
5-Wishing a good night at the end

When you are at a gig, what are 5 things you cannot forget?

1- Saying hello
2-The lyrics
3-The chords
3-Thanking people or entities that need to be thanked 4-Wishing a good night at the end

Do you have social media accounts so your fans can follow you?
Absolutely:
Facebook
Instagram
Twitter
Youtube

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.