Playing music isn’t just something you do, its a way of life! It affects us in different daily aspects. In our physical form or in the way we reflect on things. It also helps us with our emotions, sentiments, along with problems we face day by day. In a way, its also a sort of medicine that helps us go through many things in our daily life.”
It all started at 7 years of age. Portuguese born although grew up in New Jersey, USA, the passion for music was conceived mainly watching and listening to bands on MTV such as Van Halen, Motley Crue, Guns N Roses, Metallica, along with many others at the time. Thats when Hugo felt the awesome power of rock music, its killer dynamics, the cool attitude along with its rebelliousness.
Hugo started to “try” to learn guitar but he just didn’t feel that it was his thing. His second “try” to learn to play a musical instrument was keyboards and once again he just didn’t feel any chemistry. Finally, like the saying “third times the charm!”, was at the age of 12… the drums. The moment Hugo sat behind his first drum kit, he felt it was his destiny. From that day forward he knew what he wanted to do for the rest of his life. Growing up watching and listening to drummers like Matt Sorum, Lars Ulrich, Mike Portnoy, Tommy Lee, Vinnie Paul, Dave Weckl, Chad Smith, and later, Thomas Haake, Bobby Jarzombek, Carter Beauford, Mike Mangini, and many others, Hugo developed a Rock/Metal style with a strong progressive mentality.
Naturally it all started playing in cover bands, playing various styles from Pop to more extreme Metal. At age 18 Hugo auditioned and got the gig with Arya where he would stay for 9 years driving in the drummer’s chair. With Arya, Hugo recorded two albums, did television apearances and countless shows. Meanwhile, in 2005 Hugo was invited to join Timeless, a power metal band from Lisbon. Hugo played several shows and recorded a live CD+DVD with Timeless at the famous portuguese Hard Club in 2006. In that same year Hugo formed a new band called GODVLAD. In 2008 Hugo left Arya and Timeless to persue GODVLAD fulltime while also joining a bluesy funk power trio called Spread. The debut full length GODVLAD album released in mid 2011.
With over 15 years of drumming experience it has been a long adventure, not always being so glamorous, but like everything in life, there’s always ups and downs. The most important thing this business is the art of making music being able to express one’s feelings musically.