I'm not the best person to answer that, because I was never part of Angra, but the process, to me, seems to be very natural and spontaneous. In fact, this is the Heavy Metal that we've always listened to, since we were kids, so you can see we're not trying too hard on the CD.

How was the transition from the first album, Ritual, to this new release? What do you think changed from the first to the second album?

I think it's an evolving process, a natural continuation from the first album, which already portrayed some of the elements that you can hear in Reason. However, we didn't want to clone our first album - which would be easier and more precise, commercially speaking. Though, at the same time, you listen to Reason, and you know it's Shaaman, and this is really important for a band's identity.

Many ideas were written down during the tour, but afterwards they were polished when the entire band was together - we discussed and found the best way to put the songs together. Actually we had enough time to do everything; and this process, if it's rushed, does have an [negative] influence - which wasn't the case: we had time to think, to write the lyrics, to have a good pre-production etc.

We all want the best for the band, always, and he's the one that writes best. We can't let our egos blind us. He had great ideas, and this is important, because the album is the band's, and our fans'.

Ritual is a conceptual album: the songs speak of different forms of ritual, in whatever shape they assume. And yes, it was deliberately done so.

This time we agreed that the album would not be conceptual, because we had already done that in Ritual. We wanted to do something different this time.

Ritual and Reason together sum up to 13 letters - and as Zagalo would say, 13 letters is a good sign. [Laughs] [IN: In other interviews, André Matos already mentioned that the third album will also start with the letter R and that they are all linked]

We actually prefer people to listen to the album and interpret it the way they find most interesting. Of course everything we included in the album has a meaning, but it's nice that people will reach their own conclusion themselves.

That was Sascha's [Paeth, producer] and Ricardo's [Confessori, drummer] idea, which was approved by everyone else. We thought the song had a nice link with the rest of the album and we decided to record it. There's no rule, really, we just thought it fitted. And I think we managed to make it pretty heavy, much more than the original. [Laughs]

Regarding the album cover... after all, who's the old man on the cover? Santo Darém [IN: the real shaman the band consulted in order to find the best name change - Shaman to Shaaman]? André's grandfather? I've heard all kinds of rumor already. Anyway, would he be the new Shaaman mascot, like Maiden's Eddie? Will he be present in all future covers?

Well, it just coincided this time. Let's wait for the next one because we can't say yes or no, it's always nice to keep this mysterious atmosphere.

It was a coincidence. Plus, if you look at it carefully they're not identical pictures. Like everything else in the music world, things sometimes look similar, but it happens unintentionally.

It's a song that turned out to be really cool, we're considering it.

During this second semester we're supposed to tour around Latin America. After that, we'll probably go to Europe and then Asia.

Actually all these countries you cited have done interviews with us, and we did feature on their magazines, it's just that the stronger offices of our record label [IN: AFM Records] are in these countries - which doesn't prevent a Greek, or Portuguese, magazine to perform interviews. Regarding Italy, André is going there next week [IN: he's probably referring to the week between June 26th and July 2nd, 2005] to do some more of this work.

AFM underwent a complicated period, because unfortunately their president had a car accident and came to pass away. This affected the release date on some of the label's new material but it's nothing that will do us harm. AFM is a record label that promotes our work very well.

We can't include everything in a DVD (so that it'd turn out to be a double DVD), because it would be really expensive, and the fans might not be able to afford it. But we keep all our material and maybe we'll release it sometime later.

Fábio Ribeiro [keyboards] has been with Shaaman for a long time now - actually he's been with you since the times of Angra! Why hasn't he been incorporated to the cast yet? Is it really because there's no need (since André records the keyboards for the album), and then you only need him as a support player during your live concerts? Or is there some other reason?

Fábio is an exceptional musician - to me the best in Brazil without a doubt! However, André enjoys very much coming up with the keyboard lines for the album. But we always call him to participate on the album recordings anyway. Actually, we just consider him to be part of the band already. [IN: Indeed, Fábio Ribeiro does participate on the album's recording sessions. Fábio himself has stated in previous interviews that he has freedom to apply his own style and experiment with the band's compositions]

We don't consider that, no.

A big hug to all of you, thanks a lot for the interest and we hope to be there soon!