We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Gui Bodi. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Gui below.

Alright, Gui thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Do you have an agent or someone (or a team) that helps you secure opportunities and compensation for your creative work? How did you meet you, why did you decide to work with them, why do you think they decided to work with you?

I can safely say that my financial life has been saved once the Fooz Fighters and I (my Foo Fighters tribute band) landed a booking agent deal. I feel like it doesn’t matter how good you are as a musician, if you want to live off of your music you need a whole lot of an infrastructure around you. For original music it’s even more crucial to have that support system. My original bands and projects struggle to find places to play that will compensate you for your music.

Our booking agent has all the connections to bars, clubs, venues, and festivals around the US, not only saving us time, otherwise we’d be the ones having to book all the shows, but getting us the good ones, the ones that pay decently and sometimes very handsomely, making it worth our time and efforts.

Gui, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I accidentally started playing bass when I was 14 years old after a friend from school introduced me to AC/DC. We decided to put a Rock band together but were lacking a bass player, so I volunteered for the position! I fell in love with the instrument and started playing with a bunch of different bands, mainly Rock and Metal cover bands until I graduated high school.

I then had to face the hard reality of making a career choice, and the prospect of living off of music in Brazil was a little scary, probably due to the lack of references among friends and family, we’ve never had artists in the family before me, so I went with a more “traditional” career choice: dentistry.

I attended the University of São Paulo (USP) and thought music would be a hobby from there on, but at the end of my freshmen year, I was already joining cover bands and singing in the university choir as well. I remember doing some crazy things towards the end of my six years course, like leaving a surgery class in my scrubs and going straight to the venue, where my band would have my rig setup and ready to go, I just had to change my clothes in the bathroom and hit the stage. Wild times!

After graduating from dentistry, I decided to take a sabbatical and went to Hollywood to attend Musicians Institute (MI) for a year. The initial plan was to study music and live the “musician life” for that year and then go back to Brazil and work as a dentist for the rest of my life, but after a couple of quarters at school, I started getting a bunch of gig opportunities, like auditioning for 30 Seconds to Mars and other incredible bands, so I decided to give music a chance, knowing I would regret it for the rest of my life if I didn’t do it.

I applied for a work visa and, since then, started working for MI, played at the Warped Tour with the Punk Rock band Good Guys in Black, had a couple of appearances on national TV playing with Luis Fonsi at the Conan O’Brien and Ellen Degeneres shows, played with guitarist extraordinaire Artur Menezes at Eric Clapton’s Crossroads guitar festival, played at the DEW tour with my band Disciples of Babylon, participated of a TV show called “Clash of the Cover Bands” on E! with my Foo Fighters tribute band (Fooz Fighters), among other gigs.

It’s been an incredible ride, I’m really happy with my career choices and proud of where I’ve gotten so far. On top of that, I still get to use some of my knowledge in dentistry with my wife, whom I met in dentistry school back in Brazil, so we discuss some of her cases and newer techniques and technologies in the field, it’s a good mental exercise!

I’m really proud to be extremely professional, and what that means is I know my role in a band situation. I’m not necessarily the best bass player my bands ever had, but I’m always gig-ready (I learn/transcribe my materials very well), I’m always punctual, and I try my best to be a problem solver and help out whenever I can. What really sets me apart from my peers, though, is my ability to sing harmonies, I believe that alone got me some of my best gigs so far.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Deciding to move here from Brazil to pursue my music career was by far the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life, and keep in mind I’ve done plenty of oral surgeries when I was working as a dentist back home! What some people fail to understand about moving here from another country is most of us who do it are starting from zero. You’ll need to build your professional network from scratch, you’re far away from your family and friends, and have no social infrastructure to support you. On top of all that, you have to go through the process of obtaining your working papers, which are not easy nor cheap, so the fact I’m still here after almost 13 years kind of blows my mind.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

I joke with my bandmates that I’m the luckiest guy at every gig we play because I have the best seat in the house. I’m very spoiled in the sense I play with some of the best in the field. Some of these artists’ talents and craftsmanship are so beyond my own abilities the fact I’m playing with them is very humbling, and I learn a lot from them.

Now, If I’m being completely honest, besides the fact I get to play music all the time with some of the best musicians ever, right now I’m really enjoying the lack of having a routine. One day I’m in NY playing Rock & Roll, the next I’m in LA playing with the next country star. I get to travel a lot, meet new people and hang out with my favorite ones, connecting with a different crowd every night, nothing beats that!    

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.guibodi.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/guibodi/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/guilherme.bodi
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@guibodibass

Image Credits
Leah Horstman, Allison Morgan, Bo Roberts