We recently connected with Nolli Brothers and have shared our conversation below.
Nolli, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?
Nolli Brothers is a peculiar country, folk Brazilian Band, acting in this segment since 1997.
The group is composed of Nolli Merrighi (lead singer), Didi (guitar), and Marquito (background vocals, mandolin, dobro, acoustic guitar, banjo).
With a successful history in spreading country music throughout Brazilian grounds, Nolli Brothers gathers the influence of modern American country music with Brazilian sounds and instruments.
Writing it’s own songs in Portuguese and in English and investing in country-pop/rock sounds, with a hint of country-flavored versions, mixing the “Brazilianesses” influences to their country influences, the band is proud of it’s originality.
In 2018 the band released the single called “Make on our on” in the USA which was listed at the Country Hot Tracks on American iTunes.
As a result of that, the band decided to release in 2022, 2 albums one in Portuguese and one in English, The double album titled “Pra Sempre and Everglow” is ready to reach Brazilian and international audiences, presenting “globalized music” and showcasing the band’s versatility. The songs were recorded during the years of 2020 and 2021 at the band’s studio. The band also signs the music production.
Nolli Brothers’ main goal is to blend Brazilian culture with American country music without losing the essence of each of the two cultures. We hope to reach the world with our music. Some songs are already available on every digital platform and until December, all the songs Will be available to the public.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
Nolli Brothers is a peculiar country, folk Brazilian Band, acting in this segment since 1997. With a successful history in spreading country music throughout. Brazilian grounds, Nolli Brothers, gathers the influence of modern American country music with Brazilian sounds and instruments.
And that’s how we started…
We began our career in 1997, when country music exploded in Brazil. Alan Jackson , Shania Twain, Garth Brooks, George, Strait, Trisha Yearwood, Faith Hil are some of the artists that were huge down here at the time. New country was what people listened to at the radio stations. And people loved to dress with boots, hats and buckles.
At that time, Our state didn’t have country bands around and we used to see bands from other states coming to play here. That wasn’t right .So we decided to put up a band and started playing at a specific bar called “Tres Lobos”- Three Wolfs. A very famous country bar in Belo Horizonte, our hometown.
It was a smash hit.
In a few months we were playing everywhere, other bands came along and no more bands from other states were called to come to Minas Gerais anymore.
But, the most important thing we did was making sure to start the band already writing and presenting our own songs along with cover songs, because, here in Brazil , it is important to have a concert full of covers, and playing our own songs made all the difference.
Soon, people were singing our songs as well as the covers, and in 2001 we signed our first record label contract, we were top 3 at the states’ radio stations , and became the reference of country music in our state and in Brazil. We released an album called “Vento”, Wind in English, which we consider one of our greatest accomplishments. It’s great to remember this time of our lives. It was definitely awesome.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
In 2010, we really wanted to record an album that would make a difference. And we didn’t have enough resources to make it happen. After giving a lot of thought about it we came across a great alternative to our problem. We decided to create a crowdfunding site called ‘’vai que eu tô pagando”, translating it means “Go, that I’m paying” . We set up a website where our fans, friends, and family would buy in advance a CD and DVD for US$ 20.00 that would be recorded in Nashville, TN. They could buy as many as they wanted.
The idea was great. We just didn’’ know if it was going to work.
We had everything planned: studios, professionals, hotels, airplane tickets, etc… We needed a lot of money and we didn’t know if we were going to be successful.
Well, with the site released, all that was left was to advertise it and hope for the best.
Six months later we were flying to Nashville, happy as never with a victorious internet campaign where our fans paid us to go abroad to record our second most important project of our career.
It was an amazing journey to Nashville where we recorded a Cd and DVD at the Blackbird and Ocean way all together. This experience was a breakthrough in our career as we had the chance to work with profissionais such as Steve Marcatonio and Pat MacMakin at the studios and video director Kenny Jackson.
Back in Brazil, we released the Cd and DVD in a great concert, where everybody who paid the crowdfunding was invited to participate and receive the final product of our incredible trip to Nashville. We signed our second label contract with Deck Disc that released the project in Brazil.
Is there a mission driving your creative journey?
Our mission is to spread country music in Brazil. It is unbelievable, but we don’t have a brazilian country music playlist on our digital platforms down here. Isn’t that crazy? We are thrown into other genres like alternative, indie, sertanejo, etc. And we are nothing like it.
We make BRAZILIAN COUNTRY MUSIC.
Several great bands in Brazil play country music, write country music and spread this genre throughout this country and we don’t receive the respect we are supposed to get from the platforms.
It was necessary to release our song “Make it on our own” in the USA to finally get to the Hot Tracks Country on the I-Tunes. This would never happen here, mostly because we don’t exist on the streams.
So, our main goal is to make a lot of noise until they can’t ignore us anymore. Our goal is to make great music here in Brazil and abroad until the main platforms of streaming understand that there are great bands in Brazil that are Country Bands and deserve their own space, their own playlist. We are not Alternative. We are Country. We are Brazilian Country Bands. And that’s a fact that can not be ignored anymore.
Let’s country this world, folks!!!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.nollibrothers.com
- Instagram: @nollibrothers
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/nollibrothers
- Twitter: @noli3
- Youtube: www.youtube.com/nollibrothers
- Other: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/64hALMnXW9Wvs8fNg0dut8?si=NdfxoKPhS_aFD_IqqeTaUg&utm_source=copy-link
Image Credits
@gustavoandradeduarte @manu_no_mato