Days of Rona: Antonio Santos of Places Around the Sun
The ongoing nature of the COVID-19 pandemic, the varied responses of publics and governments worldwide, and the disruption to lives and livelihoods has reached a scale that is unprecedented. Whatever the month or the month after or the future itself brings, more than one generation will bear the mark of having lived through this time, and art, artists, and those who provide the support system to help uphold them have all been affected.
In continuing the Days of Rona feature, it remains pivotal to give a varied human perspective on these events and these responses. It is important to remind ourselves that whether someone is devastated or untouched, sick or well, we are all thinking, feeling people with lives we want to live again, whatever renewed shape they might take from this point onward. We all have to embrace a new normal. What will that be and how will we get there?
Thanks to all who participate. To read all the Days of Rona coverage, click here. — JJ Koczan
Days of Rona: Antonio Santos of Places Around the Sun (Lisboa, Portugal)
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How have you been you dealing with this crisis as a band? As an individual? What effect has it had on your plans or creative processes?
Besides the obvious bad financial side in all of this as a band we got a lot of time we wouldn’t get otherwise to really write our songs without any pressure of having to go to work the next day. And that is probably the best thing out of all of the things, our hobbies became a full-time job.
With the creative process it has also helped a lot since everything stopped and it left a lot of space for the creative mind to take place. I’ve seen a lot of new ideas, whether them being podcasts, Instagram lives or new music coming up in these last months and the best part is that everyone is attending to all of it because people want something to pass their time.
In a general view I think we’re making the best of it and still manage to finish the new album we’re currently working on.
How do you feel about the public response to the outbreak where you are? From the government response to the people around you, what have you seen and heard from others?
Here in Portugal, I feel like in a way we got very lucky comparing to a lot of other countries here in Europe. Our government reacted as fast as one would ever react with such a sudden threat.
Everybody at first shared the mind set of “The virus won’t ever get here”, foolishly enough since our country relies a lot on tourism, and thousands of tourists enter our country everyday. But when it came people actually reacted fast and a lot of people went into voluntary lockdown, but of course there were those people who felt like it was an overreaction. But now I think pretty much everyone is being aware and respectful of the rules.
There’s an uneasy feeling around everyone we know, since we all work in the film and music industry, we really depend on a lot of events that can’t happen right now and probably won’t happen in the next year.
But being all creative people I think we’ll all find some way or another to keep going and adapt to this new reality.
What do you think of how the music community specifically has responded? How do you feel during this time? Are you inspired? Discouraged? Bored? Any and all of it?
The music community took a big hit, every band we know had their shows canceled and we were all obligated to leave almost everything in stand by. But I think everyone is aware of how hard it is for all the artists and people are sharing everyone’s work on their social media. It’s amazing to see so many people coming together to help everybody in need during this time.
Although there’s a little bit of discouragement, because we know we can’t play live, being one of the most exciting parts of being in a band, and of course the best source of income. But some of the best songs and ideas came from boredom and the need to make something, I think everyone that has the creative side should use this time to let it come into fruition. Everyone is at home and now more than ever people need the entertainment industry to help them get through all of this a little bit easier.
What is the one thing you want people to know about your situation, either as a band, or personally, or anything? What is your new normal? What have you learned from this experience, about yourself, your band, or anything?
Me personally, I was going through a really rough time mentally before all of this. And having to suddenly stop everything really made think and reflect on everything going in my mind and I got to value a lot of things that I always took for granted and I fortunately could channel everything through music, we were in the middle of recording an album, and luckily we stopped when we were about to record the vocals, which is something that can easily be done at home, so I brought my studio set up home and really took the time to record and write everything feeling like I had all the time in the world.
I recorded a vocal idea and sent it to everyone and we went back and forth a lot and I think that really allowed us to come up with stuff we would never had the time to do before.
We as band can’t wait to share what we’ve been working on as we feel like it has some of the best stuff we’ve ever wrote and hopefully sooner than later we’ll be able to play it live.
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