Caetano Veloso is in a tight spot.  It’s December 27, 1968 and the Brazilian musician and activist is arrested and taken to army headquarters at Marechal Deodoro in Rio de Janiero where his long hair is forcibly shaven.

Brazil’s military dictatorship doesn’t like him much.  He is outspokenly leftist, which generally doesn’t go over well with dictatorships.  But the country’s socialist left wing doesn’t like him much either because he integrates non-nationalist influences like rock ‘n’ roll into his music.  So, Veloso goes into exile in London.

Forty odd years go by, as they have a way of doing, and Veloso changes from young revolutionary to elder statesman, revered around the world and in Brazil as one of the country’s most important musicians.  In the interim, Veloso helped redefine Brazilian music and, to an extent, rock music, influencing a new generation of songwriters, including one David Byrne.

Although his relationship to the press is famously rocky, he agreed to answer a few questions about just how this all happened.

I’ve seen the 2007 album “Ce” described as your attempt to make a rock album.  Do you think that’s true?  If so, what drove you to do 
that?

Rock was the mot scandalous aspect of tropicalismo 
in the 1960s.  And I never gave up the subject. It’s 
present in most albums I made in four decades. “Cê,” 
like “Transa,” which I recorded in 1971, is a band 
album. Some of the compositions have more of a rock 
aspect, some could be in a Jobinian album with 
strings, some could be in a Bahian percussion based 
album.  But all are performed by the same basic rock 
band.

Would your work have been the same and would you have been as successful if the Brazillian government had accepted it in those early years?

Do you imply that some of the success my music met 
is due to the fact that the military dictatorship in 
Brazil didn’t accept it?  Not even this is true.  The 
government then didn’t react against the songs.  None 
were forbidden.  The left-wing students and journalists were a lot more willing to censor our stuff than the 
authorities.  Still the latter didn’t understand how 
it could be that we were for those leftists who booed 
us and found the combination of long hair, electric instruments, strange lyrics and our presence in the 
anti-dictatorship demonstrations too hard to 
understand.  Then they put us in jail. But of course my 
work would never have been the very same if my life had been 
different.

How did your exile in London change you and your music?  What new influences were you exposed to?

The strongest influence that British music had on 
us happened before we were forced to leave Brazil: The 
Beatles.  Once in London, I longed for Brazilian life 
and music.  But I saw lots of things, from Led Zeppelin 
to Incredible String Band.  The two things that 
impressed me the most were the Rolling Stones onstage 
and seeing Jimi Hendrix live.

Why do you think Tropicalia was considered so dangerous by those in power?  How did you deal with the backlash to it?

Because it had all the characteristics of the 
counter-culture.  It also had some scent of new left. 
As I have already said, the traditional left reacted 
negatively. The Plastic People of the Universe, in 
Czechoslovakia, faced an equally strong reaction from 
the communist government.  As for me, when I was 
imprisoned and exiled I got depressed.

You’re known for fusing rhythms together and even for bringing back old traditional rhythms that aren’t used anymore.  Are there new rhythms to be found still?

I don’t think I fuse anything.  I don’t like 
fusions.  I rather propose contrasting juxtapositions. 
Rhythms are all old as life.

Do you think the physical nature of a country affects the kind of music
that it produces?  For instance, I feel bossa nova could have only come from a place with an ocean and the tropical landscape of Brazil.

Geography counts. But I see bossa nova as something 
that could only happen in an American tropical country 
that spoke Portuguese.  And there is only one country 
like that.

As an American, I had never heard anything like the chords and progressions in Brazilian music.  Where do you think that unique way of structuring songs and playing the guitar came from?

I think it all comes from João Gilberto.  From the 
way he heard Brazilian pop tradition, beginning with 
the 1930s masters, and from the way he heard the then 
ultra new cool jazz from the USA.  It has to reveal a 
different thing when a genius hears Chet Baker singing and thinks of Herivelto Martins’ compositions.

Who are your vocal influences?  When you sing in your low range, it reminds me a lot of someone like Joao Gilberto, but when you go into your high register, I hear more rock n’ roll, like maybe Roy Orbison or something.

João Gilberto, no doubt.  And rock’n'roll, but not 
Orbison.  Mostly  Beatles.  Ray Charles. But there are always echoes of Portuguese fado singer Amália 
Rodrigues.

You’ve made so much music, what keeps you inspired at this point?

The complexity of life.  The difficulty of music. 
My irresponsibility.

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