Pupilas Dilatadas

Influenced by the album Grito Suburbano (the very first punk rock compilation released in Brazil) singer Gustavo Brum and guitar player Eduardo Branca decided to start a punk rock band. The task soon proved difficult, since, in Porto Alegre at the time, Punk was considered too violent or too rough which scared the few musicians available. As a genre, it was still a kind of novelty, not yet digested by the press or the general public.
Nevertheless, Pupilas Dilatadas, which is probably the first punk rock band of Porto Alegre, started rehearsing in the winter of 1983 with Eduardo Branca (guitar player) Gustavo Brum (singer and lyricist) and Claudinho in the drums (who later would play with Julio Reny and band). The band's first concert was at the Colegio Dom João Becker in the north side of Porto Alegre, Brazil during a rock concert promoted by the school.
For the first concert Betão then an semi-famous art painter.
In their first concert the band stood out from the rest of the pack, mainly by the punk look of Gustavo and Branca and the much faster type of rock played by the group.
Betão left right after the first concert and Felipe Ness was invited to play the bass.
Soon, Branca and Claudinho also left and Felipe switched to the guitars while Duda Boeckel was invited to the drums. On the fall of 1984 the embryo of what was to become one of the first authentic punk rock bands of Porto Alegre, was formed. Around this time, together with Lixo Urbano and Brigadas Negras, the band played in the first punk rock festival of Porto Alegre, in the legendary underground theater called Terreira da Tribo.
Pupilas took inspiration from old school classic punk bands like Sex Pistols, The Clash and Buzzcocks but also by earlier seminal rock bands like Stooges, MC5, and of course The Ramones.
However, Pupilas Dilatadas's main musical influence came from the record Pure Mania from an English band called The Vibrators. The guitar style of The Vibrators would define the Pupilas's sound in all of its recordings. The Stranglers was another musical reference for the band, mainly because they didn't play as fast as the others punk bands of the time and featured quick dissonant guitar solos.
Brazilian bands Cólera, Inocentes, Olho Seco and Ratos de Porão also played a major role in defining the band's lyrics which tried to describe the surreal political situation of Brazil in the mid 80's.

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