Biography
Renato Russo built a major career as a rock and pop performer while creating the group Legião Urbana. Although the ensemble disbanded following his passing, it remains Brazil’s top-selling rock act. The Acústico MTV recording moved more than one million units and held the number-two slot on the Rio and São Paulo charts. Between 1995 and 1999 the band’s catalog moved 10.2 million copies while Russo’s solo releases sold two million. He was among the principal figures who placed Brazil’s capital on the national rock landscape, clearing a path in the mid-1980s for Detrito Federal, Plebe Rude, and Capital Inicial. His volatile temperament served as an outlet for Brazilian youth who recognized their own experiences in his pained songwriting.
Russo spent his first seven years in Rio’s Ilha do Governador district. His family relocated with him to New York in 1967. Once settled in Brasília DF, he abandoned journalism studies in 1978 and launched Aborto Elétrico, Brasília’s inaugural punk band, with Renato Russo on bass, André Petrórius on guitar, and Fê on drums. Their debut performance took place in 1980 at the modest Só Cana bar as an instrumental set in which Russo remained silent. A heated argument that erupted midway through a November 1981 Aborto Elétrico show signaled the group’s impending dissolution. Roughly a year after departing, he began collaborating with Marcelo Bonfá on drums, Eduardo Paraná on guitar, and Paulo Paulista on keyboards to form Legião Urbana, which performed in underground venues such as Napalm.
During a 1988 Legião Urbana concert on the As quatro Estações tour, a spectator rushed the stage and assaulted Russo, triggering a melee that left 385 people injured. Enraged, Russo declared he would never perform in Brasília again. In 1993 he initiated solo projects while continuing parallel work with Legião Urbana. That same year he issued The Stonewall Celebration, a nod to the twenty-fifth anniversary of the U.S. gay uprising, recorded entirely in English. His next solo album was Equilíbrio Distante. In 1995 he released Strani Amore, performed in Italian. Following his death from AIDS, the posthumous album O último Solo appeared alongside the books Renato Russo de A a Z and Conversações com Renato Russo, the latter a collection of his interviews.
Russo spent his first seven years in Rio’s Ilha do Governador district. His family relocated with him to New York in 1967. Once settled in Brasília DF, he abandoned journalism studies in 1978 and launched Aborto Elétrico, Brasília’s inaugural punk band, with Renato Russo on bass, André Petrórius on guitar, and Fê on drums. Their debut performance took place in 1980 at the modest Só Cana bar as an instrumental set in which Russo remained silent. A heated argument that erupted midway through a November 1981 Aborto Elétrico show signaled the group’s impending dissolution. Roughly a year after departing, he began collaborating with Marcelo Bonfá on drums, Eduardo Paraná on guitar, and Paulo Paulista on keyboards to form Legião Urbana, which performed in underground venues such as Napalm.
During a 1988 Legião Urbana concert on the As quatro Estações tour, a spectator rushed the stage and assaulted Russo, triggering a melee that left 385 people injured. Enraged, Russo declared he would never perform in Brasília again. In 1993 he initiated solo projects while continuing parallel work with Legião Urbana. That same year he issued The Stonewall Celebration, a nod to the twenty-fifth anniversary of the U.S. gay uprising, recorded entirely in English. His next solo album was Equilíbrio Distante. In 1995 he released Strani Amore, performed in Italian. Following his death from AIDS, the posthumous album O último Solo appeared alongside the books Renato Russo de A a Z and Conversações com Renato Russo, the latter a collection of his interviews.
Albums
Singles
