47 Facts About Remo Fernandes

Luis Remo de Maria Bernardo Fernandes was born on 8 May 1953 and is a Portuguese singer and musician.

Remo Fernandes's musical work is a fusion of many different cultures and styles that he has been exposed to as a child in Goa and in his later travels around the world.

Remo Fernandes has performed with members of international groups such as Jethro Tull, Led Zeppelin and Queen.

Remo Fernandes now writes and sings his songs in five different languages: English, Hindi, French, Portuguese and Konkani.

Remo Fernandes holds an Overseas Citizenship of India card since acquiring Portuguese citizenship.

Luis Remo de Maria Bernardo Fernandes was born to the Nova Goa-based family of Jose Antonio Bernardo Afonso Fernandes and Luiza Maria Zuzarte e Fernandes on 8 May 1953.

Remo Fernandes has a sister named Belinda, who sings Brazilian songs.

Remo Fernandes spent the next decade listening to music of that era's most popular icons:.

In school, Remo Fernandes developed his guitar playing skills along with a group of friends and formed a school band with them, named The Beat 4.

Remo Fernandes wrote his first songs around age 14 and won many prizes in all-Goa competitions.

Remo Fernandes was greatly influenced by Lucio Miranda.

Remo Fernandes continued writing his own songs, playing solo or playing with different bands.

Remo Fernandes played with The Savages, one of Bombay's well-known bands back then, with whom he released an album, Ode to the Messiah, on Polydor Records in 1975.

Bombay being one of the few cities in India at the time with a niche audience for rock music, Remo Fernandes played in concerts and venues such as Shanmukhnanda Hall, Rang Bhavan, and in all the major college campuses of the city.

Remo Fernandes then returned to Goa and immersed himself in its hippie culture.

Remo Fernandes met a group of travelling European artists, who named themselves the Amsterdam Balloon Company, and began playing at their concerts at Baga.

Later, Remo Fernandes performed in Amsterdam with Lucas Amor, the violinist in this group, and release a record called Venus and the Moon in 1981.

Remo Fernandes formed his own band of fusion music called Indiana with bass guitarist Abel, tabla player Lala and the percussionist Bondo.

Remo Fernandes recorded his maiden album Goan Crazy and a subsequent album Old Goan Gold on a four-track cassette TEAC Portastudio recorder in his home under the banner of 'Goana Records'.

Remo Fernandes engineered the recording and mixing and designed the album covers.

Remo Fernandes had cassettes produced in Bombay and personally distributed the cassettes from shop to shop in Goa with an illustrated book of poems he wrote, and postcards and T-shirts he designed.

Remo Fernandes mailed these critical press clippings to the Prime Minister, who immediately replied saying that he and his wife Sonia had loved the song and had found nothing objectionable in it.

Later the same year, Remo Fernandes sang in Bombay at a concert called Aid Bhopal, aimed at raising funds for victims of the Bhopal gas tragedy, in which he sang two of his songs, "Pack that Smack" and "Ode to Graham Bell".

Remo Fernandes composed and performed music for Trikal by Shyam Benegal.

Remo Fernandes played music on the streets during the Konkani language agitation of 1986, spreading a message of peace to the violent protestors.

When invited to attend international music festivals and concerts, Remo Fernandes again started travelling around the world.

Remo Fernandes once represented India, when it was invited, in the Tokyo Music Festival.

Remo Fernandes took part in the MIDEM '96 Music Festival in Hong Kong, Festival of India in the USSR, besides Festivals in Macau, Germany, Seychelles, Bulgaria and Mauritius.

Remo Fernandes managed to influence him deeply and he wrote the songs "Take Me to Calcutta" and "Welcome My Child" on the flight back home.

Remo Fernandes initially planned to release an album dedicated to her in 1990, with the tentative title of That Lady in Calcutta.

Around this time Remo Fernandes married Frenchwoman Michele Delahaye, with whom he has two sons, Noah and Jonah.

Remo Fernandes has an ancestral home in the village of Siolim, in Bardez taluka of Goa, where they all lived.

Remo Fernandes sang the song "Humma Humma" in the Hindi dubbed of Tamil film Bombay.

In 1998, Remo Fernandes launched an Indi-Pop music album titled "O, Meri Munni", whose title track of the same name, along with other songs became a chartbuster in the late 90s and early 2000s.

In February 2005, Remo Fernandes collaborated with Jethro Tull along with renowned Indian percussionist Sivamani for a concert held in Dubai.

Remo Fernandes has long participated in and promoted a local festival called the Siolim Zagor.

Remo Fernandes was devastated and stayed away from music and performances for a year.

In 2002, Remo Fernandes released two albums, Symphonic Chants and India Beyond.

In 2003, on his 50th birthday, Remo Fernandes held a reunion concert in Goa with many of his former bands; The Beat 4, Indiana, and The Savages, besides friends like The Valadares Sisters and Lucio Miranda.

Remo Fernandes refused an award conferred by the Goa government's Department of Art and Culture later that year.

Remo Fernandes was then awarded the Karamveer Puraskar by a group of Delhi-based NGOs later that year for the social messages and the impact of his works.

Remo Fernandes distributed these songs on the Internet for free, together with their music videos.

In 2011, Remo Fernandes was approached by the Election Commission of India to be their 'Youth Icon for Ethical Voting' in Goa.

Later that year, Remo Fernandes sang a song for a new film, David, by Bejoy Nambiar.

Remo Fernandes later gave his tunes and voice to the title track of Luv U Soniyo which released on 26 July 2013.

Remo Fernandes wrote a jingle for their campaign for the 2014 Indian general election, but announced that he had left politics by March 2014.

Remo Fernandes appeared in the 2015 Anurag Kashyap film Bombay Velvet as a Portuguese nobleman, marking his debut in acting.