I liked how friendly the staff were. It felt like a family, different from some big schools out there that only care about your money.

I learned how to be a pro, how to play different styles of music, to read, and to understand what my role was as a bass player; in other words, groove until the drummer passes out.

Well...a lot of things. The importance of having the right attitude. For example: when you don't do well in an ensemble class and you don't want to take the teacher's advice at the moment because you think you have it all figured out, that's a big mistake! It is better to hear from them rather than hearing from a stranger on a gig. Also, don't lose the form. I think you need to keep it simple and make it sound good: less is more!

I was playing a gig in Arizona on a Sunday night. Right after the gig ended, I got a call from Barry Squire. It was for an audition the next morning, so I used the money from the gig to fly out early on Monday. All I knew was 30 seconds of one song that my wife played on the phone. I had no access to the internet to listen to the music. I liked what I heard. It was groove oriented, which I do best... I think. I got to the audition after listening to one song a couple of times. It was a cattle call. There were around 40 bass players on the second day, and I don't even know how many were there on the first day of auditions. After playing a couple of times with different drummers, they finally decided that Stacey Lamont (a great drummer who played with Macy Gray and a bunch of gospel artists) and myself sounded best together. All I did was groove; no chops fest.

It is great but very exhausting. I remember days where I wasn't sure where we were. We toured the whole U.S. and Canada, then Europe, South America, and Australia, and I'm still jet-lagged from Australia since I arrived just 2 days ago. The musicians in the band are great: we had the pleasure to play with one of the most musical guys around Marc Delcore (keys and programing), Dave Wood (guitar), Troy Welstad (2nd keys and guitar), and Mike Bennett (drums). Hilary is a great person; very down to earth and treats everyone in the crew and in the band really well. She has no bad attitude towards anyone...she's really a great human being.

Yeah. I finished my orchestration classes at UCLA with an A+. I did an arrangement of a Villa Lobos Piece. I really like writing, arranging, and doing film scoring. I see myself involved in that in the future. I'm starting to record my on CD with my original compositions; a mix between jazz and brazilian music. I will post something on my website soon at www.nandoraio.com.