E. 268: B2wins – Beyond Music

Amy Gabay 00:00
This podcast is brought to you by People’s Food Co Op, a community owned grocery store in downtown La Crosse, Wisconsin and Rochester, Minnesota that promotes local farmers and producers through an emphasis on fresh, healthy, sustainable food. Anyone can shop, everyone is welcome. For more information, visit them online at PFC.coop. This podcast is also brought to you by Trempealeau County Tourism. Whether your idea of fun is bicycling, hiking or canoeing, afterwards head into the heart of one of their welcoming communities to experience historic architecture, independent shops and locally owned dining establishments. Visit Trempealeau County Tourism online. We connect with two violin twins of B2wins. We learn what led them to music, their influences and inspirations, how they take iconic musical classics and reimagine them, and what to expect from their upcoming show at Artspire in La Crosse on Saturday, June 11th. You can find more conversations, food reviews, live music and events on our website lacrosselocal.com. I’m Amy.

Brent Hanifl 01:06
I’m Brent.

Amy Gabay 01:08
And this is La Crosse Local.

Wagner Caldas 01:47
Right so we are the B2wins. We are twins from Brazil. I’m the ukulele player, my name is Wagner. And my brother here, the violin player, is Walter. Like I said we came from Brazil, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. And now we live in Iowa. Believe it or not. Iowa is home. Yeah, we love it. Yeah, we love it here. It’s very quiet. Very clean, safe. And if you were wondering, it’s freezing right now, 28 degrees. It’s very cold here right now.

Brent Hanifl 02:22
Wow, I didn’t know it’s 28 degrees here. It’s a little bit warmer here in La Crosse.

Wagner Caldas 02:26
Is that right? Oh man. Not for us.

Brent Hanifl 02:31
Just kind of checking out your music lately and some of your videos, music, art or otherwise, who are some of your influences?

Wagner Caldas 02:39
This is a very hard question because I don’t know if you got the chance to check most of our stuff. We played things for like every type of genre, UK major. We try to play you know, we are just music lovers. We love every type of music. My brother had a huge crush on Michael Jackson.

Walter Caldas 03:00
My boy, Michael Jackson, Backstreet Boys and NSYNC. When I started my career, I was very young and I used to do covert dance for all those, you know, those choreographers that they had. And I’ve always wanted to be Michael Jackson and here we are not even close. But yeah, in short we try to play everything and most of the things that we play, I honestly think that we like playing.

Brent Hanifl 03:26
One thing that people are excited for is that you’ll be playing Artspire in downtown La Crosse Saturday, June 11th. What can people expect from your shows? You know, just looking at the videos, there’s a mix of different things, just like you said, in terms of music you like. What can people expect when they show up to watch you guys play?

Walter Caldas 03:42
Fun, a lot of interaction. We want you guys to dance, we want to see you guys dance, we want to see you guys singing. We want to see you guys having the best time of your life. That’s why we do it. That’s why we do it. And I think that’s one of the things that makes us different when you come to our shows the video cannot show this you know, the videos that you see on YouTube can only show you so much. But the experience at the moment is what feeds us. We love being in front of people and just having fun. The show is super interactive and a lot of freestyling. You know, we feed from the audience. So none of the shows are the same because of course we have a different audience with different reactions. So yeah, expect it to be fun because we always try to have a fun time when we are on this stage.

Brent Hanifl 04:33
So I’m sure you maybe you know with COVID you probably had a couple of rough years there with performing live. So is there some new energy involved with getting back on the stage, are you pumped, excited?

Walter Caldas 04:42
Yeah, COVID worked for us as a perfect time to revamp the brand. So we put the time that we are not playing we put a lot of time in recreating, in rebranding. So we have a lot of new songs of our own, our own sound.

Wagner Caldas 04:58
A lot of new songs and new videos coming up this summer of our own sound.

Walter Caldas 05:04
Oh my god yeah, this summer guys!

Wagner Caldas 05:10
Yeah this is gonna be good, I cannot even believe it’s me on the video.

Brent Hanifl 05:15
So yeah, you know just checking out your videos here the past couple of days you know everything from covering looks like Aerosmith to some bluegrass to even The Chainsmokers. I mean, it seems like you’re covering a wide genre of music there.

Wagner Caldas 05:21
Yeah, it’s pretty crazy. The thing we for our show is pretty much like this if you don’t like the first song you might like the second. If you don’t like the second you might like the third. If you don’t like the third, get out of there.

Brent Hanifl 05:36
So what’s next you know, what are you excited for what’s coming down the road?

Wagner Caldas 05:39
We are excited to become original artists. We have a lot of covers out there as you can see on YouTube, but there is because of COVID we just talked about it we got the chance to revamp our brand and we had more than enough inspiration and time to work on our own songs, you know our own music, our own sound. So I think this is what is next for us. As of right now we are super busy. Thanks God and the way the world is moving we are super busy traveling all over the country doing shows, speeches, you name it. Yeah. But now for the next year, beginning of next year you’re gonna get the chance to see a lot of our own sound, our originals. The original music, the music videos are super cool. I love it. They’re very few good vibe but this is what we vote for. You know good vibe, positive energy. Yep.

Walter Caldas 06:39
Be happy, don’t worry, be happy.

Wagner Caldas 06:42
Yeah.

Brent Hanifl 06:42
So you know with original music, maybe even just you know some of these covers, is it a quick process for you? Is it something that you know, you learn them, you record them and they’re out, or you take your time?

Wagner Caldas 06:52
The covers are very quick like it’s one take and we pretty much we are on it. So it’s very very easy. We have a hard time learning our own songs.

Walter Caldas 07:02
Yeah, the originals it’s a little bit more of a longer process because they have never been sang or you know played before. Yeah, creating and then learning the process of presenting the material takes a little bit of time.

Brent Hanifl 07:18
So again, you guys are gonna be here at Artspire June 11th. I’m excited to see you. Artspire is one of my favorite festivals I like to go to. Two day festival, arts and culture, so we’re pretty pumped. For people wanting to find out a little bit about you before they come down to Artspire, what’s the best avenue for them to go to either your website or social media?

Wagner Caldas 07:39
Yeah, the website is nice because there is a little bit of our history on there, so you can learn a little bit more about us as individuals. But you can search our stuff on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. You know those have a little bit more.

Walter Caldas 07:53
Yeah, we are everywhere on the social media. Those are a little bit more of what we are doing, what we are up to. You’re gonna get to see where we are because we have been traveling all over the country. So that’s a nice way to oh, they are here now, oh they are in, you know. For my friends listening that is, its spelled B, number 2, w-i-n-s. B, number 2, w-i-n-s. Find us on all the social media platforms, okay? I promise you, you are going to love it and if you don’t love it, oh, well try it again.

Brent Hanifl 08:28
I like what you said where you know if you don’t like the first time, you like the second, if you don’t like the second, you like the third, if you don’t like that you have to leave right?

Wagner Caldas 08:35
Yeah, just leave, go enjoy the festival.

Amy Gabay 08:45
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