Luis, can you please introduce your band members? Age, hobbies, jobs…?
Living Fire band’s member are: Murillo Xavier at the lead guitar. He is 19 yo and work as music teacher. Wesley Chumiski are our rhythm guitarist he is 26 yo and play at our church as well. The drums and the production of our albums are in the Michel Oliveira hands. I guess he is about 23 yo (LOL) I really don’t know (LOL) , but I’ve playing with him for a long time. And I’m responsible for the bass/vocals and believe or not I work as veterinarian too.

Living Fire recorded 2 CDs and were established in 2005. Which band influenced you at all? Was it your original idea to mix and combine religion and skinhead music? Or had you known Jesus Skins and Jewdriver band before?
The band was created in 2005 and in the beginning it was solely an evangelistic project, with no fixed line up.  The musicians participating in events were all invitees, except for the bass and vocals which were made by myself. I founded Living Fire just for fun. I wanted to record the album because at the beginning of my conversion I had no knowledge of any Punk / Oi! / Hardcore Christian bands. I didn’t know that, even singing with my accent, the songs would have such an impact.
I can mention some Christian and Non Christian bands as our influence, such as FLATFOOT 56, DOGWOOD, TRUE LIBERTY, THE OLD-TIMERS, DROPKICK MURPHYS, BOOZE AND GLORY, EVIL CONDUCT. Just meet JESUS SKINS music 2 years ago and I liked pretty much their noise, so we decide to make a version of their song Skinheads in der Kirche (Skinheads in the church) and you can download it for free if you like of it.

Do you know any other band all around the world which mixed lyrics about faith, God and skinheads, haha? Which brazilian band would you like to recommend us, brother?
Well…  to be honest with you, I know lot of Christian punk bands, but I search a lot at Google about Christian skinheads band and beside JESUS SKINS and LIVING FIRE any other band which expose their faith and talk about Jesus Christ as we do. I hope that Christian skinheads bands show up increasingly around the world.
Here in Brazil we have great Christian hardcore/punk bands, you can look for F.M.I.; DARAK; NOSSA FURIA; DSARME?; SOBERANO ROCK and Oi! Band I can mention GERAÇÃO ESCOLHIDA but the ended the band at 2002

Tell me please anything special about the skinhead scene in Brazil. Is this scene divided or united? I read some columns about Carecas and fight among SHARP and Nationalist skins. How many sections of skinheads do you really have? Any RASH, Redskins and SHARP?
Brazil have a lot of division at the skinhead subculture. Here we have TROJAN, SHARP; RASH; RAC; NAZI and CARECAS and I can say that because the ideological differences they do not mix with each other. The scene here is not as expressive as in Eastern Europe, England or Germany. I can say to you that Brazil is a huge country and very conservative. We became a democracy only 30 years ago and we do not see many subcultures the streets. We hear about skinheads only in big cities, but not in all states of the country. Even in the church, we don’t see many people who declares as punk, skinhead, yuppie, cowboy (LOL) or anything of the genre. The Brazilian people don’t have the habit of declaring as a participant in a specific subculture.

I know that Fist of Steel and The Skulls were supported by Brutal Attack singer. And Bandierra de Combate were supported by belgian nationalists aswell. Do you know these bands? What do you think about?
Since I became a Christian, I stopped listening to most bands playing some kind of music that was opposed to the principles of my faith. So I cannot comment on these bands because I didn’t know them. But what I can tell you, as a personal opinion, is: right or wrong, there will always be those who support an ideology, otherwise this ideology will cease to exist.
The band talks about God's love and how is life with Jesus. In our lyrics we seek to express our way of life and the teachings of the Bible. Some people like and some people do not like. We do not care about that, what we want is to expose the pacifist ideology of the love of Christ to the world through music.

You have got excellent T-shirt with „Jesus Lives“ message. Where could your fans from Europe buy this jewell? Do you have anything more on sale?
We have 2 albums and the t-shirt to sell and we don’t profit from it, we sell our stuff at cost. Only charge the postage rates. Those interested can meet our sound through facebook (fb.com/livingfireband) and download 3 songs from each album for free; orders can be made there or at our email: contato@livingfire.com.br

In which town/towns in Brazil all members of Living Fire live? How often do you practise in rehearsal? With which bands have you already played? Did you play abroad in any foreign countries? 
We all live in the city of São Paulo. We do not like to rehearse much LOL. So we just do it before shows. Most of our shows are with local bands (Christian and non-Christian). We go where we are called, without exception. Since we have no profit, it is difficult to get out of Brazil to play due to the high costs of travel. As I said before we'll be here whenever anyone anywhere in the world, need us.

Which places of your town or of whole Brazil would you like to recommend us if we visit you and why?
Brazil is a huge country with a great cultural diversity also. We have forests, beaches, deserts, large cities, small villages. Just choose your destination as needed. Pantanal, Amazon, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Bahia are just a few examples.

Some people dont know anything about minorities, nationalities, politics and some main problems of your land. Can you describe it for us? Is your society established on multi-cultural basement? Do you have any main problems inside of society for example (old settlers versus immigrants, left-wing contra right-wing people etc.?)
The Brazil's biggest problems are related to political corruption and all the problems it can bring as poverty for example. However, many of our problems are disguised by the huge social events as the carnival and the World Cup.
Today the country is politically divided between the conservative right and the left wing with socialist tendencies which is in power now, but we have never seen so many scandals of corruption as in recent years. The workers' party is showing itself more corrupt than those who ruled Brazil before.
As Christians, we have left only do our part as citizens and pray that we become a fair society one day.

You have got very nice songs about Jesus, Christianity and religion. Are all members of Living Fire hard religious people? What about the religion in your society? Are there more protestants or catholic people in Brazil? And what about the religion or faith of your ancestors? Do you follow it either?
There’s no how to defend ideals that you do not believe. Then all the Living Fire’s members are Christians who truly live the teachings left by Jesus Christ. Also we operate in some areas within our churches, Murillo for example has a degree in theology, Michel and Wesley play in church worship band and I preached some time in a rehabilitation center held by the our church.
Brazil is a secular country. Fortunately we have religious freedom and because of that, there is a wide diversity in the beliefs of people living here. The majority of the population is Catholic, but there is also a very significant number of Protestants.
My parents are Catholic and for most of my life didn’t follow any religion until one day I decided to enter, just for curiosity, in a Protestant church where, after a while, I gave my life to Jesus and today I can say it was the best decision I have ever made.

What do you think about paganic / heathen religion of old nordic vikings, celtic tribes etc.?  And what about islam and Moslems? There is very big problem with islamic radicals in Europe. What do you think about Koran and Islam?
I've always been a very rational person. After my conversion I studied apologetics theology because I wanted to understand more about the God who had won me with such love and for all that I studied, for all that I live today and all I feel in my heart, I can say that Jesus Christ is the Lord of my life and thus, as He Himself taught, I cannot judge people or their religious beliefs and I will never do it.
I try to live in peace with the people I know who have different opinions or follow other beliefs, but I will never be concupiscent with what I don’t have for true in my life and I will never deny or hide my faith only to please other people. However you never see any member of the Living Fire pointing fingers at those who do not have the same faith that we have. As bible says “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that WHOSOEVER believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
It is sad to see an oppressed people like what happens with the North Koreans. Moreover, this oppression is basically caused by lack of love, which is the greatest of Christian principles and of most of the monotheistic religions as well.
Here in Brazil the Islamic community is small, and then there is no ideological or religious clashes between Christians, Muslims and atheists. As said before, we enjoy a religious freedom that allows us to live well with each other. Religions only become a problem when it is not based on love and service to others or when these principles are distorted. From what I can follow here in Brazil that is what is happening in Europe, a distortion of religious values.

Luis, tell me something about your tattoos :-D.  And what does „to be skinhead“ mean for you? Are skinheads in Brazil accepted by police and government or are they mostly like enemies?
I have most of my body covered with tattoos and they all expression my faith in Christ, some of them have a skinhead theme and even these show my Christian faith. I can quote a Bible verse for every tattoo I have (LOL).
What does to be skinhead means for me? Nothing. What does to be a Christian skinhead means for me? Everything. This means that I can put on my Martens and my braces, get my Bible and praise God singing Oi! Music. This means that I can share lyrics that speak of God's love with people who live the same subculture that I live, but do not yet know intimately the God I serve.
About the skinheads and the government, choose one of them you want to talk (trojans, rash, rac, nazi, sharp, carecas) and you have a different opinion about the government.
As Christians what I can say is that our view of the government is based on biblical teachings of the book of Romans chapter 13.

What do you think about Europe or Czech republic? Do you know any special facts about?
Firstly I would like to say that most of the Living Fire audience is from Poland, Russia and the Czech Republic and we can see this through digital distribution of our albums. So these are places I'd like to meet and be able to take the band to play there someday.
What I do know is that today Christianity is not yet widespread in Europe and especially in Eastern Europe. I know missionaries who are in Poland and Russia and I know the difficulties that they go to take the gospel to people. Therefore, I believe that the Czech Republic is no different.

Your style is a little bit to heavy metal and I really love it! It is music with high qualities! I heard some strong voices of the fans during listening of your live-recordings. Are these voices and screaming really real? Or is this just mixed to the songs? ;-) It seems that you could play on big festivals…
(LOL) Yes all that screaming people are real. The Living Fire shows are great fun, people go up on stage, grab the microphone, sing along with us, and always make quite a mess. This whole joy, without violence is a reflection of our faith in Christ that allows us to have fun and praise God at the same time. Once I counted more than 50 people on stage with us.
We played for a lot of people in one show and also we played in places where only our family were watching us (LOL). The 3 live songs we put in DEAD TO SIN album, were recorded in the church that I frequent (Bola de Neve Church - Tatuapé) which is quite large and that day we were recording the video clip of the music JESUS IS NOT DEAD then had a lot of people there.

There are a lot of nice women in the audience on your gigs. Hey, are you really so popular?
I can tell you that Living Fire is a very large family, in our last show had 15 guest musicians playing with us, and all the people who go up on stage to sing with us and open up a mosh pit in the middle of the church.
I think the best way to answer that question is with the lyrics of one of our songs called MISSION:

We ain’t doing it for the money

We ain’t doing it for the show

We ain’t doing it for the fame

We ain’t doing it for the girls 

We’re doing 'cause we are pleased

We’re praising to the Lord

We got a mission to spread

Holy word to the world