Marcelo Morem

Biography
Influencers

Marcelo Morem is a Brazilian guitarist who lives for music. Born in Rio Grande do Sul on January 17, 1973, he comes from a family of musicians and has been encouraged to express himself through musical instruments since he was a child. He started playing with the accordion and harmonica when he was around seven years old. At ten, he got his first guitar.

Morem grew up listening to classic rock from the 70s with his older brothers, a time when he met his first heroes: David Gilmour, Ritchie Blackmore, Alex Lifeson and, especially, Eddie Van Halen.

But it was only in 1991 that he began playing guitar and studying music formally at the Prediger Academy in Porto Alegre. At that time, Morem already had new references, such as the virtuosos Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, George Lynch, Eric Johnson and the one who would become his greatest inspiration: Allan Holdsworth.

In the late 1990s, he recorded his first single, called “Escape,” under the strong influence of the British fusion virtuoso. The song was produced by Paulo Nequete, a prominent guitarist in the Porto Alegre music scene in the 1980s, who became a mentor to Marcelo Morem at the time. “Escape” was never released.

In the early 2000s, Marcelo Morem abandoned music to pursue a career in marketing and sales, since he had graduated in communications from PUCRS at the same time he was dedicating himself to the guitar.

In 2014, he returned to playing the guitar as a hobby, limiting himself to “learning” the instrument again and having fun in his spare time. But it was only in 2019 that Morem answered the call of music again.

At that time, Jan Akkerman, a renowned Dutch progressive rock guitarist, held a competition for guitarists, aiming to promote the release of the album “Close Beauty.” The challenge was to record a video playing over a backing track of the song “Don Giovanni” and send it to Akkerman for evaluation.

Morem broke his inertia and participated in the challenge. Even though he didn’t win, it was enough to reopen the doors he had closed to music years before. Still in 2019, Marcelo Morem began recording his first album in an improvised home studio in his home office. He composed, played, recorded, produced, mixed, mastered and even created the cover art, all by himself and intuitively.

In May 2021, the instrumental album “Never Heard Before” was released worldwide on all streaming platforms and online music stores, marking Marcelo Morem’s debut as an artist, at the age of 48.