Rising Stars: Meet Luiz Pádua of Sorocaba, SP – Brazil

Today we’d like to introduce you to Luiz Pádua

Hi Luiz , thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I started the band in 2017, as an initiative of some musicians from my city who were preparing a show to promote local independent artists. Since I didn’t have a band yet, they suggested I form one just for that event, but in the end, the response from the audience was so good that I decided to officially found The RoadRunners as a band with its own identity.
From then on, we began the process of organizing and structuring the band and the songs I had already written.

A year and a half later, in 2018, we released our first single, “Friend That Breaks My Heart” in a vocal and acoustic guitar version. A few months later, still in the second half of 2018, we released the second single, which was accompanied by our first music video. The song was “Solitary Man,” a song originally written by me that two months later was the main reason we were chosen by the Atlanta band Blackberry Smoke to open their show at their biggest venue here in Brazil in 2019. This show took place on May 11th of that year and was one of the best moments of our lives. Part of that day can be seen on our YouTube channel (TRR_TV), where we published a special entitled “Live With Heroes” where our fans can see the live recording of 4 songs we played on that special May 11th.

From that moment on, we got the attention of some of the local specialized media and with that other incredible opportunities appeared and with them also came new songs that ended up redefining the direction of the band, such as the song “River of Lies” in 2020, which was mastered by John Peter Farrel, Tour Manager and FOH of Blackberry Smoke. This song gave rise to a music video that we produced independently and that was certainly our most audacious production, counting on some important partnerships and a relatively high investment for a band without financial support from a record label.

After the hard time we went through during the pandemic years, we had the incredible opportunity to record our next single “This Desert Feels Like Home” with a special appearance by Peter Keys, pianist of one of our favorites and perhaps the most important band in the southern rock style, Lynyrd Skynyrd. This was certainly one of the most memorable moments for the band, because after that we also had the opportunity to record the music video for this song at the biggest barbecue and music festival in the world, Meatstock, which originally comes from Australia and New Zealand, but in the Brazilian edition, the festival came to our city in 2022 and we had the honor of being part of the line-up for this event together with other big names in local music.

Last year, in 2024, we released our newest single, “Blue Skies”, which is performing well on the band’s digital platforms and we are already in the pre-production phase for the next single and two more albums, one EP with the band’s more country music roots and a full album with 10 tracks, showing the band’s more Southern Rock line.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
The beginning is always the hardest and the first step is always the one that gives us the most uncertainty, even more so without any external financial support from anyone, I believe. But I always tried to tell my bandmates that it’s not a 100-meter race, but a marathon; the one who stays fighting the longest survives and achieves success. I’ve always been very alone in my life, especially in family matters, and I never had much support from people inside my house regarding music, so when I decided that my life would be dedicated to The RoadRunners, it wasn’t much different. Many people tried to discourage us, especially in the case of the opening act for Blackberry Smoke, where we went with only our courage and very little experience, but I usually say that all of these were stones in our boots, which along the way we managed to transform into pavement for the goals we are achieving.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
We are an independent Country/Southern Rock band from Brazil and what we are most proud of is certainly our trajectory that shows us that with a lot of dedication and hard work, we can achieve wonderful and absolutely unthinkable things.

Where we are in life is often partly because of others. Who/what else deserves credit for how your story turned out?
Along the way, we met many kind souls who lovingly adopted us as one of their favorite artists. Many of these people from outside our family circle gave us so much love, affection and support. We have always been lucky to have the best fans! So if there is anyone else who deserves our recognition, it is certainly our loyal fans who have never let us down!

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @theroadrunners_official
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheRoadRunnersOficial
• Twitter: @trr_oficial
• Youtube: TRR_TV
• Other: https://open.spotify.com/intl-pt/artist/1fIiT1dXnaG1Wmfiye1Vdr?si=haHoDODYQNSoO6oUsjv0-w