Miguel Araújo had a “psychological monkey business”

His legs were shaking, he couldn’t eat, it was “a horrible thing” – until the shows with António Zambujo started.

“The stage is the place where I’m absolutely at ease, it’s where I’m most comfortable these days” – but it wasn’t always like that for Miguel Araújo.

The singer-songwriter remembers that, when he started singing the famous single I hadn’t even thought about creating an album after that. But it aligned and so it was born Five and a half days.

But at the time he was “unprepared” for these journeys: didn’t even have a bandI wasn’t prepared to “go around playing everywhere”. “I was in Olives and he was doing very well”, he recalls.

His first solo show was in Rio de Mouro, in 2012. He hurriedly found a band and played sitting in a chair: “I didn’t have a position, I don’t know. My legs were shaking, I wasn’t suited for that.”

Miguel Araújo was so nervous that, on the day of a show, I couldn’t even eat. “It was horrible: I was shaking, I couldn’t eat anything, something horrible. People didn’t notice much because I didn’t show much, but it was painful.”

Until he thought: “Or I stop this psychological monkey business, or else I give up, it does not give”.

E made a decision: to be at ease – “which is something that I think is possible, that is, it is a light of hope for anyone in anything: if I can go on stage at will, anyone can do what they want in their life”.

The career was built “little by little”, afterwards. The fact of having been in lots of concerts helped.

Especially the famous sequence of shows with Antonio Zambujo at the coliseums, in 2015: “There were many shows, it was practically daily. His ease, the relaxed atmosphere… I gained the stalemate that I still have.”