We read that ‘they met on the right side of the counter, in one of those pubs in danger of dying out to make way for yet another colony of cappuccinos and avocado desserts’. The presentation suits them well, giving off a texture of wood hammered by glass mugs and a tobacco aroma impregnated with the perspiration of dancing bodies, signs of the natural habitat of unpretentious and energetic rock and roll.

They are Miguel Flores (guitar and vocals), Francisca Sousa (bass and vocals) and Fábio Pereira (drums and - don't tell anyone - also vocals). We met up with one of the most recent bands on the Porto scene at AL 859 - an art gallery that often doubles as a concert hall - to find out where they come from and what they're up to.

Starting with where they come from, Miguel Flores recalls a conversation between gigs at the Inferno das Febras festival in Lousada: ‘Francisca and I have been friends and concert partners for many years, and she told me at the time that she'd like to start learning to play the bass. I told her straight away, ‘I'm playing some stuff with Tommy, you can join us and we'll teach you on the spot’.’

Although Francisca says that they began by writing and playing ‘very simple’ things, not least to allow her to explore the new instrument, Miguel emphasises that ‘we discovered new things by being there in a naïve way, with the eyes of someone seeing everything for the first time’, and always with a ‘ball forward’ attitude.

This ethos of plucking and poking was also the method for the band's name. Although they had been discussing naming options among themselves, and testing some options with friends, ‘3 Warning Shots’ came from an improvised lyric by Miguel - who always sings in improvisation at rehearsals, only later writing the lyrics - and it sounded too good for the three of them to rethink. ‘It's stupid because nobody gives three warning shots, but it came out at the time and stayed,’ says Miguel. Francisca, on the other hand, appreciates the ‘western’ evocation of the name.

A philosophy put into practice by the three members of the band, who each take on a handful of projects. Fábio, the most recent member, has a degree from ESMAE and is currently a teacher - but he sees this as just a day job, taking more seriously solo projects such as Cunhal Caveira, or the band Os Overdoses, who recently released their first album. Francisca, although a neophyte in musical interpretation, is also a member of Os Overdoses, although until now her path has been more defined in the field of plastic arts and performance, and she is currently completing her doctorate at FBAUP. Miguel Flores is part of several constellations: self-taught in programming, he makes a living out of it, but he also has a hand in various projects - as a solo artist, he defines himself as ‘fadogaze, which is taking that sad portugality with some beautiful guitars and plastering it in the middle’. A handful of crossovers: ‘as Fábio was kind enough to help me with my solo work, I also reciprocated by taking part in Cunhal Caveira and spoiling it all’.

On Saturday they will present their first EP - the first sniff is already out, ‘Ride’ - in a live performance that will feature more than the four songs that make it up. After all, the first album is already in gestation, and there's nothing better than bringing its parts out to test them. Francisca says that live performances ‘are a great way to finalise ideas, to confront them with how they are received’. ‘This also happens a lot in the visual arts: you book an exhibition to force you to finish work,’ she adds.

This festival bears the stamp of the Machamba collective, whose founding members include Luís Masquete. The name chuinga, he tells us, ‘is one of the few words I remember from my experience in Mozambique, and it comes from chewing gum ’. Why chewing gum? Because ‘the idea was to unite different universes of the city's alternative scene, knowing that we would be bringing together artists who will probably never share a bill again’. So it's a party where Machamba has ‘put their thumbs together and pushed several times, to make sure they last and resist’.

This idea of pluralism is something that is at the root of Machamba's creation, which brings together ‘members who come from dynamic cultural backgrounds, different from each other’. Luís recognises that this taste for transversality comes from a very early age: ‘In my case, I like to say that I'm a victim of Barcelos, which had a “cultural mestizaje” where it was impossible not to be influenced by the various niches around you.’ He recalls the Milhões de Festa festival as a prime example of this, where ‘you could only attend concerts from your niche, but without any pressure, you had things completely outside your circuit at hand’.

‘I think that between 2018 and 2019 - for those who put on concerts, those who play, those who are watching - the scene in Portugal has never been so dynamic,’ he says, adding that this has brought a kind of “pluralism” to the musical projects themselves, which were beneficially contaminated by what was going on around them. But ‘[t]he pandemic and the enclosure of people had a reverse effect, in which both artists and audiences began to return to their roots, to their identities’. He doesn't see this as a bad thing, just as ‘something that is cyclical’.