When speaking with Fernanda Lira on the subject of heavy metal, one thing quickly becomes abundantly clear. The bassist, vocalist and co-founder of the Sao Paulo thrash trio, Nervosa, is positively stoked on the genre.

“It’s my life,” Lira says, enthusiastically.

She’s not exaggerating. Raised by metalhead parents in Brazil’s biggest city, Lira grew up listening to her father play bass in his own heavy group and Iron Maiden on the home stereo. By the age of 6, the young Lira says that she was hooked, and by 14, she was playing in her own bands and constantly scouring file-sharing sites for new tunes. It was through the Internet that the budding musician discovered Bay Area thrash—feverishly downloading albums by the likes of Exodus, Testament, Machine Head, Vio-Lence and of course, Slayer and Metallica.

These days, while she admits to liking plenty of other genres of music—including funk and the blues—Lira says that she has spent years listening to “only metal.”

She wasn’t just listening passively. It’s apparent that Lira was studying the craft, as well. Her group, Nervosa, has the sound, the look and the attitude of thrash down to a science. Check out the group’s video for “Death,” from their 2014 full-length debut on Napalm Records, Victim of Yourself.

Filmed in a graveyard, it shows Lira, along with guitarist and backing vocalist Prika Amaral and drummer Pitchu Ferraz, shredding—hard. Lira’s scratchy scream cuts a jagged line atop galloping riffs and machine gun drumming. The scooped, static-like tone of the guitar matches the black and white film. All three band members are clad in the thrash metal uniform of studded leather vests, T-shirts and denim. Lira’s eyes are wild and blackened with thick mascara as she whips her hair like a young James Hetfield.

The band’s current U.S. tour, which brings them to the Caravan Lounge on Wednesday, is their first stint in the States, and Lira could scarcely be more excited.

“It’s been like a dream come true,” Lira says, speaking on a cell phone from the road. “Some people don’t get it—but it actually is.”

There are a number of reasons that Lira is pumped to be touring America. For starters, it means her music will gain much wider exposure. While the Brazilian metal scene is strong and full of committed fans, she says that the actual opportunity to make a living playing in a metal band—or being a musician in general—is minimal.

But Lira isn’t just excited about making new fans and sharing her music. She is thrilled at the opportunity to be walking in the footsteps of her heroes. The Bay Area is often considered the hub of the thrash metal movement—as some of the sub-genre’s biggest names formed in San Francisco and Oakland in the ’80s. Southern Florida was also a major flashpoint for the movement, which fused the energy, attitude and politics of hardcore punk with heavy metal’s emphasis on technicality, heavy rhythm guitars and stylized screaming.

The result was a fast, aggressive and youthful music that was also challenging and fun to play. Plus, Lira notes: “You can head bang to death metal, you can head band to power metal, but mosh pits—the mosh pits are real at thrash metal shows.”

Accordingly, Lira says she “can’t wait to be in the Bay Area”—noting that most of the bands that she grew up listening to were from this area and Florida. “I can feel the metal vibe in the air. We’ll be playing on the same ground that all the other bands we love came from.”

Nervosa share the stage with Taipan, Evilization and Total Badass.

Nervosa plays on Feb 17, 7pm, $10 at the Caravan Lounge, San Jose.

It didn’t take long after the Avalon closed for independent promoter Mike Beard to find a new home for his south bay bookings—the Rodeo Club in San Jose.

The venue isn’t new to live music, but up until recently, it’s catered primarily to country-western bands. Beard, on the other hands, specializes in hard rock and heavy metal.

Beard’s first show at the Rodeo Club is on August 24th with Winger, AC DZ and Madman’s Lullaby. Beard already has several more shows booked through September and October, including:

-Static X, Prong and Angerhead on September 7th
-Dokken on September 9th
-John Waite on September 13th
-Quiet Riot on September 16th
-Otep on September 18th
-Faster Pussycat on September 23rd
-HED P.E. on October 7th
-Death Angel on October 21st
-The Misfits on November 16th
-Fixx on November 23rd.

Winger plays the Rodeo Club on August 24th at 7:30. The show is all ages. Tickets are $25. More info.

Few metal bands have inspired a rabid following like Iron Maiden. So for their newly announced 2012 world tour, which comes to Shoreline in Mountain View on August 3, the band has come up with something unusual, maybe even unprecedented, to reward its fans for their loyalty.

It’s become hip in recent years for a group to revisit its greatest hits by performing a fan-favorite album in its entirety, from start to finish. But that’s simply not good enough for Maiden fans. So rather than playing, say, their 1982 album The Number of the Beast, this “Maiden England World Tour” will see the British metal legends actually re-create the 1988 concert video Maiden England, which was shot on the tour for the Seventh Son of a Seventh Son album. That means not only playing mostly the same set list (although some newer songs will be added), but also, as much as possible, recapturing the look and feel of the original video.

This is in fact the third chapter in Iron Maiden’s attempt to give fans an unorthodox journey back into its own past. The “Early Days Tour” in 2005 covered just that, while 2008’s “Somewhere Back in Time” world tour featured mid-80s songs and set design.

It’s been nearly three decades since original lead singer David Lee Roth recorded with Van Halen. But despite years of turmoil, breakups, reunions and more breakups and reunions, Diamond Dave is back in the studio with his old bandmates. They’ll be taking their tour in support of the record to HP Pavilion in San Jose on June 5, the band announced last night.

Brothers Eddie and Alex Van Halen initially hired Roth to be the vocalist for their band back in 1974, under the kind of circumstances that didn’t exactly suggest a lasting partnership—apparently Roth owned the P.A. and the Van Halens decided they’d rather let him join than pay for it. Within five years, they were on the charts with “Runnin’ With the Devil,” and by their appropriately named 1984 album 1984 they were one of the biggest bands of all time, with hits like “Hot For Teacher,” Panama” and, of course, “Jump.”

But Eddie Van Halen, by this point maybe the most acclaimed guitarist of his generation, never saw eye-to-eye with Roth. Their meltdowns finally pushed Roth to jump into a briefly successful solo career, while Van Halen found success again with new lead singer Sammy Hagar. But the situation with Hagar got equally toxic, especially after he found out that his band was secretly recording with Roth again in 1996. He quit, but alas, Roth and Van Halen couldn’t keep it together, and fans were more than a little bummed to see the band wind up with yet another lead singer, Gary Cherone of Extreme. Soon they were sinking into a sea of half-assed hagar reunions, and years of complete radio silence.

By 2007, however, Eddie Van Halen got himself into rehab after admitting many of the band’s problems were caused by his own substance abuse, and he and Roth reconciled. Most people expected their 2007 U.S. tour to blow up in their face, but it didn’t. Not only has the reunion stuck this time around, but their new album “A Different Kind of Truth” (to be released Feb. 7) has them working together on new songs for the first time in decades.

The band announced their 2012 tour last night at a performance in New York City, at the tiny Café Wha, that apparently proved them to be in top form. They’ll head out on Feb. 18 and tour until the end of June, with a show at HP Pavilion June 5 and one at Oracle Arena in Oakland on June 3.

Tickets go on sale January 14, just four days after the release of their first single from the new album, “Tattoo.”

Click here to view the embedded video.