D-Noiz
It's not an easy task to
describe the sound of D-NOIZ. This group has no respect for any musical
rules and they try to combine traditional metal with alternative rock.
The result is very original, however not always succesfull. I recommend
this group to those that seek new kind of sounds. Read the interview and
you will understand...
1. HELLO, SINCE YOU ARE NEW BAND AND YOU'VE
RECENTLY RELEASED YOUR FIRST OFFICIAL ALBUM, PLEASE TELL US FEW THINGS
ABOUT THE BAND AND YOU, THAT YOU THINK WE SHOULD KNOW?
Hi, well being a new band isn’t exactly the
whole story. More or less we are the remainders of the Mutiny band. Permanent
members of the D-Noiz are Agis Creeb in guitars Mike Fee in bass guitar
and G-zach in drums. We were the founders of Mutiny almost 10 years ago
and we are still together composing music and performing together. The
vocals are performed by the talented A-Z. More or less nothing changed
but the name and the way we deal with music. Maturing musically was one-way
road after all.
2. D-NOIZ IS A VERY STRANGE NAME FOR A BAND. CAN
YOU EXPLAIN TO ME WHAT IT MEANS AND HOW IT IS CONNECTED WITH THE MUSIC
AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE WHOLE GROUP?
It’s not that strange, is it? It’s a simple
name easy to pronounce, I think. It has nothing to do with the philosophy
of the band. After recording our latest release, all of us decided to change
our name since, you know, our music style has changed, too. We had to find
something less epic than our previous one. Something simple, modern, neutral…
We think the outcome is not bad at all.
3. THE BAND IS FORMED BY MEMBERS OF THE EPIC METAL
BAND MUTINY. HOWEVER I SEE THAT SOME OF THE MUTINY MEMBERS PLAY IN YOUR
CD ONLY AS GUEST MUSICIANS. CAN YOU EXPLAIN TO ME WHY THIS HAS HAPPENED?
IS D-NOIZ JUST A PROJECT BAND OR WILL YOU SEARCH FOR NEW STABLE MEMBERS?
Well… D-Noiz is not a project. There are permanent
members and these are the ones mentioned before. In any case, there can
always be an unexpected turn of events, like, after composing the songs,
we had to record them, but G-Zach was in Aberdeen, due to academic reasons.
So, someone else had to do the recordings. Moreover, we love to cooperate
with other musicians, and we often do so, you know. This is a way to keep
our music fresh and genuine. But after all the permanent members and masterminds
of the band are the ones stated before.
4. ONE OTHER THING THAT IS VERY STRANGE IS THAT
YOU'VE MOVED FROM CLASSICAL HEAVY METAL TO MORE MODERN FORMS OF THIS
MUSIC. WHY HAS THIS CHANGE OCCURRED? DOES THIS MEAN THAT EPIC METAL DOESN'T
EXPRESS YOU ANYMORE? WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO ANSWER TO THOSE THAT MIGHT SAY
THAT YOU 'VE CHANGED YOUR STYLE ONLY BECAUSE YOU WANTED TO HAVE MORE SUCCESS?
Actually we are not the 18 year old boys like
we used to be a decade ago, so feelings do change, way of thinking does
change, only the love for music remains. We aren’t as angry as we used
to be. Other feelings must be expressed via our music, like sadness, depression
etc. I don’t think that our new songs are more pop than the previous ones
(during the Mutiny era), so we won’t get more success thanks to that anyway.
As far as success is concerned, this is not something that anyone can bias
through musical style change, don’t you think? Success is the result of
infinite things coming all together and making you stand out.
5. I REALLY LIKED YOUR WORK WITH MUTINY AND I
HAVE YOUR DEMOS AND THE ALBUM YOU HAVE RELEASED. SO CAN YOU TELL ME WHY
THIS VERY GOOD BAND DISBANDED? IS THERE ANY CHANCE TO REFORM IT IN THE
FUTURE?
I think the answer to the first part is already
answered. For the second part I can’t tell for sure, you never know. Maybe
someday material that fits with the Mutiny music will be composed and there
will be the proper circumstances for Mutiny songs to be recorded and released
in CD…
6. YOUR SOUND IS A MIXTURE OF CLASSIC HEAVY METAL
WITH SOME ALTERNATIVE ROCK AND 70'S HARD ROCK ELEMENTS. DO YOU AGREE WITH
THIS DESCRIPTION? HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR MUSIC? WHICH BANDS CAN YOU
NAME AMONGST YOUR INFLUENCES?
It’s a good description indeed; maybe influences
of stoner rock should be mentioned. Also modern rock bands had influenced
our music. Bands like: Tool, Porcupine Tree, Audioslave, Godsmack, Archive
etc.
7. MY FAVORITE SONG FROM THE ALBUM IS THE SONG
"SOULSTORMIN'" CAUSE IT HAS A VERY DARK FEELING COMBINED WITH SOME 70'S
HARD ROCK ELEMENTS. TELL US A FEW THINGS ABOUT THIS SONG AND ALSO WHICH
IS YOUR FAVOURITE SONG FROM YOUR ALBUM?
Well you got it. We really love our latest
work but the atmosphere that Soulstormin’ gives is indeed unique. The lyrics
are Mike’s, and describe a really moody situation, very realistic. The
mood of the song is dominated by the distance between people and the situation
they’re in and how one situation doesn’t necessarily affect another. I
thing we all agree in that; if we have to choose a song, that would be
it.
8. NOW LET'S TALK A LITTLE BIT ABOUT THE LYRICS.
WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THEM? WHICH IS THE TOPIC OF EACH SONG INCLUDED HERE
IN THE ALBUM?
All of our songs mostly deal with states of
mind, feelings and so on. There are songs where someone can even find elements
of himself there. The writing is mostly Agis’ and Mike’s task. In detail,
“Miracles” is the perspective of the world as seen through the bottom of
an empty bottle. “The Circle” depicts the stages of an ego-trip, at first
ascending to the self-awareness peak and then slowly declining to “The
Fall”, where the impact with the ruthless ground is inevitable; a Fall
that is pretty spectacular, made in Hollywood, someone could say…
9. DO YOU HAVE ANY PLANS FOR LIVE SHOWS OR D-NOIZ
ARE STRICTLY A STUDIO BAND? IF YOU DO ANY LIVE SHOWS WOULD YOU PLAY ANY
SONGS FROM MUTINY?
Recently we performed in a festival in Patra,
and for now we are playing in various clubs in Athens. Our latest live
was 2 weeks ago (15th October) in Rodeo live club. We definitely ain’t
just a studio band. And yes, there are some Mutiny songs that we still
perform live.
10. YOU 'VE SIGNED WITH SLEASZY RIDER. WHY DID
YOU CHOOSE THIS LABEL? WHICH ARE THE ADVANTAGES YOU FOUND TO IT IN COMPARISON
TO YOUR PREVIOUS LABEL WHICH WAS ALSO GREEK? DID YOU HAVE ANY PROPOSALS
FROM OTHER LABELS AND ESPECIALLY FROM ABROAD?
Being in Greece isn’t exactly the place where
you can find a whole bunch of record deals, especially if you play our
kind of music. Of course, the guys owning all these small labels are trying
their best to support the underground scene and keep it alive, but in many
cases this is not enough. Budgets are low; the productions are made and
paid for by the bands themselves. In the best case scenario, decent advertisement
and promotion can be achieved. But, that’s it, no high expectations, no
universal distribution and acceptance, not even booking for gigs or small
festivals… We haven’t yet managed to get a decent proposal from abroad,
but we certainly look for one.
11. ONE THING THAT SEEMED TO ME A LITTLE BIT STRANGE
WAS THE SMALL DURATION OF THE ALBUM SINCE FROM THE SEVEN TRACKS INCLUDED
HERE ONLY THE FOUR ARE SONGS. ALL THE OTHERS ARE KIND OF INTROS. SO WHY
DID YOU DO THAT? IS THIS RELEASE MORE OF A MINI - CD THAT WILL GIVE US
A TASTE OF THE SOUND OF D-NOIZ OR DO YOU CONSIDER IT AS A FULL LENGTH RELEASE?
Yeap, it is a mini-CD. A proper, respectable
(at least for us), full mini-CD. I don’t mean to be blasphemous, but “Queen
of the Reich” is a mini-CD, isn’t it? Should I add more? Nowadays record
labels put pressure on the bands to extend the CD duration more and more.
Of course quality becomes no longer a priority. That’s exactly what we
avoided in this work. Naturally, we could put another three or four ‘not
so ready’ songs, but you know, we are happy that we avoided that.
12. TWO OF THE TRACKS INCLUDED HERE ARE TAKEN
FROM YOUR DEMO. SO THEY ARE QUITE OLD. HAVE YOU COMPOSED ANY NEW SONGS
AND WHEN DO YOU PLAN TO RELEASE THEM?
Yes, we have composed a few new songs, but
most important is the fact that we have lots of new ideas, so hopefully
lots of new song will be ready really soon. At the moment we are at a very
productive phase, but it will take some time before the songs are actually
recorded and a new release is ready to hit the stores.
13. SINCE YOUR SOUND IS BIZARRE. I WANT TO TELL
ME HOW DID THE PRESS AND THE FANS TILL NOW ACCEPT YOUR SOUND? DO YOU THINK
THAT OUR MUSIC HAS OPEN MINDED PEOPLE THAT WILL ACCEPT YOUR EXPERIMENTATIONS?
Quite frankly, we got over all that a few
years ago. We can’t play the same riffs and stop evolving as artists just
because we are supposed to be afraid of narrow-minded criticism. At that
time, lots of people liked us, and also lots of people hated us. But after
all, that is the meaning of being an artist; we have to drag the waters.
On the other hand, we definitely believe that there are very open-minded
listeners anxious to catch up with our music evolution.
14. IF YOU HAD THE CHANCE AND THE BUDGET TO RE-RECORD
YOUR FIRST OFFICIAL RELEASE WOULD YOU DO IT? WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE OR DO
YOU THINK YOU'D LEAVE THE ALBUM AS IT IS NOW CAUSE ANY MORE INTERFERENCE
WOULD SPOIL THE RECORD'S ATMOSPHERE?
That’s interesting, if we had the budget…
yeah probably we would re - record, there are a few things that could be
improved, but on the other hand why not doing something new, right?
15. THANK YOU FOR THE INTERVIEW! THESE LAST LINES
BELONG TO YOU. SO SAY WHATEVER YOU LIKE...
We would like to thank you for giving us the
opportunity to express our thoughts and opinions, and a big thank you to
anyone else who will read this interview, cheers!!!
Nick “William_Kidd”
Parastatidis
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