EMERALD
SUN
My town, Thessaloniki
is not very famous for the Power metal scene that it has. Actually, EMERALD
SUN is one of the few that play this kind of music. Mainly influenced by
the German and Italian scene, recently they have released their first demo
CD which left me with good impressions. I am sure that the friends of this
kind of music will find them interesting. Read the interview, if you want
to learn something more about the band...
1.FROM 1998 THAT YOU STARTED, MANY
CHANGES OCCURED. TELL US WHICH MEMBERS LEFT THE BAND AND WHO ARE THE NEW
ONES. WHY DID YOU CHANGE YOUR SOUND FROM A MORE U.S. ORIENTED POWER METAL
INTO A MORE EUROPEAN ONE?
-
The story of the group begins with
Giannis. He was searching for members to create the group.The first "Emeralds"
were : Giannis(guitars) , Argiris(guitars) , Dimirtis(bass guitars) , Kostas(vocals)
and Andreas(drums).With these members came out a demo called "Adarton".Then,
for the reason that some of the members had to go to the army, the group
stopped every activity but it was kept alive as an image.Then in 1999 Giannis
met Dimitris and together they were searching for new members for the group.
Then Argiris left and his place took Teo. After a while Spyros came to
the group and then we changed Andreas because we were not satisfied with
his style and performance. His place took Giorgos.So here we are, completed
the line up and started working.
2."HIGH IN THE SKY" IS YOUR FIRST DEMO
WITH THE NEW LINE UP. HOW LONG DID IT TAKE YOU TO COMPOSE THE SONGS AND
PRODUCE IT? ARE YOU SATISFIED BY THE FINAL RESULT OR IS THERE ANYTHING
YOU'D LIKE TO CHANGE? IF YES, WHAT'S THIS?
-
"High in the sky" is our first promo
cd. The first demo with this line up was "Sword of light" that was published
in the "metal hammer" magazine of September 2003. It took us about 5 months
to compose these songs and about 2 months to complete the recordings and
the mixing. Although we are satisfied with the final result we would still
like to fix our sound a little but we are not complaining because we all
know that it's very difficult to find a good sound engineer here in Greece
with good equipment and experience in power music. And something else.....
we won't change our songs until the cd's melt down!!!
3.YOUR SINGER DIMITRIS HAS AN EXPERIENCE
IN THE GREEK METAL SCENE. CAN YOU TELL US IN WHICH BANDS HE HAS PARTICIPATED
IN THE PAST BEFORE HE BECAME A PERMANENT EMERAL SUN SINGER?
-
Dimitris started singing and playing
guitars in 1993 for thrash bands. His first group was "R.I.P" and then
"Gordian Knot" who played as support group for "Exhumation" and "Twilight"
in metal club Alone in Thessaloniki 1996. After that he tried to create
a band with some of the members of "Kwazar" unfortunatelly without any
success. Then he met Giannis and Emerald Sun. In the meantime as long as
Giannis was in the army Dimitris was a session singer for several bands
as "Rising Storm" , "Pandemonium" , "Crystal Tears" but he was not satisfied....after
all he was in "Emeralds"!!!
4.YOUR LYRICS ARE MORE INTO FANTASY.
WHY DO YOU PREFER TO WRITE ABOUT THOSE THINGS AND NOT ABOUT MORE REALISTIC
SUBJECTS? DO YOU LIKE TO READ FANTASY LITERATURE? WHICH IS YOUR FAVORITE
AUTHOR AND BOOK?
-
The imaginary lyrics help you to built
your story, we imagine new and weird worlds and you travel into them.We
will write more realistic lyrics in the future.Look, it's easy to write
lyrics about the wrong things of the world , the war and the society.What
is really difficult is to write lyrics that will attract the listener who
is going to read the lyrics like reading a book!
5.YOUR SOUND IS SOMEWHERE BETWEEN THE
GERMAN AND ITALIAN POWER METAL SCENE. DO YOU AGREE? WHICH ARE THE BANDS
THAT HAVE INFLUENCED YOUR STYLE AND ATTITUDE?
That was our first priority , to
make our style more european , trying to create our own style at the same
time.We are not influenced from specific bands.We hear every kind of music,
from classic music to black metal.
6.I THINK THAT YOU HAVE DONE SOME SHOWS
HERE IN THESSALONIKI. ARE YOU SATISFIED BY YOUR APPEARANCES TILL NOW? WHICH
WAS YOUR BEST AND WORST LIVE SHOW TILL NOW? DO YOU HAVE ANY PLANS FOR LIVE
SHOWS IN THE FUTURE?
Yes we did a lot of shows in the
past. Most of them in Mesogeios club.We also played twice in Stavros ,
in Peraia and in Ploio (Stavroupoli) as you already know. I have to tell
you that we are not satisfied with the sound in our lives.We don't have
the money to afford a good sound equipment and we never had a fucking good
soundcheck! About the crowd now....we had about 150 metal fans in our latest
show in Mesogeios, you tell me....is it satisfying? It was our best appearence
so far.Our worst was in Peraia because it was our first live and we were
a little nervous.
7.HAVE YOU SENT THE DEMO TO ANY LABELS
AND ZINES? WHAT KIND OF FEEDBACK DID YOU RECEIVE FROM THE FANS AND PRESS?
-
We have send our promo cd to many magazines,
netzines, radio stations in all over the world.What we received was the
request of the fans to get the cd itself because they liked it very much.I
have to tell you that we didn't expect that kind of reaction...!
8.HOW DID YOU CHOOSE THE NAME EMERALD
SUN FOR YOUR BAND AND WHY? DO YOU THINK THAT YOUR MONIKER CAN WORK AS AN
INDICATOR OF YOUR MUSICAL STYLE?
-
The name of the group was an idea of
Giannis. Emerald sun was a precious stone placed to the bottom of the handcraft
of the middleage swords. Now it's just a pretty name for the group as our
style has changed and it's not so epic.
9.DO YOU LIKE EXTREME METAL? TELL ME
SOME OF YOUR FAVORITE EXTREME METAL BANDS AND RELEASES.
-
As I told you before our influences
are not specific.But we don't like exrteme metal because we believe that
it has nothing to offer to the listener except for aggression. Sorry but
this is our opinion...
10.IF YOU HAD THE MONEY TO CREATE A
MOVIE BASED UPON YOUR MUSIC, HOW DO YOU IAMGINE IT TO BE, WHAT WOULD IT
SHOW AND WHO WOULD BE THE DIRECTOR?
-
If we had the money we would make a
movie that would be called "sword of light" based on our song. Just read
the lyrics and you will figure out what kind of movie would it be!I could
narrate it but it would take me more than 3 hours.... I thing the best
director would be Stephen Spielberg.
11.IF YOUR MUSIC WERE AN EMOTION, WHAT
WOULD IT BE? IF IT WERE A PAINTING, WHAT WOULD IT SHOW?
-
If our music was a feeling , it would
be anger for all these that power metal passes through and for the way
it sounds.If it was a painting it would be a place with huge mountains(proud)
, a lake with deep blue water(peace of human soul) and large waterfalls
that when the water falls onto the stone , it creates your shape.
12.IF WE ARE ALL JUST A WORD IN THE
GREAT BOOK OF CREATION, CAN YOU SAY WHICH WORD COULD DESCRIBE YOU BETTER?
CAN YOU ALSO IMAGINE WHAT KIND OF AUTHOR WOULD BE THE CREATOR OF THIS BOOK
AND WHY?
-
The word is life and the creator of
the book would be ...God!
13.IF YOU HAD THE CHANCE TO TRAVEL
BACK IN TIME, WHICH HISTORICAL PERIOD WOULD YOU LIKE TO VISIT AND WHY?
-
We would like to travel in ancient
greece because we admire the glory of our ancient civilization and we would
like to have a taste of it ourselves!
14.IN WHICH MOVIE SOUNDTRACK WOULD
YOU LIKE TO HAVE TAKEN PART OR HAVE COMPOSED?
-
Three are the movies we would like
to be the creators of their soundtracks..The "Braveheart" , the "Reign
of fire" and "13th Warrior".
15.THANK YOU! HAVE I FORGOTTEN TO ASK
YOU ANYTHING AND YOU'D LIKE TO MENTION?
-
We thank you too. No you didn't forget
to ask us anything.We will keep on composing songs that will touch the
metallers........!!!
NIKOS "William_Kidd" Parastatidis
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