Tears
If you listen their music,
I think that you wiil have a difficulty to categorise it. You see their
sound is atmospheric along with many progressive rock/metal elements. In
my opinion the best way is to describe it as emotional metal...
1.FIRST OF ALL POINT OUT THE MOST IMPORTANT MOMENTS
OF THE BAND'S HISTORY.
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General we have been thru a lot of phases and
this band has been formed at about 5 years ago. Actually, we have been
playing since high school and our first two songs ‘Time master’ and ‘Things
Imaginary’ were recorded when I was 16. A year later Panos joined the band
and recoded the vocals. At the time Kwstas had joined the army and was
practicing to get his classical piano teachers degree... It was hard for
everyone. Almost two years later we recorded self destruction with a new
drummer! The last two years our line up has not changed and this summer
we are recording some new material.
2.GIVE US SOME INFO REGARDING YOUR DEMO AND PLEASE
DESCRIBE IT TO THE READERS. HOW WOULD YOU
LABEL YOUR MUSIC IN ORDER TO GIVE A CLUE TO THE METAL FANS HOW TEARS SOUND
LIKE? WHICH WORDS DO YOU THINK ARE THE MOST APPROPRIATE TO PINPOINT THE
DEMO'S MAIN ESSENCE?
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Well our music contains several references on
various styles. We basically play Progressive metal with rock influences.
But there are several other aspects floating around. As far as I am concerned
I use any means a musician can use (different instrument or music styles)
to express certain feelings and thoughts thru a song. There are some references
to classical music and fusion as well. There are heavy bits and fast solos,
melodious bits and ‘catchy’ choruses, some avant-garde bits…I would dare
to describe our demo as something different…A flood of emotions that will
make one cry.
3.I THINK THAT YOU HAVE A QUITE ORIGINAL SOUND
THAT IS HARD TO BE CATEGORIZED. APART FROM THIS, I THINK IT'S VERY DIFFICULT
TO POINT OUT YOUR INFLUENCES. COULD YOU NAME SOME OF YOUR MOST BELOVED
BANDS AND ALBUMS? WHICH MUSICIANS INFLUENCED YOU THE MOST?
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I have to say that this is quite a compliment
and since in my point of view the ultimate success of a musician is to
sound unique…you are actually saying that we are ultimately successful!!!
Thanks! Of course I can not totally agree with that, we have some way to
go before we can claim we have achieve our very own sound. Now, as you
mentioned in your review of our demo we don’t sound like any other band
and it’s hard to identify our influences. That is because our music is
our music and we don’t copy of any other band. It seems that most bands
brainwash them self with what they listen and their minds are trapped.
It takes fantasy and balls to write something of your own, it takes time,
effort, lots of practicing and talent. I believe that we are not far from
creating our very own sound but we need to work hard, practice, develop
our music skills and keep our minds open! Now as far as favourite musicians
are concerned I have so many, the bands influences are honestly too many
to mention. Influences and favourite bans are kind of a different thing
though. For instance, my music teachers could be considered as my main
influences but they are not included in my favourite musicians.
4.I WROTE IN THE REVIEW I DID FOR YOUR DEMO YOUR
COMPOSITIONS ARE ACTUALLY EMOTIONS TRANSFORMED INTO NOTES, MELODIES AND
HARMONIES. DO YOU AGREE WITH THIS OR DO YOU THINK YOU HAVE STILL
A LONG WAY TO GO MUSICALLY?
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To begin with, being able to express your self
through music does not mean by any way that you don’t need to practice
music any more and develop your composition and performing skills. For
example Kurt cobain was expressing his feelings through music great but
he barely knew how to hold his goddamn guitar. I would totally agree with
your comment our music comes straight from the heart. I never compose if
am not dominated by strong emotions and intense feelings. I believe that
the sole purpose of music is to stimulate ones soul. Music should go through
your ears into your brain and change or enforce your emotional state. We
certainly all have a long way to go musically. After all the oldest member
in the band is 23. Knowledge on how to create and control sound to make
what we call music never ends. Artistry, musicianship and talent should
be all combined and each one has to be developed individually to reach
a point where you can claim to be complete as a musician. It takes time
but we are all devoted in what we do.
5.WHERE ARE YOUR LYRICS REFERRING TO?HOW IMPORTANT
ARE THEY FOR YOU? WHAT KIND OF TOPICS INTRIGUE YOU TO TALK ABOUT?
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In this demo there are three different subjects
I have wrote about. Time master is a song about memories, the ones that
never fade in time like traumatic experiences that haunt you forever. In
this song I am trying to make a link between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ memories,
and I describe my belief that ‘bad’ memories are the ones that we never
seem to forget and the ones that truly alter our personality and influence
our lives. It appears to me that happy moments are easily forgotten but
bad experiences leave their mark forever. Now, the second topic was in
Things imaginary were the character the singer sings appears to have a
vision, some kind of flash back in time and simply describes his bad childhood
lacking of love, happiness and affection. In this song I mention only once
the words love and happiness (in the intro) and then in the rest of the
song I refer to these words… Finally, the third topic in this demo appears
in the trilogy Self-destruction. This song is about a drug addict, who’s
addiction has totally isolated him and goes thru various phases of depression.
At some point he seems to have convinced himself that he will over come
his addiction. Well he eventually fails and commits suicide. In this song
I have tried to express how fragile the emotional state of a drug addict
is, and how suicide can be quite a temptation. This song is quite big and
with lots of lyrics, I honestly believe it’s really worth going thru this
poem consisting of three parts. This song describes a friend of mine who
killed him self some time ago. In general I wouldn’t say that I tend to
like a particular subject when writing lyrics. There are so many interesting
subjects someone can write about.
6.YOUR MUSIC HAS A DARK ATMOSPHERE AND IT LEAVES
YOU WITH A BITTER TASTE... WHY? ARE YOU PESSIMISTS, REALISTS OR OPTIMISTS?
DO YOU AGREE WITH THE STATEMENT THAT AN ARTIST IN ORDER TO CREATE HIS/HER
MASTERPIECE SHOULD WITNESS PAIN OR LOSS IN HIS/HER LIFE? WHAT'S THE CASE
WITH YOU?
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Well, I am actually scared to believe this since
if it is true I will have to go thru a lot of SHIT to write more than one
brilliant piece of music… In general an artist needs sources of inspiration
and life experiences seem to stimulate the creativity of an artist in the
best way. But then as an artist you can also gain inspiration thru other
peoples experience or by reading books, watching films, etc. My opinion
is that life experiences are easier to be expressed by an artist than something
red on a book are created by his own mind. Fantasy and creativity are things
that take time to be developed. On the other hand life experiences just
happen they are in your head and all you need to do is pull them out. In
my case two of the songs in the demo are about things I have experienced.
And the third one is about a friend’s experience. I suppose that since
I have written both music and lyrics in this demo the personality that
is reflected by our music is mainly mine. The atmosphere created is indeed
dark and yes bitterness is a feeling created while listening to our songs.
As far as the drummer and the keyboard player are concerned they are certainly
optimists. On the other hand I am a total pessimist but this is my way
to never end trying for the best. I somehow find disappointment and despair
to excite my stubbornness and force me into a constant effort of self-improvement.
I suppose this illustrates though that am kind of an unbalanced person.
If you read the lyrics of self destruction you will see how pessimism is
changed into optimist and disappointment changes into hope. For instance,
“ill over come my fears and gain power from within, ill cry no more tears…”
this is totally optimistic and what follows “and fight for things I’ll
never win” is totally pessimistic saying that I’ll never make it.
7.WHICH ARE YOUR PLANS FOR THE FUTURE? HOW ARE
YOU
THINKING OF PROMOTING YOUR WORK? HAVE YOU
SENT ANY DEMOS TO LABELS? HOW WERE THEIR REACTIONSTHIS FAR?
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Well our next step is to get signed, and that’s
the trickiest part. We all believe in our music and we want to make a career
out of it. Our goal is to actually gain enough money from our music so
that we wont have to waist any time on earning our living otherwise so
that we can spent more time improving our music. Now, we have sent this
demo to several major record labels and the comments we received were amazing.
The problem till now was that we did not have a permanent singer in the
band so obviously we couldn’t sign any deals. It is very hard to actually
synchronize the lives of 5 people and manage to get everything right so
that anytime the band can go on tour or on a recording session. The fact
is though that we are all prepared to do our best and we are currently
in contacts with some record labels trying to get signed!
8.ARE YOU SATISFIED BY THE FEEDBACK YOU GOT FROM
THE FANS AND ZINES THIS FAR? WHICH PHRASE DO YOU THINK (FROM THE REVIEWS
YOU RECEIVED) DESCRIBED YOUR MUSIC THE BEST WAY AND WHICH ONE
HAD NOTHING TO DO, ACCORDING TO YOU, WITH
YOUR MUSIC? IS THERE A COMMON STATEMENT YOU GET TO READ IN ALMOST ALL THE
REVIEWS YOU RECEIVE?
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Yes the feedback is overwhelming and we are very
satisfied. I couldn’t say that someone did a better review from someone
else since music is perceived and conceived in different ways depending
on the listener (his personality, his mood at the time etc). The common
statement is that there are strong emotions expressed thru our songs, and
that we could be described as a dark progressive band.
9.DO YOU HAVE ANY PLANS FOR LIVE SHOWS? WHAT SHOULD
THE FANS EXPECT IN A TEARS LIVE SHOW? YOUR MUSIC IS MID TEMPO-SLOW, ATMOSPHERIC
AND SENTIMENTAL. DO YOU THINK IT'S IDEAL FOR LIVE SHOWS OR DO YOU THINK
IT LOSES SOME OF ITS BEAUTY AND THEREFORE CAN'T BE FULLY REPRODUCED LIVE?
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Well we would love to do some live shows this
summer, we shall see how things go. The problem is we don’t have a manager
and it is hard to book yourself in a gig if you have no ‘connections’…
To begging with in a live show you should expect at least two unreleased
songs one of which is very fast!! Our music is hard to be reproduced live
every one needs to sing and in some acoustic parts the bass player and
the singer have to play the guitar in some other parts the band is turned
into a choir (only vocals by everyone). Although hard it may be we have
been practicing and we are able to fully reproduce our music live and in
fact I believe that our song sound better live that on the demo.
10.IF YOUR MUSIC WAS AN EMOTION, WHAT WOULD IT
BE? IF IT WAS A PAINTING, WHAT WOULD IT SHOW?
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Well the name of the band is Tears and although
at first it may seem that we are one sad and mothefucking depressing band
that is not true. Tears are the way humans react to strong emotions. There
are tears of sorrow, tears of happiness, tears of fear, tears of excitement…
I would describe our music as the aura of a person rich in different emotional
states. For me music is a way of expressing myself and I will never restrict
myself by saying my music is sad or happy as I know I will have the need
to express several emotional states thru music. The demo is sad and depressing
but that was only because I felt that way at the time. So, summing up Tears
music is not just one emotion but several emotions not to say all emotions
that can be experienced by someone. I love Dali, but I don’t know if a
painting of his could reflect our music. Well maybe it would be totally
black with a circle of all possible colours like a rainbow, illustrating
that all possible sound frequencies can exist in our music.
11.WHICH IS, ACCORDING TO YOU, THE BEST AND WHICH
THE WORST ELEMENT IN YOUR MUSIC? WHICH IS YOUR TRADEMARK AND WHERE DO YOU
NEED FURTHER IMPROVEMENT?
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The best element is that it keeps the listener
awake, interested, from the very beginning to the very end. Its not a god
damn dance song with the same stupid bit and melody playing for 5 minutes.
The worst element is that it mainly includes metal influences…so instantly
any chance of being rich thru our music is lost (xaxa!!). But who gives
a fuck any way we play our songs because we like to, we play the music
we love and that’s all it is. If you mean changing bits of my songs as
further improvement…well I wouldn’t change a not or a word. Not because
I believe that they are perfect but because they reflect my way of writing
and thinking at the time and I shouldn’t spoil that. After all I can always
write new songs instead of changing my old ones, which of course I do.
Our trademark is in general the way I compose and the way we play our music.
I suppose our trademark is in general the fact that we try to avoid sounding
like a particular band and being our selves.
12.WHICH FAMOUS PERSONALITY WOULD YOU LIKE TO
BE FOR A DAY AND WHICH PERIOD OF HIS/HER LIFE WOULD YOU LIKE TO WITNESS?
WHY?
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I would like to be Bush now, and stop every war…I
know…such a romantic and foolish idea. I don’t know maybe I would prefer
to be a member of Rush playing live in Rio. The truth is I wouldn’t waste
a single day of my life being someone else. My life is my life and am going
to do my best to make it the way I want it to be.
13.IF TIME TRAVEL WAS POSSIBLE WHICH HISTORICAL
PERIOD WOULD YOU LIKE TO VISIT AND WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE?
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1770, in order to see Mozart playing the piano
live. I would probably hate him for being so talented…
14.THANK YOU! THESE LAST LINES ARE YOURS...
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Stay HEAVY motherfuckers!!!!!!!!!!!!!! A huge
thanks goes out to anyone who has just reAd the whole interview (probably
none…). I would also like to thank my band mates for putting up with me,
and my miserable attitude. Anyone is welcome to contact the band. The contact
email of the band is [email protected]
or visit our site at http://www.tearsband.com
Christine Parastatidou
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