Thanatos
Thanatos is a band that
has always had the potential to become one of the leading bands in the
death/thrash metal branch. However, the circumstances didn't allow them
to fulfil their dream. So, after some time that the band was dormant, they
signed a deal with Black Lotus and now they are back for good. This might
be their big chance for a breakthrough... What you think?
1.HELLO! FIRST OF ALL CONGRATULATIONS FOR
“UNDEAD. UNHOLY. DIVINE”! IT'S AN EXCELLENT PIECE OF WORK!
Hi Christine! Thanx for your compliments.
We’re also very happy with the result this time!
2.HOWEVER, I'D LIKE TO HEAR THE CREATOR'S POINT
OF VIEW. SO, WHAT DO YOU THINK NOW OF YOUR ALBUM? ARE YOU FULLY SATISFIED
WITH IT? IF YOU COULD CHANGE SOMETHING WHAT WOULD THIS BE?
This time we are much more satisfied than
with the previous album. ‘Angelic Encounters’, which suffered from weak
drumming and a poor production and this time the album sounds much better.
Besides the strong production the musical performance of this line up is
much stronger this time around; tight, fast and adventurous drumming, great
sounding riffs and I’m also happy with the vocals this time…the most important
thing though are the songs; they are simply much better than on the last
album. Of course there are always some little things that could have been
better; maybe a little bit more low tones in the final mix and one or two
vocal lines that could have been better…all in all we’re simply satisfied
this time.
3.IF A METALLER CAME ASKING YOU TO DESCRIBE “UNDEAD.UNHOLY.DIVINE”
FOR HIM, WHAT WOULD YOU TELL HIM? WHICH DO YOU THINK ARE THE ELEMENTS THAT
SET IT APART FROM THE REST OF THE DEATH METAL RELEASES?
‘Undead. Unholy. Divine.’ is not a standard
death metal album; it has elements form old school thrash metal but also
more modern death metal influences. We tried to combine our influences
from the past (Possessed, Death, Slayer, Morbid Angel, Celtic Frost) with
newer influences from bands like Angel Corpse or Nile. There are some old
school elements in our style but we sound like a band from 2004. We’re
not a “retro-band” and we don’t fit into one simple box but I think our
music will appeal to fans of various forms of extreme metal. So give it
a chance I would say…
4.YOUR MUSIC IS AMAZING! IT DWELLS BETWEEN BRUTAL
DEATH METAL AND OLD FASHIONED THRASH AND IT EVEN HAS SOME DOOMY PARTS THAT
BRING TO MIND BLACK SABBATH. I THINK YOU ACHIEVED AN INCREDIBLE RESULT,
WHICH SOUNDS BOTH OLD FASHIONED AND FRESH. WERE YOU FOLLOWING THE METAL
SCENE ALL THESE YEARS THAT THANATOS WERE DORMANT? USUALLY MOST BANDS THAT
COME TO “LIFE” MANY YEARS AFTER THEIR DISBANDING, ARE DISAPPOINTING TO
THEIR FANS. PLEASE COMMENT ON THIS...
Thanx again, I have always followed the scene
closely. I also write for Holland’s leading metal magazine Aardschok, so
I get to hear a lot of new stuff as well. I must admit that I was a bit
fed up with the entire music scene in the years between 1993 and 1998;
but even in that period I kept following the metal scene, I went to concerts
and I even played in another band for a while…When there’s Metal in your
blood, you just can’t get away from it… I think a lot of bands, especially
the bigger ones, reunite or reform because of the money. We never made
any money with this band, so there’s no reason to do it for the money.
There is simply a drive, an urge to create good music. When I lose that
feeling and when I lose my inspiration it’s time to quit, but at this moment
we still got the fire!
5.TELL US A FEW THINGS ABOUT THE LYRICAL CONTENT
OF THE CD. WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE LYRICS AND WHICH THINGS INTRIGUE
YOU TO TALK ABOUT? WHICH ARE YOUR SOURCES OF INSPIRATION?
I write most of the lyrics and basically we
have two types of lyrics; Realistic lyrics like ‘Lambs to the Slaughter’
which is a verbal attack on religion in general and the Islam specifically;
there have been many attacks on Christianity in metal already and I have
no problem with that, but right now the Islam is a bigger threat for our
freedom than Christianity…On the other hand we have horror-inspired lyrics.
I am a big fan of the Italian horror movies of the eighties and some of
the lyrics are inspired by movies like Michele Soavi’s The Church (the
title track) various movies from Argento, Fulci (Beyond Terror), Romero
(Devour the Living) and newer movies like the Japanese “Ring” trilogy (The
Sign of Sadako).
6.CAN YOU TELL US A FEW WORDS FOR THE COVER ARTWORK?
DID THE ARTIST LISTEN TO YOUR MUSIC IN ORDER TO DRAW INSPIRATION AND THIS
IS WHAT HE “GOT” FROM YOUR MUSIC?
No not really. Actually Black Lotus came up
with this piece of art from Jacek Wisniewski cause they thought it fitted
our sound perfectly. And I must say they were right. One or two band members
had their doubts about the cover artwork, but personally I loved it from
the start so I’m happy we used it… You can make your own interpretations
about the artwork and the album title and that’s cool….
7.YOU HAVE SOME GUEST APPEARANCES ON “UNDEAD.UNHOLY.DIVINE”.
DO YOU WANT TO TELL US A FEW THINGS ABOUT THEM? HOW WAS THIS COLLABORATION
ACHIEVED?
Ed Warby, drummer in the (now reformed!) Gorefest
and Ayreon/Star One is a good friend of mine. He lives near the studio
and he came by a couple of times during the recordings. I knew he could
do some nice Rob Halford-like high pitched vocals so I asked him to do
some screams on the track “Eraser”. Ashmedi from Melechesh is also a good
friend of ours, and our drummer Yuri and our bass player Marco are part
of Melechesh’s live line up when they play single shows in Europe. I thought
his black metal vocals would compliment the low death grunts at certain
spots in the music…
8.DO YOU HAVE ANY PLANS FOR LIVE SHOWS OR FOR
TOURING? I SUPPOSE THE TIME HAS COME TO VISIT GREECE, NOW THAT YOU HAVE
INKED A DEAL WITH A GREEK LABEL.
Yes, we also think that it’s time to visit
Greece. We’ve already asked Black Lotus a couple of times to arrange some
shows in Greece for us, but so far it hasn’t worked out yet. We’d love
to come over in the Spring of next year, so if you know anyone who can
help us to come over to Greece, please let us know. It doesn’t matter if
we’ll do a few club shows or do some festivals and we don’t have to make
any money, as long as we get the travel costs paid and get a proper place
to sleep..that’s all, so I really wouldn’t know why we haven’t played there
yet…we’re ready to come over, so hopefully it works out pretty soon… Until
the end of this year we’ll play some club shows in Holland, followed by
a mini tour in the Benelux with Pungent Stench in January 2005. We also
hope to do some shows in the UK next Spring and then hopefully some shows
in Southern Europe, especially Greece…
9.WITH WHICH CRITERIA DID YOU SELECT BLACK LOTUS?
WHAT DO YOU “DEMAND” FROM A BAND IN ORDER TO COOPERATE?
It’s important to us that a label takes its
reponsibilities; the band is responsible for recording and delivering the
music properly and the label should take care of production costs, distribution
and promotion. Black Lotus was one of the very few labels that offered
us a proper record deal and since they’re an ambitious, growing label,
we hope we can grow with them. There were some delays with the album release,
but now they seem to be doing a good job with the distribution and promotion
of the album…
10.ARE YOU SATISFIED BY THE FEEDBACK YOU GOT TILL
NOW? WHICH WAS THE MOST FLATTERING COMMENT YOU RECEIVED AND WHICH STATEMENT
YOU THINK HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH YOUR MUSIC?
Yes, most reviews have been great so far.
The Metal Observer from Canada made some nice statements and we even put
one of those on our website (www.thanatos.info). Most magazines have praised
the freshness and the intensity of the album and I’m happy to see that
most people recognize we have our own style and sound; we are hardly compared
to other bands which is cool. It’s funny to see that certain people say
we play pure death metal now, while others say that we play pure thrash
metal! The truth is we play it both, I guess… If people say that we don’t
have any recognizable songs or riffs I just have to laugh…
11.IF YOU COULD BE OR AT LEAST MEET AN IMPORTANT
PERSONALITY FOR A DAY, WHO WOULD YOU CHOOSE AND WHICH PERIOD OF HIS/HER
LIFE WOULD YOU LIKE TO HAVE A TASTE OF?
I would choose to be the gorgeous Italian
actress Monica Belluci!! Hahaha! No seriously… I really don’t want
to be someone else, but it would have been interesting to be one of the
great Italian horror directors like Argento or Fulci in the period that
they created their absolute masterpieces like ‘Suspiria’, ‘Deep Red’ or
‘The Beyond’, It would also be interesting to be one of the well known
serial killers like Ted Bundy or Henry Lee Lucas for a day, just to find
out what drove them to do their vile acts…. Well I think I can imagine
a lot of that already, haha, sometimes I have pretty violent fantasies
and ideas myself, hehe….
12.REFLECTING ON YOUR LONG TIME CAREER, WHAT PREVENTED
YOU FROM BECOMING ONE OF THE PROTAGONISTS OF THE DEATH SCENE? I MEAN OBVIOUSLY
YOUR MUSIC ISN'T A PROBLEM SINCE YOU ARE ABLE TO DELIVER AMAZING MUSIC!
SO, WHAT WAS WRONG? ARE YOU CAREFUL NOT TO REPEAT THOSE MISTAKES?
It’s been a combination of bad luck, bad attitude
and meeting the wrong people. Signing up with the wrong record company
that did not promote the band well enough. Having people in the band that
were only interested in partying, drugs and booze. Sex, Drugs and Rock
and Roll are cool, nothing wrong with that, but if you do it too much and
if you can’t concentrate on your music and your live shows anymore you’re
just a pathetic loser. Certain people in the old line up just weren’t serious
enough… Bad luck cause some great opportunities didn’t happen; a full European
tour in 1992 with Cannnibal Corpse that was already confirmed, was cancelled
just 4 weeks before the start; the same thing happened with tours with
Exhorder and –later- Behemoth. But shit happens and we can not turn
back time, so we simply have to accept that we’re not the big leading band
we could have been if everything had gone right.
13.IF YOUR MUSIC WERE AN EMOTION, WHAT WOULD IT
BE? IF IT WERE A PAINTING, WHAT WOULD IT SHOW?
The obvious emotion is of course aggression,
Of course there are more aspects to our music, but I think aggression is
the main emotion in our music. If it were a painting it would be a work
of Hieronymus Bosch depicting Hell, cut open and carved with a knife!
14.WHICH WORDS DO YOU THINK ARE IDEAL TO REPRESENT
YOUR WORK, YOUR MUSIC? WHICH PHRASE CAN SUM UP THE WHOLE THANATOS HISTORY?
Thanatos’ music is a mixture of aggressive
thrash metal and dark, evil sounding death metal. A soundscape of darkness
and aggression that will drag you down into the pits of hell. Haha… I think
the history of Thanatos can be summed up with one word; perseverance…
15.BY THE WAY, HOW COME YOU NAMED THE BAND THANATOS?
I MEAN IT'S A GREEK WORD...
Me and the original guitarist of the band
studied Ancient Greek in high school, so when we were searching for a dark,
deadly name we came up with Thanatos. We didn’t want to use the english
word ‘death’ in our name, but we wanted a name that had something to do
with death..so Thanatos was a good option...
16.WHY DID YOU NAME THE ALBUM THIS WAY? ISN'T
THERE A CONTRADICTION BETWEEN THE WORDS UNHOLY AND DIVINE? WHAT DO YOU
WANT TO SUGGEST?
Yes, we love contradictions; in ‘Angelic Encounters’
there was the contradiction of the angels who are normally supposed to
be ‘good’ being the evil creatures sent by God, the ultimate evil one,
to destroy all humans . Unholy and Divine could represent the hypocrisy
of religion but it can mean other things as well... the Undead can represent
zombies bit also the band itself...
17.THANK YOU! LEAVE A MESSAGE TO THE READERS AND
TO THE THANATOS FANS ALL AROUND THE WORLD...
Thanks for showing interest; we really hope
to see all our Greek fans next year. Anybody who can help us to get over
to Greece, get in touch with us... Check out the new album, visit our website
and stay fucking metal! www.thanatos.info
Christine Parastatidou
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