Dragon's
Lair
I like the fact that Greece
produces bands from the whole metal spectrum, cause variety is an essential
element for a scene to flourish. Dragon's Lair present us music that comes
straight from the glorious days of the 80s heavy metal scene. Manos and
Chris are here to narrate the story...
1. HELLO THERE! DRAGON’S LAIR IS A RELATIVELY
NEW BAND SO I THINK INTRODUCING YOURSELVES IS INEVITABLE…
Hello this is Manos and Chris from Dragon’s
Lair (Serres). At first we would like to thank you Christine and the Behind
The Veil zine for your kindness and your hospitality to all Greek metal
bands and of course to us. We are almost a new band and we move on an Epic\Power
style….. More details for us on our website which we’ll be ready
very soon, but you can take a look here http://www.myspace.com/dragon39slair
2. WE ALL KNOW IT’S DIFFICULT TO HAVE AN UNDERGROUND
BAND, ESPECIALLY IN GREECE. SO THOUGH YOU’VE BEEN AROUND A FEW YEARS, WHAT
UPS AND DOWNS HAVE YOU FACED?
The difficult part is being a metalhead in
this country and we think no one will deny this. As a band now we had a
lot of problems with our rehearsals. It’s not very easy to pay three times
a week to rent a studio and play. You wanna have your own sound, you wanna
play for as long you want, anyway what we are trying to say is that you
need your own place. There are no places for bands like as in Serres and
as far as we know there’s a very small amount of cities with so good rehearsal
rooms…
3. FILL US IN ON YOUR RELEASES AND PINPOINT THE
MAIN SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES AMONG THEM.
You can’t say that’s a release. We just recorded
a few of our songs at Manos’ place just because we wanted to listen to
ourselves. We also recorded a live CD for a few friends of ours to thank
them for their support. There are no basic differences between our tracks,
all are of the same style in lyrics and music. But let’s leave the listeners
judge it….
4. YOU SAY YOU PLAY 80S EPIC POWER METAL. SINCE
I HAVEN’T LISTENED TO YOUR MUSIC, CAN YOU MENTION SOME OF YOUR MOST BELOVED
BANDS AND INFLUENCES?
We can have a whole new interview for this
subject….
Chris: Metallica, Motorhead, Omen, Saxon, Lizzy
Borden, Riot, Manowar and many more.
Manos:Heir Apparent, Oliver Magnum, Crimson
Glory, Apollo Ra, Jag Panzer, Villain, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest,
Heavy Load, Fifth Angel, Helstar, Stormwitch, Queensryche and many many
many more…
The same goes for the other three band members,
anyway anything from the metal scene of the 80’s!!!
5. YOU ARE YOUNG PEOPLE, SO I’M INTERESTED IN
FINDING OUT WHAT YOU FOUND APPEALING IN THE 80S SOUND, A SOUND THAT MANY
CALL “DEAD” NOWADAYS…
Dead are those who say that!!!!! The 80’s
sound was and is the only pure heavy metal that’s left. Everybody started
saying we play thrash, we play power, we play black but they didn’t realize
that all these is heavy metal and it was born back in the 80’s, that’s
the root of our beloved music. So it’s not logical to say that the 80’s
heavy metal sound is dead.
6. UNDERLINE THE MAIN TOPICS YOUR LYRICS DEAL
WITH…
All of our songs move on an epic story style.
They talk about warriors, dragons, battles, anything that has to do with
the middle ages.
7. WHICH ARE YOUR SOURCES OF INSPIRATION? PLEASE
DESCRIBE A TYPICAL DRAGON’S LAIR SESSION.
We get our inspiration from anything that
has to do with the middle ages and epic battles. Epic movies like Braveheart,
300, Dragonheart etc. In addition with fantasy books and writers like Tolkien,
Moorecock who inspire us in many ways.
A typical Dragon’s Lair session, that’s easy!
You can say we are a bunch of good friends loving and playing the same
music. We gather around three times a week, we go to the studio, we drink
some beer and the music just flows…
8. WHAT’S THE BEST AND WHAT’S THE WORST PART OF
YOUR MUSIC, ACCORDING TO YOU? DO YOU THINK YOU’VE MANAGED TO FORM A PERSONAL
SOUND OR ARE YOU STILL IN SEARCH OF YOUR IDENTITY?
We can't judge our music. That is something
that the metalheads can tell you. We didn't want to play something new.
We play the music we love. Pure 80's heavy metal. So who cares about identity?
We are Dragon's Lair. This is our identity. It's only rock ‘n’ roll and
we like it!!!
9. HAVE YOU SENT YOUR DEMOS TO ANY LABELS OR NOT
YET? WHAT KIND OF FEEDBACK HAVE YOU RECEIVED FROM THE LABELS, THE MAGAZINES
AND THE FANS?
No, we haven’t sent anything yet. We’ll wait
until spring when the recordings will take an end and then we’ll see. We
are quite happy from the webzines because they all (almost all) were interested
in our work and they seemed to like us, with magazines we haven’t got any
communication yet, but who knows what the future will reveal???
10. YOU’VE PLAYED IN MANY LIVE SHOWS. WHAT DID
YOU EARN FROM THIS EXPERIENCE? HAVE YOU GOT ANY PLANS FOR MORE SHOWS?
Actually yes! We’ve played a lot of live shows
in several cities like Komotini, Thesalloniki and Serres of course with
a big participation of metalheads and we’d like to thank all of them who
supported us on our live shows, and allow me say to you, the crowd was
quite hot. No, we haven’t planned any live shows. We’ll wait for our EP
to be out first.
11. HOW HAS THE GREEK AUDIENCE TREATED YOU SO
FAR? WE ARE ALL AWARE OF THE FACT THAT GREEKS DON’T SUPPORT GREEK BANDS.
IS THIS THE CASE WITH YOU AS WELL?
As a start we want to say that the Greek audience
is a bit difficult to like you from the first time they see you on stage
and that’s good because I think they know how to judge. No that’s not true,
there are not a lot of metalheads in this country. If we start to like
and dislike each other, we won't do anything to move Greek metal bands
to another level. Oops, a lot of talking! I hope you won't find us boring….
We think the audience accepted us very well. They seem to like our music
and that’s what sets our engines on…..
12. IF YOUR MUSIC WERE AN EMOTION, WHAT WOULD
IT BE? IF IT WERE A PAINTING, WHAT WOULD IT SHOW?
We can’t describe it in one word. . . but
we can say it could be the feeling of victory. The feeling of the warrior
after the battle! As for the painting we like the artwork of Larry Elmore,
a fantasy artist, it could show a red dragon breathing fire or something
similar.
13. WHAT TITLE WOULD YOU LIKE THIS INTERVIEW TO
HAVE?
Dragons. . . Not a legend they live among
us.
14. THANK YOU! IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE YOU’D LIKE
TO MENTION?
We just wanna thank you too Christine for
being so patient with us. We hope for the best on the webzine’s work. We’ll
be in touch…..
Christine Parastatidou
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