W.E.B.
W.E.B. is an apocalypse
in the contemporary Greek extreme metal scene! I think that's the most
suitable line to open this interview, although some might consider it as
an exaggeration. Well, in any case I advise you to read this very interesting
and informative interview we did with Alexandros and make sure you check
their music out!
1. CONGRATULATIONS ON “DON’T WAKE FUTILITY”!
I THINK IT’S AN EXCEPTIONAL AND HIGHLY PROFESSIONAL WORK! HOWEVER I’M ALWAYS
INTERESTED IN FINDING OUT THE CREATOR’S POINT OF VIEW. SO, ARE YOU CONTENT
WITH THE FINAL RESULT?
Thanx Christine for the good words! Yes, actually
the final result is exactly what we had in mind when we decided to make
that album. We wanted to make something competitive to similar works of
foreign bands. Though there can be always room for improvement in everyone's
work I think we set the standards as much higher as we could and it wasn’t
easy. I’m happy though that people understand and recognize that in our
work.
2. TO START WITH I’D LIKE YOU TO GIVE US A SHORT
BAND BIO AND INTRODUCE YOURSELVES TO THE READERS…
W.E.B. where found in 2002 in Athens, Greece.
The oldest and most stable line up was me (Alexandros) on drums and keyboards,
Darkface guitars and vocals and Agis bass. After we finished the recording
of the album we had to part ways with the lead guitarist for personal and
professional reasons. It was then when Chris joined us and now we have
the best and strongest line up we could possibly have. Also Ira who sings
"Ghost Of Silence" on the album, very kindly joins us on stage too doing
the female vocals where they are needed. We have given numerous live performances
inside and outside Greece and right now we are booking as many shows as
we can. On the same time we are working on our next album.
3. LET’S SUPPOSE THAT YOU WERE ASKED TO REVIEW
“DON’T WAKE FUTILITY”. WHAT WOULD YOU SAY TRYING TO BE AS OBJECTIVE AS
POSSIBLE?
Well we had to look to our work through an
objective glance in order to be sure it would worth to be on the CD stores
through a record label...So if I have to talk about the album I’d say that
it is a professional work. The sound is good the whole package is also
very nice. Someone can listen to a nice band playing in there and I think
that the songs are good at least as far as production, performance and
composition is concerned. Now if someone will like it or not is a matter
of taste. Until now though most people like it and that’s encouraging for
us!
4. IN AN OVERCROWDED SCENE, SOMEONE MUST HAVE
REALLY POWERFUL SONGS, IN ORDER TO STAND OUT. ON THE OTHER HAND THERE ARE
BANDS THAT BECOME FAMOUS DUE TO THE HELP OF THE PRODUCER OR GUEST MUSICIANS
ETC. SO DO YOU FEEL YOU ARE “COMPETING” IN A MERITOCRATIC SCENE OR NOT?
PLEASE COMMENT ON THAT…
As I said before we tried to make an album
that could compete other bands of the scene inside and outside Greece (in
a good way of speaking of course).But what we wanted to do was something
that would come from the band and not from a good and famous producer or
studio or famous musicians playing in our album. For example a good production
made in Fredman or Tico Tico studios or wherever else wouldn’t worth if
on stage people the only thing they could see and hear was another demo
band...A famous guest musician wouldn’t worth if the songs and the whole
album in general was just mediocre...So we proved that we could do fine
in a Greek studio with a Greek producer. We entered Fragile Sound Studios
in Athens with Vagelis Yalamas as co-producer. Our cooperation was perfect.
He listened to us and we listened to him and the result I think justifies
both of us. Now as far as the quest appearance of Duncan Patterson is concerned,
we did it cause we admire his work in general and since we met him we knew
that he was a man true to his beliefs and not a poser. So when we asked
him if he would like to come to studio with us and record that bass line
on "Futility's Lullaby" he kindly accepted. We did that for ourselves cause
it would be a memory that would put a smile on our faces for a long time
after...It just happened it wasn’t something we planned. That’s why we
asked our label Sleaszy Rider not to put a sticker on the CD saying "feat.
Duncan Patterson" and bullshit like these. Anyone can spend money and "hire"
musicians as guest on their albums. It’s very fashionable lately but we
totally disagree with that. We would do it again only if there was a functional
reason for that. The same goes for the studio and the producer. Now we
have proven what we could do in Greece, maybe it’s time for the next big
step...We will see about that.
5. GIVE REASONS WHY THE METALLERS SHOULD CHECK
YOU OUT. WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU HAVE TO OFFER TO THE METAL SCENE?
I think I have already mentioned enough reasons.
I never thought about what we have to offer in the metal scene. We just
wanted to create music we like combining together the styles we like without
copying or walking on a certain and safe path. Some people find it refreshing.
If it is then we are happy with it.
6. WHAT’S ACCORDING TO YOU THE BEST AND WHAT’S
THE WORST PART OF YOUR MUSIC? ARE THERE ANY ELEMENTS YOU’D LIKE TO ADD
OR EXPERIMENT WITH IN YOUR MUSIC?
That’s a difficult question to answer...What
I personally like in our music is that all these feelings and styles we
combine as black metal, industrial, gothic metal come together as a nice
unity. What we would like to do from now and on is to leave behind all
musical borders and experiment more with our music. We already have some
new material which takes W.E.B. into more experimental paths.
7. TELL US A FEW THINGS ABOUT THE LYRICS. WHICH
ARE YOUR SOURCES OF INSPIRATION AND WHICH ARE THE TOPICS YOU MAINLY DEAL
WITH?
The lyrics talk about human feelings and more
particularly the negative ones. They talk about psychological dead ends,
pain, loss, hate, sorrow and it goes on. I guess though that Darkface who
has written the 99% of the lyrics has given to the subjects he talks about
a more romantic point of view but I think the meaning is still the same.
The album’s lyrics have to do with sad feelings.
8. NOW I’D LIKE YOU TO EXPLAIN TO ME WHAT EXACTLY
YOU MEAN WITH THE ALBUM’S TITLE AND ALSO TELL ME WHAT THE CONNECTION IS
AMONG THE LYRICS, THE TITLE AND THE COVER ARTWORK.
The title of the album is connected most with
the song "Futility's Lullaby". This song refers to things that someone
desires and still can’t have. So his dreams are futile since he is so far
away from what he wants. Trying to achieve things that that you can’t have
can be though a very fruitful procedure that can improve someone and make
him better. If someone sees that then he can gain something. But if futility
prevails then someone will never be satisfied with anything and this will
eat him up like a cancer. In this case futility is better to be put for
sleep. That’s what SX from sx-desings tried to visualize on our cover artwork
and in the whole artwork in general. I think she did fine. She wanted to
know about our concept and lyrics, she even listened to our whole album
and she came up with the front cover and the rest of the artwork that people
can see in the multimedia and the album's booklet. When we saw the result
we knew we had the best artwork we could have ever imagine.
9. YOUR DEBUT WORK ALSO CONTAINS SOME MULTIMEDIA
STUFF, WHICH ARE VERY INTERESTING AND GREAT! SO, COULD YOU FILL IN OUR
READERS ON THE MULTIMEDIA CONTENT OF YOUR ALBUM?
We wanted to give to people who would buy
the album as much as possible so we decided to include a multimedia section
with some goodies. The multimedia contains photos, bio, lyrics and 4 videos.
The first video is the video clip for the song "Cockroach" the second video
is the making of "Cockroach" the third is a short documentary of what the
band has been through until now and the fourth is an interview for Hakos
Perbanidis and his show TV WAR. The making of Cockroach and the documentary
are full with funny and humorous moments that we had the last 2 years.
They show the humorous and funny side of the band and at the same time
someone can have a taste of our live shows. We put these scenes in the
videos to share all this fun we had the last 2 years. We are not unhappy
persons and we do this first of all to have a nice time. I think this can
be shown in this videos. A huge credit for the multimedia goes again to
SX for the artwork and to John Pappas for bringing it to life.
10. PLEASE MENTION IN DETAIL THE VIDEO CLIP, WHICH
IS GREAT AND HIGHLY PROFESSIONAL. WHAT’S THE STORY BEHIND IT? WAS IT BASED
ON THE SONG’S CONCEPT OR NOT?
The video clip's concept is based on the song's
lyrics. The song talks about the final battle on Earth between Man and
his creations -the machines. This battle is given through the eyes of two
people who love each other. The one of them is lost in the war field. That’s
what we tried to visualize in the clip. The pain of the loss of someone
we love and how man became a slave to his creations. Now about the song's
title...When we were trying to think of a title nothing came up so we remembered
what it’s been said about cockroaches...that they will be the only ones
to survive a nuclear war...so here it is. The credit for the filming and
editing goes to John Tzanakis. He did a great work.
11. BY THE WAY WHAT DOES W.E.B. MEAN? HOW DID
YOU COME UP WITH IT AND WHAT DO THE INITIALS STAND FOR?
The initials stand for Where Everything Begun
...Where is that? Somewhere on the back dark chambers of our mind, where
aggressive and sad feelings take the shape of music.
12. WHAT KIND OF FEEDBACK HAVE YOU RECEIVED SO
FAR FROM THE PRESS AND THE METALLERS? ARE YOU SATISFIED WITH THE COMMENTS
YOU RECEIVE?
Until now the feedback is very positive. We
had until now many good reviews from press and most people seem to enjoy
the album a lot. Now we wait for some reviews from outside Greece and see
what’s the feedback from there too. Most important is that everyone seems
to understand how hard work and effort we have put in our work.
13. HAVE YOU GOT ANY PLANS FOR LIVE SHOWS? WHAT
SHOULD THE FANS EXPECT TO SEE IN ONE OF YOUR LIVE SHOWS? HOW ARE YOU THINKING
OF DOING IN ORDER TO SUPPORT THIS RELEASE AND W.E.B IN GENERAL?
Right now we are trying to give as many live
performances as possible. We enjoy very much playing our album live. What
people should expect in our gigs is a good sound close to the album’s sound
as we carry all of our equipment with us on gigs and some other surprises
that visualize some parts of our music and lyrics on stage.
14. IF YOUR MUSIC WERE AN EMOTION, WHAT WOULD
IT BE? IF IT WERE A PAINTING, WHAT WOULD IT SHOW?
It would be an emotion that contains madness,
sorrow, anger and desperation at the same time. I think SX made very good
paintings of our music and I’m sure she will do it again in the future.
I couldn’t think of anything better since it’s not my field anyway..
15. IF YOU COULD INVITE FAMOUS MUSICIANS IN ONE
OF YOUR LIVE SHOWS, WHO WOULD YOU CHOOSE AND WHY?
We invited Duncan Patterson to perform on
stage with us in our release party where we played all the songs of the
album live. It was an unforgettable experience. I don’t think though that
we would be interested in having someone else as a guest right now.
16. WHAT TITLE WOULD YOU LIKE THIS INTERVIEW TO
HAVE? A TITLE THAT WOULD SUM UP THE WHOLE W.E.B. ESSENCE OF COURSE…
Fulfill your dreams…don’t wake futility.
17. THANK YOU! HAVE I FORGOTTEN TO ASK YOU ANYTHING
YOU’D LIKE TO MENTION?
Thank you for your time Christine we appreciate
it a lot. All you guys at Behind The Veil keep on supporting the
metal scene in Greece.
Christine Parastatidou
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