Present yourself to the readers
We are an Athens-based band, comprising Kostas Crom (vocals and guitar), Themis Tsianos (bass), Panagiotis Zacharatos (lead guitars) and Ilias Nikolaidis (drums). We attempt to combine our dark-wave/post-punk and gothic/doom metal influences, while maintaining the originality and aggressiveness of our sound. The band was initially formed in 2012 but did not reach a stable lineup (apart from Kostas and Themis) till 2015. Up to then, we were mainly working on covers and we had only composed and improvised few of our own songs. After 2015 though, we sped up this process and within a year we completed the songs that found their way into our first album. Then it took us around a year to record, mix and master the album (as we all had day jobs), and after finishing the rest of the procedures and also doing 2 video clips, we came to the release date few weeks ago.
Who composes ?...How does it work in the band ?
We all did, someone more, someone less, but everyone has at least one song with his own music inside the album. Older members have more as those were written first. Then as the other members became permanent, they wrote the remaining ones. For all the songs, someone had the main idea complete up to a certain point and roughly recorded. Then the others added their arrangements and parts first at home in digital format, so that we had something to learn playing for the rehearsals in the studio. And the studio is where the songs were finalized in structure.
Who writes the texts ?..What are they talking about ?..How does inspiration come ?
Mainly our singer does, apart from 3 older songs of our friend George Papd who now resides in London. The lyrics are mostly realistic dealing with personal or social issues. That does not mean that we do not use any metaphors. We do, but we usually stay outside the fantastic realm. When we do meet this realm it’s not that we create worlds, we still remain close to the everyday life. Thus, we do refer to matters with which punk, new wave but also metal (mainly in the 90’s) music is usually involved. Inspiration comes from life observation, but of course some white liqueur spirit always makes the words come faster on the surface .
Why the name PERSEPTIK ?
We wanted a unique word for the name, so that people and internet search engines cannot confuse it with anything else. Therefore we combined two existing words: perception & septic and then finished the result with a ‘K’ instead of a ‘C’ for a better edge. This is a combination that also works as a concept, as it conveys both the openness of mind and the obscure element of our soundscape.
What are your personal musical tastes and your influences ?
Inevitably, we all carry our personal preferences and influences drawing from a wide range of metal, rock and punk. Eventually, it all ends up in a huge melting pot and the outcome could be described as a blend of 90’s post-thrash metal (e.g. “Black Album”) with gothic metal (e.g. Paradise Lost or Moonspell) together with big doses of punk and new wave (e.g. Wipers, Dead Boys, Cure). However, tags can very often be misleading so one must definitely listen in order to understand.
What's your opinion about the current music scene in Greece ?
As you might have already observed in the last 5 years, particularly the hard rock & metal scenes of Greece, have grown enormously. And the quantity thankfully comes together with considerable quality. So apart from the old known black/death metal scene, with Rotting Christ, Septicflesh, Necromantia etc., we now also see bands from thrash metal (e.g. Suicidal Angels), desert rock (e.g. 1000Mods) and power/heavy metal (e.g. Firewind) scenes touring extensively around Europe or even around the world. A turning point must have been the collaboration of lead guitarist Gus G with Ozzy Osbourne, which also opened doors for Greek musicians being now somehow more respected outside the country. This of course went along with the import of know-how in technical matters. People went to Europe and America to study sound engineering or work in studios and came back with experience and methodologies that were previously very rarely common among Greeks. This includes largely the music teachers for all rock instruments and voice coaches.
In studio, what was the ambiance for the album ZERO ?...etc.…
We recorded everything separately and the whole process involved just few hours every week, because of day jobs and all. It was based on preproduction tracks from Cubase, which had though real guitars and vocals. So there was not much of direct band ambiance, but we had spent enough time in rehearsals and preproduction so that the spirit was already in the air anyway. Moreover we did good company with our producer Jimmy Katsaros (also guitarist of the prog metal act “The Silent Wedding”), as we pretty much listen to the same stuff and have around the same age. Of course the audio result of the studio recording forced some parts to be changed, compared to the preproduction parts, as they did not give the effect we thought they would before. That’s where the producer’s contribution was very precious, as an “outside ear”.
