The METRO DECAY do not need to be introduced. I think the 'Ypervasi' as one of the 2-3 best albums ever born in our country or to be precise, were hosted in it ... Because Metro Decay's poetry has neither place nor time and if it were to have it would be somewhere deep in our most unique personal dreams.
Innovative, honest with their art and themselves, burned rather quickly, probably so as to always stay here and they made it ... The 'Ypervasi' is re-released very soon and believe me it is the best gift you can make yourself into the era of fragmentation of everything that stretches almost everywhere ... 'and what If fear bends the souls of brave ones ...'
1. I consider the "Ypervasi" as one of the most important albums of all time. It will soon be back on the market. How do you feel about this, really?
Yannis Maniatis : Cool, anxious, angry about the later possible but doubtful acceptance of a music that literally came from within. The umpteenth reissue just comforts me due to vinyl because via internet the demand and desire of the public was almost imperative. Costas Mastoris : Certainly it is the most important album of all time for us its creators! The re-release is a feast for us,I would say. Do not forget that along comes a 45' containing unreleased song written in English, " Brand New Day " and naturally we're curious about its acceptance.
2. Any memories, or any special moments from the recordings of the album?
DM: Sandwiches from parents, passion, intensity, love to overcome anything, cooperation, anxiety about the outcome, internal promises, visions / vision aspirations, sweating, thoughts, canceled appointments, discussions / fights ... What else would you want me to remember ...
MS : I remember the recordings of «Libido». It was past midnight when we started the playback, we turned off the lights and circulated freely in the studio talking into microphones, screaming, playing any instrument we found in the dark. After some hours we had literally been found in a "transcendent" state, which I think was reflected in the recording. I also miss the monstrous analog synth I used to - "homemade" - sounds of the album. I had taken it as a loan from the "Nakas" and I was shaking if anything should happen to it because it cost as much as a car! 3. How things were truly at that time in our country, in connection with the public and independent bands like Metro Decay?
DM: We were actually unique group and personalities. The situation was and is irrelevant, annoying, repetitive. We were not concerned, we operated independently. Hours of daily rehearsals, two movies each night at the movies of Exarchia after that at bar, afterwords work and again from the beginning. In fact the fuck we cared about the current reality. For me, of course, it is still the same.
MS: It's just like John says.Let me just tell you that a young rocker can not even imagine how crappy things were in general and especially on the rock scene in Greece in the early 80's. Necessary for the existence and development circumstances for groups like ours were entirely absent and in addition we had to confront prejudice and fascist reaction of overcautious domestic 'rock' status, reaction that occurred at all levels, even violent ones.
4. Where are you now? Is there a chance of a reunion?
DM: Where one might imagine since the previous answers. How easy is it to be together with an ex again and how can anything like that turn out? Only someone like Tarantino would be able to represent it( and not to resuscitate). MS: As you have understood there is no chance of reunion of all members and therefore recrudescence of Metro Decay.
5. How do you feel about the Internet? It plays an incredibly vital role in music nowadays. How about that?
MS: Today there are in several probable or not so much countries where there are great people who listen and like the music some young scoundrel from Patisia wrote 26 years ago, more or less, and this is only thanks to the internet. What can one say ... Without the Internet the more likely Metro would have existed only as a taciturn reference to a book on the history of rock music in Greece. Instead now we enjoy recognition and within borders larger than that collected when the group was still active, something that provokes mixed feelings. The Internet has partially restored the system as a significant percentage of all the greedy unnecessary intermediary between the artist and the public became spare, on the other hand I think today's ease in production and distribution of music and the resulting huge volume of production is deterrent to competition. In the past great persistence, dedication and sacrifice were needed to do something that now thousands of people literally do easily from home. So, let's say, the public can know the infringing "work" of every trifle while interesting artists watch their work going down the drain.
DM I agree.
6. What went wrong with Metro Decay and we never had a second album? Or is it just the way everything should be done eventually, uncompromising etc? ... MS: The group changed more than it had evolved. Since the internal balance and functioning of the group was disrupted things started to go to hell. The music written during that period was not bad, I would say quite the opposite, but the group was no longer the same. It had just changed style and its own soul.
DM: What really happened is forbidden even to ourselves to recall to the memory. Purely domestic affairs and relationships depicted in the recordings. Beyond "Brand New Day" there are at least two other "albums" in drawers and numerous recordings of each of us. MeD is over (or as you like it anyway). Better this way.
MS: Nevertheless, the group remained "incompatible", which proves to abstain from trading "Greek rock" still irritatingly old-fashioned, naive and ultimately unchanged, heard from a broad mass today. Eventually all that made us who we are, so you can say that everything was done "as needed".
7. An important part of today's Rock n Roll 'community' in our country, believes Metro Decay as an incredibly VANGUARD band for its time. I agree. What made you as special as that? What did the 'Ypervasi' a 'marginal' (and masterful) album? DM: The anxiety of that time, the time that passes by, the confidence and our indifference to the surroundings. I disagree of course with the designation of "masterpiece».
MS: But I agree with the designation "vanguard" and I don't give a shit what others are saying. A number of factors had shaped our music, data we used after our personal choice, or found the place without any intention or process by us. Nodal was our decision to use Greek verse. Contributed decisively to weaning by our standards since the sound effect was de facto a different - and this was much difficult for our peers to accept as unheard was the lack of standards.
Another interesting point is that we never learned to play other's pieces. Not even «Smoke On the Water» eh bro! From the first moment we started writing our own music. All day we were together as a small gang when we did not rehearse endless hours, we were talking about our music. Those obsessions along with the unusual chemistry between us, I think, made us differ.
For «Ypervasi» now: I will say that the pieces were very different from that heard on the album. We took a huge risk to change almost everything and knew that the time available was limited. Using the Christos Manolitsis (who exceeded the duties of a single sound engineer and actually became a producer) worked feverishly until Dallidis (who until that moment had not come to bother us at all in the studio) realized in horror what was going on and said 'stop' as the thing had already exceeded the budget. If we had five more fucking hours we would correct our discordant ...
8. For the ending any memories of the legendary weekend at Sporting perhaps?DM: The question in the eyes of Costas on how the bassist of Birthday Party regulated the bass amp (all to top) and our automatically move after the end of the gig to the "Hara" at the end of Patission. Not for beer, but for cake. Almond. That's all.
MS: The Birthday Party impaling women and slaughtering animals in the next door dressing room. Of course nothing like that happened, but it sounded like that! The type 'after-the-disaster" user-friendly set of cymbals of Harvey. The two great drummers of Fall. And of course, the pretentious and obnoxious New Order (who Mark Smith had not stopped for a minute swearing adjusting to that part of the common sense) and the incredible sound they turned out to have in Sporting. Above all, however, our nerve: the group was still in its infancy, we did not know how to hold the instruments in our hands, but stood in front of the negative public by arguing that real music does not need any "god" of rock. Rightly or wrongly, we played our own and Cave and his friends could get lost.
- Thanks, Dimitris Antonopoulos.