1. First of all I’d like you to fill us in on what’s happening in the 81DB camp at the moment. 

Hi Christine! These days we are finishing the pre-production of our 2nd album and in the beginning of October we are entering the studio in California (USA) to record the tracks! I’m sure it will be a blast working with Sylvia Massy as a producer and we just can’t wait to do it!

Actually right now is one of the most important moments of the 81DB’s young career. The making of our second album and working with such a producer! Other past moments could be when our 1st album was published and when we played in front of 6000 people just before DEEP PURPLE went on stage. Pretty neat experience!

The “Evaluation” album was released in 2009 in Italy, and then in autumn in Greece too. I should note that on an international level, it is available if you order it online from our site, or by digital download from iTunes etc. It’s an album to listen to again and again, so that you can understand more its meaning, musically and its atmosphere too. The album has to do, generally, with the psychological situation and the psychotic conditions of someone who tries to find a personality for covering the anonymous and expressionless mask of his face. It includes “Voices”, which is our single and we have made also a video clip , and other two heavy tracks like “Dr Barytone” and “Nice Trip”, chaotic and mad like “Insexts and “Generatin xxx”, darker like “Mirror”, “aNoia”, ”So Wounded”, and the homonymous, and  more hypnotic like “Argonaut’s Dance” and “Revelations”. All these take a meaning with some interludes among the tracks. I’d let everybody’s fantasy create his personalized image though. Happy listening!

Well you see, I believe there are many good bands out there that should stand out and that never make it first of all! But that’s another story… We play our music the way we want to, combine the elements the way we feel and this mixture of metal, progressive and folk can talk by itself to the ones that want to grasp it.

The music is usually created by me and then we enter our studio to arrange the whole song with the other guys. After that it depends, sometimes everything begins from a story already created or the lyrics are written piece by piece together with William, our singer. There’s no actual rule. Riffs and melodies come to my mind all the time. Even when I sleep I may wake up and record what I was singing in my sleep.

I believe “Nice Trip” for the mix of modern metal and folk, “Dr. Barytone” or “Insexts“ for the craziness and “Argonaut’s Dance” for its atmosphere. But then again, we’ve heard so many different opinions about favourite songs on this CD that there are no actual standard opinions! That’s the beauty of it too, a musical kaleidoscope free for anyone to translate and see it the way they want.

Usually personal thoughts and feelings expanded to a wider scale but sometimes social circumstances too.  We wrote for an “empty state of mind” on this album.

The cover was done by me since I work as a computer graphics too. The masks have to do a lot with the concept of the album, empty, expressionless faces that are in search for their identity. We did it because it was cool when we first tried it back in 2007 and we still appear in all of our concerts like this in the beginning.

Currently our first priority is the creation of our second album. It’s going to be heavier and a bit darker and more progressive with always folk elements. I’m really excited to finish the record! After that we will be looking for a suitable label and organize concerts to promote it. I’m pretty sure we will be coming to Greece again, probably next spring.

I think you are mistaken here. Our first album came out in Italy from a small indie label (Orion’s belt/SELF) and in Greece by EMI. As I said before we will be looking for something else when our second album comes out.

The Mediterranean groups don’t have anything to envy from the north-Europeans and the Americans. What we actually lack of is the infrastructure to support them. Regarding Greece, let me remind you of the curse called “skyladiko”, the absolute devastation of the music culture. But I think things are getting better now and I’m quite sure better days are yet to come for the metal/rock scene.

That’s a long talk. The music industry used to live for many years now without paying the artists a single penny. Now that their asses are getting kicked they feel the need to blame something… anyway it’s true that downloading affects a lot the industry and to that it also affects the bands. My opinion is that people should understand that if they download from a “Warner” band the damage is minimal to the band and bigger to the label. I don’t care about this, instead I support it... Major labels are thieves. But when it comes to smaller labels that make out their living with 5 cents it’s a totally different story. So I’m partially for the downloading (for many reasons), as long as the small artists are being supported later on, even by going to their concerts or buying their physical albums. But probably I’m talking about utopia here. Unfortunately we don’t leave in a free world. And if someone doesn’t support bands that have a financial backup behind them, we will end up having only rich kids playing around and expressing everybody with their music. Is that what we want? I think not.

I believe each one receives our messages and music in their own way. There are people that like our most crazy stuff, others the most easy listening etc. And I’ve heard so many different impressions that I can tell for sure that it’s an album that can open your imagination and let it “evaluate” it. That’s where the title of the album comes from.

Yes, very much. People seem to like the album and to tell you the truth countries like Greece really seem to support us! It’s awesome, thanks guys! I can’t remember any specific comments right now but I recall being compared with bands that I think they are beyond any respect! As for bad, sometimes very traditional metallers say that we are not a metal band, as bad as a comment this can be… It never really bothers me at all.

Well, I’d say it is music that each time you listen to it you discover new ways to embrace it. 

Thanks! Yes that’s the origin, in a certain way of speaking.

Thank you all for your support and our chance to speak to your webzine! If you want something new and challenging, I believe that you’d like our album “Evaluation”! And as I usually say, if the evaluation of the album doesn’t satisfy you, we will return your money in 30 days, haha! Cheers and stay updated from our pages for the new album.