Yiannis
Decemberance
DECEMBERANCE come from Greece and recently released their debut album "Inside" through I For an I records. This album did a very good impression to METAL TEMPLE and hence the following in depth interview.
By Dimitris Karametos
•
July 10, 2010
Also read: DECEMBERANCE - "Inside" review
Greetings from METAL TEMPLE honestly reviewing your album made an impression with the high quality of your songwriting.
Greetings to you & all your readers, thank you for your kind words hope you've enjoyed listening to it.
Tell us a little more about DECEMBERANCE, so that we can get to know you better.
The band was formed back in 1997 and since then we have released 2 demos , 1 promo cd & our debut full length cd/dvd titled "Inside". We gathered in a basement trying to do some different stuff from the thrash-death forms we had as influences. The whole idea was to combine really heavy sound with melody and a "strange" ambience… We had the opportunity to support acts like MARDUK (2001), CANDLEMASS and KAAMOS (2002), SATURNUS and MISANTHROPE (2008) and LUNAR SEA (2010). Of we gave numerous gigs with local bands, friends of us mostly. And here we are releasing via I For An I Records our debut cd/dvd called "Inside". If we want to categorize our sound we can use the "atmospheric/psychedelic doom/death metal". But this term is only to communicate with people who don't know us.
Who is the creative force behind DECEMBERANCE, does everyone take part in the creation of the songs and music or is it a more personal job.
DECEMBERANCE is a fusion of different dynamics. Different people bring different ideas, but we try all of them an we keep the best. All of us composing and writing. It's a collective job.
Tell us where you gather the ideas for your songs, your influences, I felt while listening to your album certain undertones from PINK FLOYD and early ANATHEMA.
Of course PINK FLOYD is a great influence, not only musically, but in away of thought. You can hear in our sound also early 90's American Death metal, Doom Metal…MORBID ANGEL, DECOMPOSED, MY DYING BRIDE, ESOTERIC… A simple idea, a sound, a phrase, a movie, anything could be a starter for a song…
How difficult is it to survive in the Greek scene today for a band such as DECEMBERANCE?
It depends on what you define as "survival". Of course we're not talking about earning money, we got daytime jobs. For now survival is to obtain experiences, opinions (critique) good or bad in a way to maintain our interaction with the listener to evolve our music.
To make the question more personal, was it difficult to produce the album and to find a record company?
It was quite difficult financially mostly. But since we intended to make it happen nothing could stop us. We co-operated with Andreas Karayiannis producing, mixing and mastering the album in his studios (Dysmophia Studios). We worked also with Tassos Hatzipanagos for the dvd, who's the director and the producer. We consider cd and dvd as a whole unit. After that we searched record label here in Greece, and outside. Finally we came to a deal with I for an I Records, and we have to say that it is great to work with these guys.
Death Metal seems to be the favorite Metal genre in Greece, why do you think that is?
We are not quite sure that Death metal in Greece is such popular…Female fronted bands, and *.core stuff is today's trend. We have to admit that Death metal bands in Greece have showed great improvement and surely they are in the same level with foreign bands.
Why did DECEMBERANCE choose technical Death Metal as your basic play style and not another genre?
Our style is a combination of several sounds, as we told you before. What we like most is the contrast between dark, harsh texture and crystal clear sounds…quite interesting experiment for now.
I want to know your future plans, have you any lives prepared I would like to see you on stage.
Due to military obligations we have paused our gigs for a few months. But this gives us the opportunity to compose new stuff. Of course a live performance isn't just playing the instruments, there's a whole preparation to achieve the best result in combination with the video art, which will be the "other half" of the show Sound & Vision. Right now we are searching for the suitable venues to work with.
The final words are yours, I would like to thank you for your time and best of luck.
We would like to mention that we have been proposed to compose a movie soundtrack and it will contain material a little further than our usual stuff but still with the DECEMBERANCE way! Some helpful links: decemberance[at]gmail.com, www.myspace.com/decemberance, www.youtube.com/user/decemberance. Thank very much for your questions, hope we talk again soon.
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