O: Well I guess Hello everybody!!! We are Project Renegade a metal band from Athens Greece and we just released an album called "Order of the Minus". Thank you Jojo for having us and we hope everyone gets to have as much fun reading this as we have doing it! So… Fire away!

M: Well actually there are quite a lot of bands who have women musicians and there are a lot more emerging every day! But I guess it's kind of hard to get the word out being from a country that is so far away. About the line-up it was a hard process and it's only recently that we ended up with the line-up we have right now. Back in 2014 Ody and I we had the idea to make a band that would express our message and that would create the music that we like in order to spread that message. After that the hunting process for guitar and bass started but we had a lot of bad luck in the beginning because we wanted to do something professional and a lot of people didn't have the stomach for it. Thankfully, out of an ad (yeah that actually works!) we found our guitar player Nick and then we brought in Jay for bass who was a former band player of another band that Ody had. That process took years to happen and hopefully we won't be going through it again cause it was very nerve-racking

M: Musically it took about 4-5 months and lyrically I would say about 6 but that happened simultaneously. It wasn't a hard record to write but we were very specific with what we wanted to hear from it and we wanted to have everything perfectly down to the latest detail, so that sometimes was stalling things a little bit because we had to find the perfect thing for what we wanted to hear.

O: I'd say there were only set backs… That was probably the hardest record I've ever made in my musical career and I'm not looking forward to record like that ever again! First and foremost we had the usual thing were some band members think they're all high and mighty and that they are awesome players but the studio man… The studio will break you!!! So we had a couple of members bail on us in the early stages. Then we are notorious for having huge projects with lots of channels which makes them hard to keep in line plus we are super OCD and perfectionists, therefore the studio personnel had a hard time dealing with this record. Luckily the music didn't suffer from it because after that we took manners in our own hands and did everything ourselves in order to get the recordings ready for mixing!

M: Luckily Nick saved the day because he is a hard worker and we are very lucky to have him! He is the one who stayed and got guitars and bass done all by himself! And then Forrester Savell took over mixing and mastering and Order of the Minus was released Oct 31st!

M: I mean no doubt Evanescence was the best band we've played so far and not because they are a huge band but because they are amazing and very down to earth people! They are really cool and approachable and that made the whole experience even better. Plus they are one of my favourite bands and it was such a relief to see that they are awesome personalities and not stuck up people. They were even kind enough to come check our show which is something that doesn't happen very often. As for which band we'd like to play with I have a really long list but top 3 would be Korn, Slipknot and In This Moment!

M: I wouldn't say that Order of the Minus is a concept album but it does revolve around the thematic of loss. Loss as a common denominator between people. A common experience to make us realize that we are not so different after and that if we decide to move forward together maybe we can win something after all. That is our message with this album "unity through diversity". So progressively throughout the album we deal with different kinds of loss and adversities. Social injustice and the loss to have the control of your life because of the way the government controls our lives, war, lost dreams, death and even suicide. The inspiration behind it all was everyday life. From the death of my grandpa and Ody's grandpa, from personal thoughts and anxieties and from what we experience as young people in our country today.

Nice question! Thank you Jo! Well I was always around art in my life! My household was a very artistic household and music, dance and painting were always concerning my parents and my sister so it was only logical for me to get the bug. I started plying guitar when I was 7 and then I moved onto drums at the age of 9 and that's when everything clicked! Right then and there I knew that my life's calling was to become a musician not just a drummer (but drums were and will always be my first musical love). Later on I got piano lessons and now I am noodling on the guitar again because when we started I wanted to be an active member in the band and not some dude just waiting to put a beat behind an idea. Later on in life I fell victim of the ever reoccurring theme here in Greece where you give up on your dreams to become either a doctor, a lawyer or "something that pays money" and actually I'm a trained Special Education teacher. I got my masters Degree and everything and to tell you the truth I still love it but in my heart of hearts I knew I had to be a drummer/musician… So I couldn't escape my calling or my true nature if you will and I went all in with Marianna to form Project Renegade!

O: The artwork was done by Gustavo Sazes (Machine Head, Amaranthe, Arch Enemy). It represents the ability to shape this world and this reality any way you want to if you are brave enough to actually try and make your vision come true. Hence the distorted broken and bend over landscapes ready to shape them as you want to and our symbol in the middle which represents the way we want our music to be used as, meaning as a motivational tool to help you create and reach anything you want to in life as long as it is for the better for your fellow people and yourself.

M: For me "The New Joker" is always one of the best cause it's just really brutal and emotional and also a headbanger for the crowd! O: For me it's "Liber8". I get a kick out of that song cause it's very groovy and a great opener!

M: We have just been confirmed for a fest in Cyprus where we haven't played before and we have some thing lined up here in Greece TBA. But we definitely want to expand as much as we can. No place is too far for us we would play in every country if we could. One of the places we'd like to go are USA, UK, Russia and Japan! We are really lucky cause we've been to a lot of European countries but we'd like to visit new places for sure!

M: Like giving birth actually hahaha! We are really grateful that we managed to make that record and to have an outcome that satisfies us! O: But we are really restless people and we are already writing new stuff! So I guess we are ready to move on to the nett chapter1

O: Hopefully a tour, lots of new material and most definitely new music videos. We love making music videos cause we get very creative and we do everything ourselves!…I 'd like to see my band reach as many peoples it can in 5 years from now and personally I would like to see us participating in some cool slots in these awesome festivals. I love playing big fests where people mosh, jump and release this massive energy! But that's hoping…Who knows what's gonna happen tomorrow!

Thank you very much Jojo! It was awesome talking with you and thank you for your support! We hope to come play in your country and get to know you and of course the readers of Metal Temple Magazine. Take care and till next time keep on rocking!