Hi Grigoris, thanx!

We already had a rerelease of the F.T.U. album a few years ago on High Vaultage Records (Germany). That did well but Rusty Cage Records kept asking us to release that classic on their Dutch Cult Classics series as well. So after about 4 years we finally said: Oh well, Ok but...we need to do something different for our fans. We have to put some new songs on it as well as a sort of bonus. When we started writing and recording the new material it was quite obvious that the new material could not just be some bonus material for the F.T.U. album . So, we came up with the idea of releasing a double digipack, for the price of a single album, with Fear as a new release and F.T.U. as a re-release. Fortunately R.C.R. supported that idea as well and soon we called this double digipack Fear The Universe.

Yes and no. Of course we thought of releasing a full-length CD but we made the deal with R.C.R. that they would have the opportunity of re-releasing the F.T.U. classic album. So when putting along with this re-release those 5 brand new songs you might say Fear is indeed a teaser and yes MARTYR will write new songs for a completely new full-length album. But don't ask me when that will be released. We will start writing brand new material after our release party next Friday the 20th of February.

As I mentioned it started the other way around. There is still so much interest in the old MARTYR records and they are quite hard to get actually. So R.C.R. offered us the chance to release it again on their Dutch cult classics series. That was a cool idea for us but we wanted more for us and more for the fans.

By writing and adding new songs the band as well was thrilled to let their audience hear some more different songs. But was also thrilled as well, after 20 years, to let out their own new ambitions and to be creative again in the writing process!!

What we have been trying to do with Fear is not letting go totally of the 80's feel , but because of our own progression, and the fact that we are 20 years away from the F.T.U. release, it has a modern twist on the songs. That is our purpose, not to be completely different from the older material , but yet to sound stronger, with of course a better sound and fresh ideas. We kept the basic elements in the songs, but approached them with a more modern vision. So Fear can be hopefully seen as the bridge to bigger things and a bigger development for MARTYR in the near future!

Yes, Fear is a result of team work. All the band members contributed ideas to all of the songs. One song called Take Me Home is a kinda different story. We didn't finish it before we went into the studio. We never rehearsed it in a finished state. The night before the recordings I wrote down the arrangements and during the recordings I gave signs to the guys which part of the songs was coming next. We recorded it in 1 track !! So that was kinda experimental for us , but it worked out great!!

We are never 100% satisfied. But we are very happy with the result. It has been recorded by Jack Nobelen in his studio in Belgium. Jack is a good Hard Rock/Metal sound engineer and producer. It was very nice working with him, as he is a good guitar player as well. So he came up with some tips on guitar parts and arrangements and so, which was great!

The new MARTYR era started at 'Keep It True IV'. Then we realized by the extreme positive response of all our fans out there that we didn't wanted to lose that great feeling again on stage and off stage. KIT has a very special place in our hearts still!. It is an unique and great festival , because of the enthusiasm of the organization! Around that time F.T.U. and D.A.T.E. we already re-released so KIT was also good promo for these releases as well!

The LIZZY tour was a blast. 5,700 km in 2 weeks, doing 10 shows with them. They are GREAT guys and we had lots of fun with them. They gave us everything we needed to do a great show. And we did have great shows. I honestly can say that we were a good support act for the LIZZY guys because, though not all the LIZZY fans had heard about MARTYR before, we got terrific response everywhere. So the fans were indeed warmed up when LIZZY hit the stage. A great band as well, good musicians, and good Metal music!

There are some shows planned, most important is our release party next Friday the 20th of February. There will be a lot of friends and Press over there. We are currently working on some summer festivals and will play 'Elsrock 2009' for sure with FLOTSAM & JETSAM. And also we are working on a new European tour this summer but that is not yet totally confirmed. But you are right, keep yourselves informed by our website or MySpace!

Yes, we will. We are very happy with R.C.R. and we hope they are happy with MARTYR as well. But that depends on sales, right? Haha! If possible we would love to stay with R.C.R.. They are great guys and really fanatics. But what is also very important, they come from the same era, like the same things we do, and even have the same ideas we have, about how things should work, should sound, should look. A nice story for instance is that both Remco (R.C.R.) and MARTYR came upon the exact same idea for the Fear CD cover without knowing from each other what they would come up with.

I think MARTYR did not had the luck of receiving the right promotion by their former record companies: Megaton and Metalloid. Both lacked enough money to do international promotion and distribution because I just know, by all the reports I received, and still receive, that there should have been a much greater market for MARTYR that we reached 20 years ago.

Thanx, Grigoris. It was an honor for me to do the interview for you and Metal Temple magazine. I hope all our Greek fans, and I know there are a lot of true Metal fans in Greece, will like the old as well as the new release on Fear The Universe. And we have been waiting a long time to play Greece someday. Let's hope it will work out somewhere this year so we can finally meet all you Metal maniacs out there really soon!!! Rock On!!