Interview- DerDRAKOS

Ok dears and darlings, pukk up your chair just a little closer now. You wont want to miss a word of the following interview with the Awesome DerDRAKOS!!

Zeph: How did you come up with the name of your band, DerDRAKOS? Who are the current members of the band?

DerDRAKOS: 'Drakos' is the Greek word for dragon or snake, is also a title given to the Devil and to prince Vlad III the Impaler: both of them are two of our greatest inspirers. We added the German article 'der', making a Teutonic-Hellenic matching of sounds in the name DerDRAKOS.


Zeph: When was DerDRAKOS formed and what inspired you to create the band?

DerDRAKOS: We are a father and son duo. Steve has teached his son Alex how to listen to music and select the best from the rest, he saw him become an excellent creator of sounds and songs through the years. In 2005 we decided to be a very special kind of band: born from our family Clan, electronic, magic, nationalist and misanthropic at the same time because based on a strong European and individual identity. DerDRAKOS are here through blood to blood from millions of generations, and like millions of other Europeans we are total aliens to the social-puritan, political-correct, guilt-ridden, anti-offence, anti-smoke hypocrite, multi-cultural rip off that is doomed to die in the next few years with a harsh civil war. The only 'moral principle' of today's world is: YOU MUST NOT MAKE SENSE. If you make too much deep sense then you are Hell for all: that's exactly what we are.


Zeph: Tell us about your unique style of music and who are your major influences?

DerDRAKOS: Our music is industrial techno, "laced with speed metal riffs-loops and stabbing cyberpunk synth lines" as someone has written about us. We have risen from the '90s hard techno that we heard on the Italian and German dance radios, in those days when Alex was still a grey-eyed little demon who detested going to school, so after doing his homework we were blasting the radio and dance while recording it, we still have the cassettes with those great programs.


Zeph: What sort of equipment do you use in the making of your music?

DerDRAKOS: We use good computers, softwares, keyboards, a load of electronic sounds from different machines, with a preference for certain ones on which we make our experiments to invent new variations, an electric guitar, regular microphones, regular headphones, powerful speakers. When the songs are ready, we bounce every single instrument line of every song in aiff files, we bring these files for mixing in bigger studios, keeping control of the work until the final mastering and the CD printing.


Zeph: Does DerDRAKOS play live? If so what are your favorite venues? If not then do you plan to do so in the future?

DerDRAKOS: We never played live until now. In the right situations we will do it. Several DJ’s are spinning our new CD in clubs and in radios worldwide with a quite fanatical response, which is what we want, people play our songs at home because they find them inspiring, kids blast them through their cars’ subwoofers, it's all fine.


Zeph: What has been your biggest challenge with DerDRAKOS thus far?

DerDRAKOS: The hardest challenge was to find the right collaborators: an excellent studio for alternative music that could understand our very particular sound and attitude, for mastering our songs in a powerful and professional way, then an excellent printer to release our CD’s, tracks master and covers, in high style special editions. We found both of them. Now the next move is to collaborate with a good record label and management.


Zeph: What are some of the highlights of DerDRAKOS and what are your goals for the future... such as where do you hope to be with DerDRAKOS 5 years from now?

DerDRAKOS: We just think about living well, rigth now.


Zeph: Tell us about your latest release, "BLOOD TO BLOOD", and what's next for DerDRAKOS?

DerDRAKOS: The new "BLOOD TO BLOOD" CD is a 13-tracks industrial techno bombshell, produced in a digipack black matte edition with a twelfe-page color booklet and full lyrics. In this work, we gave a new strength to our tracks through dark atmospheres, unclean electronic sounds, hammering kicks+bass, very much importance to the vocals parts, to the lyrics related to ancient theatre traditions, together with a powerful mixing work and great attention to the graphic arts created by artist-film maker Susi Medusa, who is also our main female vox. Check it out in our websites, get the CD and send us feedback: we are interested to see what can still cause a little bit of reaction in this general state of coma, on this polluted decadent globe. We are constantly working on new lines of sound, trying to materialize our visions, so coming next will be the CD's and the videos that we'll release using our time.


Zeph: What are your views on the current Techno/Industrial scenes?

DerDRAKOS: As always, there are some good artists on the scene as well as many other boring maggots. The power of an original band is a real pleasure to experience. But all those kinds of musical niches and underniches, each one with their strict sect-like mentality, are a joke. Just the other day we were talking to a DJ form another country, asking him what good techno labels exist in his land: his answer was that he is a 'gothic' DJ and he does not have any contacts with 'technoid' ambients... How bleeding stupid is to be your own segregator. Is good to be selective of course but that's pathetic and is, we think, one of the main reasons why the public does not dig much the industrial-electro-goth scene: because it looks like a private graveyard. We are all using the machines, produced by the industry to make music, for we love the incredible energy and vitality that storms from our speakers, not because we feel the need to conform to another little lousy mini-regime composed by four or five zombies. Electronic music has a huge potential, so just spread it in the real world!


Zeph: What are your views on collaborations and do you have any collaborations coming up?

DerDRAKOS: We try to keep our music pure, which means that it must be touched only by us and by our best mixer guys and printers. No re-mixes, thanks. But as we said before, we like to collaborate with talented persons on certain projects. We'll see.


Zeph: How long have you been in the music industry and how has it changed over time?

DerDRAKOS: We have just started as a new band, we know that the music circuits are shark pools and we try to avoid losing our time with creeps. The only change that we see, from the past decades, is today's collapse of the so-called music market and we just don't care: we are here to create good tracks and to blast them in the world's face. We enjoy to see youths dancing like viking berserks to our sound, all the rest does not matter.


Zeph: Where do you typically get your inspiration for songs?

DerDRAKOS: From our own instincts of sex and hate.


Zeph: If there were one thing you could change about the music industry today what would it be?

DerDRAKOS: First, burn the hiphop and (c)rap mongrels with all their golden pushers: they are the new scum-dealer establishment and they must be dealt with by special police forces (with a good lethal treatment for those singing that they need drugs or rape girls or rob stores or shoot the sheriffs etc. etc.). Second, propagate quality music made by real artists, men and women. We are perfectly intolerant on this point and don't make any mysteries. All brutal changes start in the right time from a radical elite, are carried out by loyal warriors and skilled mercenaries and later sanctioned by the people, the music scenes are no exception to this natural rule. On an individual level is a simple matter of fast decisions: throw away your useless - and expensive - ipods or iphones, don't buy them at all, stop financing the big corporations when they produce gadgets for morons, when they promote soundtracks for the life of retards like hiphop or (c)rap, or fatuous cotton candy pop for tv-supermarket amoebas. Get the real CD's and vinyls instead, support the artists who cast their own blood and spirit into them, the radios that broadcast them, the labels that produce them by all effective means.


Zeph: How do you feel about the issue of people downloading music and sharing music on the internet?

DerDRAKOS: When someone downloads a song or a whole album and pays the artist, then is ok. It will never be as good as the real CD or vinyl, but is still a form of support for the bands and the producers. The so-called ‘sharing’ instead is good only for wasting all the bands’ and the labels’ work and lives, practised by naive idiots and professional criminals that the public should not help: but the public does help them instead of fight them and the law does nothing against them, so what are we supposed to think about that?..


Zeph: How is DerDRAKOS being received by the public? Has the response been good?

DerDRAKOS: As a band, DerDRAKOS can only create hard line supporters or enemies. DerDRAKOS supporters are the greatest dangerous people you may ever wish to meet. Reviews have been good, even the negative ones because they can't deny our artistic strength. Please note that we are not 'sluts', we don't paint our faces like clowns, we do not feel like being part of a 'circus' or music whorehouse, we don't give a damn if we sell ten CD's more or less. We are two very real guys, a son and a father that don't like to hold back what they think. This is important in an era of sissy posers and popular gangsters, whether you appreciate or not our music.


Zeph: Have you ever played or do you have any plans to play the U.S.?

DerDRAKOS: In the right situation, as we said, we'll do it. The USA are an European invention with an European official language. We are Europeans and we totally agree with America's founding ideals: freedom of expression and right of armed self-defence. We look forward to be your guests and have a great time together.


Zeph: Is there anyone special you would like to acknowledge, and anything you'd like to add?

DerDRAKOS: Stay pure, proud, hateful.

Zeph: Thank you very much for taking the time to do this interview with me. It is very appreciated and I hope to speak with you again soon.