Ελληνικά
Last Updated on 05:12 PM by Giorgos Tsekas
It’s a pleasure to finally have you on Metal Invader. How have you been lately?
All good here on our side. We´re getting ready for festival season and are super excited to be on the road again soon! Also pushing forward some cool projects for the band to come still this year!
Back in Greece this summer, next to Amon Amarth and Kreator. What was the last time you were here, can you recall any specific memories?
Playing Greece is always a highlight – very, very enthusiastic fans – it´s a blast every time. This time a festival for the first time, so far we only did club shows in Greece, so we´re keen to see what festivals in Greece feel like! And of course the traffic in Athens is always a memory to stay – it´s war! We almost get killed every time!
Your most recent album, “Of Truth and Sacrifice”, was out right before the Covid 19 quarantine blew off the world – how did the album go, are there any particular comments you can recall? I imagine that promoting a new work during this period should be odd as touring was off the list.
It´s been a strange situation. I mean we did a live break for over a year and then you want to start over again with a new record and then the pandemic hits the world and so you´re not ending your live break, you´re actually starting a new break for more than two years – that was really a misery. But on the other hand the fact that no bands were playing live a t all around the time of our release made people concentrating more on the releases and the albums that came out. So the sale figures were quite good and we got a lot of attention with the record also from people who would maybe not listen to HSB during “normal” times.
Did that period of quarantine allow you to be more creative or you took your times for yourselves and come back stronger and better after that?
>We had just released a record and we did not feel like going back to studio and record a new album right away after this. Too many bands did that and release schedules of labels are still packed with corona records that were written during the pandemic. So we focused more on our private lifes, which was great and a good way to build up even more strength for the things to come.
During the band’s recent years, you have played tons of shows. Can you recall anything specific that will forever like make you laugh maybe?
There are millions of crazy things, like naked crowd surfers in Mexico, vast misunderstandings in Japan (no details here, haha) or broken drum risers in Australia – a lot of stuff happened and we´re thankful we have all the memories.
Let’s go back to the early days of the band. Late 90’s/early 00’s. What has changed for HSB? I mean, most likely a lot, but more specifically?
We´re probably the last ones being able to give a valid answer to that. Of course we got older, we have families and more duties now and it´s harder finding and negotiating dates together. But our attitude, our approach and the way we try to handle things is pretty much the same. We´re still pretty much sticking to our old DIY attitude and that is something that keeps us away from the craziness of the music business.
Do you prefer, headline venue shows, or open air festivals?
It´s different sports. Just like Indoor-Volleyball and Beach Volleyball. It kind of looks the same, but it feels totally different and also other things are important. We like both and do not want to miss either of them.
Back in Greece in a couple of months, as we discussed earlier! What do you expect from the audience?
Nothing less than madness and craziness from the fans – as always in Greece! It took us more than 10 years to come back to Greece at last and many many fans write us how happy they are that we´re coming again at last – we´re so ready for these open arms!
What should we see on stage from you, given that there’s most likely a new generation of fans down on the audience for you?
We´ll give everything, like every time we hit the stage, we´re not doing this long journey to deliver an average show!
