Interview: CRANNK goes to Greece and meet the band SUNLIGHT -

We got a mail from a band from Greece, wanted us to have a look at their new video, “Struggle for deliverence”. And I watched the video and listened to the the album on Spotify and thought that, I like it, and the guys deserves the chance to be heard. So I e-mailed back and asked them for an interview, and here it is:

So who am I “talking” to?
Hello, my name is Makis and I am the guitar player of Sunlight.

Could you introduce the band and the members for us?
Sunlight is a Hard Rock/Heavy/Power Metal band from Athens, Greece that was founded at the end of 2009. In their early times, Sunlight introduced themselves as a purely hard rock band. After some short period of successive line-up changes, the band shifted to a more heavy metal style, often incorporating elements of typical power metal. At present, the line-up consists of Dimitris Giannakopoulos (vocals), Makis Kaponis (guitars and backing vocals), Panos Anastopoulos (keyboards), Dimitris Kapoukakis (drums) and Panos Mourtzinos (bass guitar and backing vocals).

As I said in my response to your e-mail, in these dark times in Europe, you have a really “happy” name to your band… How come you choose the name “Sunlight”? It’s not very metal…?
The first members were citizens of Ilioupoli (which in Greek means “the city of sun”), so the name “Sunlight” was proposed by Nikolas (ex-bass player) to remind the origins of the band. Hm, I think that a band makes its name and not vice-versa.
I’ve been listening a bit to your album “My own truth”. Is this your debut-album? And if so, can you tell me a bit about the recording of the album?
We have also released, 4 years ago, one EP that is called “Rockin’ All Around” and it includes 3 song from “My Own Truth which is our debut full length album. The recordings of the album have been completed since summer of 2014, but it was released on May of 2015, because we were searching for the best offer from record labels. Between 2011 and 2015 we had also some changes in the line-up, but it was the right choice for our needs.

What are your influences? Listening to the album “My own truth” I sense a bit of Europe, a slice of Helloween and maybe a bit of Iced Earth… Am I wrong? What is your truth? 😉
I think you’re right. We have many influences from different bands. We like Hard Rock bands such as Deep Purple, Whitesnake, Europe, H.E.A.T, Bon Jovi etc. and many Heavy Metal/Power bands such as Iron Maiden, Queensryche, Judas Priest, Helloween, Stratovarius, Avantasia and many more. So, we try to combine, if it’s possible, these styles in our music to create nice melodies, with heavy riffs. This is our truth 😉

A metal-band from Greece! That’s really cool! I really don’t have a clue about the metal-scene in Greece. Could you please tell me a bit about it?
In Greece we have many great metal bands. Some of them make a really great success worldwide (Firewind, Rotting Christ, Innerwish etc.). I believe there are many problems for greek bands to promote their music abroad and make their own name successful due to financial conditions.

Since I don’t know the metal-scene in Greece, is it difficult being a metal-band? Or do gigs come easy?
The problem is that Metal music is not in greek culture, so you will not see or listen to metal bands on greek TV and Radio stations, except of a few media. Fortunately, there are some fans who support the metal-scene and they arrange metal festivals. There also some venues that you can book gigs with other bands and play for local people, but when a band from another country plays, you will see many more fans in gigs.

You’ve released the album “My own truth” recently, how do you promote the album?
After a successful collaboration with the well-known Greek producer Dion Christodoulatos, the debut album was waiting to be released. Eventually, the band signed a contract with the biggest Ukrainian independent metal music label, Metal Scrap Records, and the release-date was set for the 30th of April 2015 in Ukraine and the beginning of May worldwide. So, our label promote the album with its the worldwide distribution. You can find many reviews of our album in a lot of magazines and webzines such as Metal Hammer, Rock Hard etc.. Everybody can order the album with a message in our official facebook page or in a lot of web stores (Metal Scrap,Amazon, Itunes etc.). Moreover, we organized numerous live performances and a tour. It’s really nice that in a very short period “My Own Truth” was completely sold out in some of the countries that was distributed.

Do you have an audience outside Greece?
Yes, as I said, numerous live performances were organized for the promotion of “My Own Truth” and a tour, including concerts in Greece and Ukraine. Now, our plan is also a European tour in the next months.

When you’re not playing in the band, what do you do to earn money? Do you have “real” jobs? Please tell me what you do!
In my opinion, being a musician should be concidered as a “real” job, as we have many expenses and we work really hard for rehearsals, writing songs and arranging tours. Here we can find one more problem in Greece and in most of the countries. Many people have the belief that they are making you a favor by letting you play in their clubs, ignoring the fact that the fans are there for you and your music,so the payment is not satisfying at all.Under these circumstances,as you understand, it is necessary for us to have another job in order to make our living. Some of us have studied in Universities and work as Chemical Mechanic, Web developer and Ship Mechanic. Other members work as music teachers in Music schools.

You released an album in 2015. What’s your plans for the year of 2016?
Of course, we continue to give our best in the live performances to promote our songs. Moreover, we have already started to compose new songs for our second full length album and we try to arrange a European tour at the end of the year. We will announce more about this in the next days.

And as a final question… or rather… I will give you the chance to really promote yourself! Give me a sales-pitch, why should we listen to Sunlight?
First of all we like this kind of music and we do everything with passion. So, if someone is a fan of strong rhythm section, melodic guitars, leading keyboards, wide-range vocals, catchy melodies and memorable choruses I believe it would worth listening to our music.

CHEERS!

\m/ Peps

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