Marios Iliopoulos has to be one hell of a determined guy... After a not so pleasant break up of his original band Exhumation, he packs his bags, and with middle finger stuck outside the window he leaves Greece to find a better life in Sweden. There he forms a band comprised of some of the masterminds of the music world and with them creates a fantastic debut album "Sweet Vengeance." With Gus G. (Dream Evil, Mystic Prophecy) ripping the strings like there's no tomorrow, complimenting this rabid guitar assault he hires Per M Jensen (The Haunted) and Brice Laclercq on drums and bass respectively and with Tomas Lindberg (ex-At The Gates, now in The Great Deceiver & Lock Up) handling the screams he adds the clean vocals of Tom S. Englund (Evergrey) to inject some diversity into the mix. Regardless of Marios reassurance, will this be a real band or just a project we'll have to wait and see but in the mid-time enjoy the album and read what Marios has to say about band's status, its line up and future plans.

Chris


First of all can you tell me why did Exhumation split and what where you up to since then... Were you involved in any projects before starting Nightrage?

Exhumation split because of the totally unprofessional attitude of the other guys in the band. They saw the whole thing as a hobby and nothing else. A lot of times we were struggling to communicate, and I think I was the only serious guy in the band trying all the time to kick their asses. It was my idea to go and record our album in Sweden in order to have a professional sound, and it was again my idea to sign with labels from abroad just to have better promotion for the band. I felt pretty disappointed with the split of the band, but I realized that it was better for me in the end, because now I have the chance to play and work with professional and dedicated musicians. Nightrage is the only band I've been in after Exhumation split up.

Why did you leave Greece and move to Sweden? Was the music a deciding factor in your decision or did you have personal reasons?

The music was the most basic reason for me to leave my country and move to Sweden because I can tell you it's pretty limited to play metal in Greece. After all this experience I had with Exhumation, playing music for ten years, I realized that it was a dead end for me if I wanted to continue playing music. I don't think you can find serious and professional musicians in Greece. Most of them are more into other things, their personal lives as an example, and music doesn't count for them. I felt - as I told you before - tired and sad from all this negativity, so in order to build a new and powerful band with pros, I made the hard decision to leave everything behind me and move to Sweden.

How difficult was to form Nightrage and how did you persuade all those individuals to join your new project?

It was very difficult to find musicians here as well, because everybody already played with other bands. I approached a lot of guys here, but in the end, nothing really happened. I started to feel that Nightrage is a real band when I met my bass player, Brice. He is from France and he came here for the same reason: to play music, like me. We share the same vision and we have the same dreams. With Gus, he contributed leads to the album. We started this band together in the summer of 2000 in Greece. He helped all this time with the arranging of ideas. I approached Tomas Lindberg personally a lot of times before the recordings with the Nightrage demos, because I just felt that his voice fits with Nightrage a lot. With Per Möller Jensen and Tom S. Englund, Fredrik Nordström from Studio Fredman convinced them to play on the album.

Who was the hardest member to convince to join the band?

Nobody. Maybe Tomas Lindberg because I never got a reply from him during the demo days of Nightrage. Afterwards, it was just a simple phone call and all the guys were into it and ready to roll. Here things going really fast, [laughs]. There's no time for thinking.

I'm sure you are aware of it but with such "all-star" line up and with intense musical activities by each member how do you plan on keeping this crew alive and consequently not making a Nightrage a one album project?

Honestly, I never believed that I would work with all those great musicians on the album, but it just happened and I think it was a great beginning for Nightrage. The only stable guys in the band right now are me and Brice. Per and Tom were only sessions musicians for the album, and they are not going to play live gigs. As far as the schedules of Tomas and Gus allow them to play live shows and festivals, they will be there for us. Hopefully Tomas will be on the next Nightrage album. I can tell you that I consider Nightrage as real band and not a fucking project. So the only thing that we have to worry about now is to find a good drummer for the next album. I can take care of the clean vocals in the live shows and future recordings of Nightrage.

I've already read that Per M. Jensen will not be involved with the next album. Can you tell me why he's out of the band and who will replace him?

That was the deal we had with him from the beginning - to play a session only for the recording of our first album. He is so into his band, The Haunted. Something that we totally respect.

That brings another tough question about live performances and tours. How do you plan on taking Nightrage on a tour since more than half of the band members are heavily involved with their original bands' activities... and we all know no tours no success in this business?

Good question pal. We really like to share this music on stage with metal fans. This is one of our plans, to have more stable guys in the band and to be able to tour and play all the time. It's all about good scheduling. Tomas, he really liked our music and we have a cool friendship with him. We respect the fact that his main band is The Great Deceiver and we really get along together, so I have a good feeling that we will play together and we will have a blast together. As for the drummer spot, we tried a lot of guys recently and we are still looking for a good drummer. Something awesome is that I spoke with Nicholas Barker recently, and he told me he really liked our stuff and there's a chance that he could help us playing the drums live. We still keep contact, and we are looking forward to sharing the stage one day with him having a blast together.

Why "Sweet Vengeance"? Is this album a slap in a face to all the people that didn't believe in you and tried to make your life a living hell? I have this feeling that this album is very personal for you, how far am I from the truth?

I want to take this revenge, this goddamned vengeance, for some people that I used to call friends. I want to scream to their evil and miserable faces about how wrong and mean they were with me. They should look at themselves once and realize their own big faults. Shit, I don't believe how stupid and what assholes even your friends can be. I really wanted to say some things to certain people that I never have the chance to say. This is the truth man, and my vengeance will put their egos and their stupidity down.

Are the lyrics also very personal? What are the main topics you try to convey to the listener?

Yes, our lyrics are very personal and deep. We are dealing with the emptiness of the human existence. I'm talking about some things that hurt me in the past and made me feel desperate. It is a long and lonely trip to the inner and bitter emotions of a man when he is hurt by his past, when he is alone and he is searching for any light at the end of the tunnel. I want to show that if you really believe in your dreams and in yourself, you can do whatever you want. You guys out there: be careful. Life is hard. Always believe in your dreams and don't let anybody put you down. I think a lot of people can relate to situations like that. Nightrage is the light at the end of the tunnel. Is there any light at the end? You have to search it for yourself.

With guitar attack lead by Greeks how did you end up sounding so Swedish? Is it an effect of long time musical influences or was it planned from the beginning?

My influences are coming from a lot of different metal styles. I grew up listening to all those great '80s metal bands like Iron Maiden and Mercyful Fate. I liked the Bay Area thrash metal and Florida death metal a lot. So what we are doing in Nightrage is trying to combine all those elements in our music in order to make them sound in perfect harmony. I also like hard rock and melodic rock music, and sometimes I like to add those cool sounds in our music. I dig also some cool Swedish bands At The Gates and Edge Of Sanity. You can hear all those influences in our album.

Melodic death metal was almost over-exploited by many bands for the last few years. What made you dive into this very competitive genre and what do you think makes Nightrage stand out over the rest of the competition?

The fact that we are honest in what we are doing. We don't want to imitate the sound of other well-known bands. We play music from the heart. I don't consider Nightrage the most original band in the world, but we try to be ourselves and we want to give the best feelings we could. I think we have a pretty cool guitar style with Gus, and we also want to be as metal as we can. We are fans of the music first, and we don't give a shit to sound cool and trendy, like other bands. We are worshipping '80s metal, and we are going to stay metal and play metal!

Very nice addition to your music is clean voice of Tom S. Englund from Evergrey. Whose idea was to add this type of vocals and why did you chose someone from progressive scene?

This was Fredrik's Nordström's idea to use Tom's voice. I was the singer in the demo days of Nightrage, and since my voice had the same sort of feelings, we tried him out, and the results were awesome. I think you can understand that Tom is singing because he has very unique voice, and he complements Tomas' aggressive vocals.

Your very first album is released by metal giant Century Media. How did you land this deal and are you satisfied with the work they've done for you so far?

I can tell you that the key for Nightrage to enter the studio was Fredrik again. This guy - whom I knew from the Exhumation days - liked our songs and our attitude a lot, and he let us record the album in his studio. Then he took care to find the right label for us. We sent the finished material to some well-known labels and immediately Century Media wanted to sign the band. They really liked the songs and the production. They showed this huge interest in the band from the first time they heard Nightrage. So far, everything is going extremely well with them. They are totally professional and they promote the band the right way. I'm very happy to work with such a professional label. This was the plan I had from the beginning.

Did you set any goals that you want to achieve with Nightrage in the future or is it simply a matter of having good time and doing what you love?

It's both, I guess. I want to be able to make some more killer albums in the future, and to have the chance to work with cool guys in the band. I want to have a good time, and to enjoy playing music altogether. We are not going to disappear. We will return with a second and better Nightrage album.

What are the near-time plans for Nightrage? Do you already write material for the new album? If so, please tell us about the musical direction.

It's very early right now and we don't have a single note written for the next album, [laughs]. I have to feel inspired to start to write music and lyrics again. I don't want to force it, it will come. Maybe something has to kick my ass to start to do something, and I hope the lyrics this time will have some more light in there.

Thank you for your time and answering my questions. The last word belongs to you...

Thank you very much for the support. We are looking forward to meeting you and playing in your country. I hope your readers will like our album. Keep on with the metal and always follow your dreams.

I remember when I heard the "Carnage" album from LIK for the first time. I was amazed how it filled the void left by no new releases from Dismember. And when I looked at the line-up I thought it would be just a side project, since the members were involved in some big bands (Bloodbath, Witchery, Katatonia). But as you can read below it's a band with 4 musicians fully dedicated to every release and every show. So, I'm very happy that we will keep on seeing new releases under this name. And the way they follow the Stockholm school of death metal is immaculate. If anyone asked me what this way of playing death metal sounds like, I would immediately recommend going through LIK's releases. The riffs, the drumming, the lyrics, the album cover art - all is done by the book with great attention to detail, inspired by the biggest in this subgenre with a fresh take on it as well. I had an opportunity to chat to Chris Barkensjö (the drummer), and managed to get some interesting details about the band's past, present and future, right after their performance at Mystic Festival. Enjoy!

Maciek

First of all, thank you very much for your time. Fantastic show, I enjoyed it very much. It was such good fun. I noticed that in the beginning there were not that many people and then everyone came in.

Yeah, Decapitated was playing so yeah, we counted on that.

So, you told me you're here for today and tomorrow so you are supposed to spend some more time over at the festival?

I think we are leaving here tomorrow at like 12h00 and we have to catch our flight home. Some of the guys have regular jobs, I mean everybody in the band has regular jobs but we have our duties back home you know. Family and stuff like that, so it's perfect to do just one in and out. We were at Stockholm airport at 06h00 this morning. We had to sleep in the rehearsal place because of the fact that there has been chaos in the airports lately. We played in Holland a couple of weeks ago and we had to spend the night in Schiphol (Amsterdam airport - MW). We were there like 5 hours before, but there was such a queue so we missed our flight and when our flight left, we hadn't even gone through security. So we had to sleep at the airport. So we were like, we're not doing this again. It's not like we are 25 anymore, right? So it's like nah, it's not worth it. But it's been good, we came to the airport this morning and everything just went smoothly of course. Fortunately we have lounge tickets, so we could sit in the lounge for like 5 hours but that's okay. We enjoy each other's company so it's just a couple of friends having a good time.

I have noticed recently that quite a few bands form like this, just a few friends getting together and deciding to make a band.

Yeah, I mean we have fun. We laugh. We get a lot of shit for that especially in the beginning when we started this band it was like "why do guys laugh on stage"? Because we love what we do, and why shouldn't we? You don't laugh when you do something you enjoy? We are four guys who try to have an image like "We're satan", it's not for us. We are just four guys. We're not even doing this shit anymore (refers to devil horns). We're not tough guys, we are just 4 guys like everybody else. We're just having a good time and we love playing live, we love spending time together and everything is just perfect with this band. Everybody is playing in different bands of course. Like Tomas is still playing guitar in Bloodbath, Niklas is playing in Katatonia, I play nowadays just in another band called Mefisto. It's an old school band from Stockholm from '84. Same time as Bathory. And Antman (bassist in LIK - MW) isn't playing in any other band. I used to play in Witchery but I quit.

Oh, have you?

Yeah, I quit 'coz I recorded this coming album but after that I just decided I'm done now. I did 3 albums with those guys and it's been fun but it's not my cup of tea, you know what I mean? It's like I love playing the drums, it doesn't matter what genre it is as long as I can have fun doing it. But it wasn't fun for me anymore and I just want to give all my focus to Lik as much as I can 'coz I mean, I am a father of 3, and married, have a regular job because as I said before the interview, I can't live off this shit. But I'm fine with that, 'coz you know I'm having fun. That's why I'm still doing it If I was supposed to make money out of it, I think I would probably quit decades ago. For now it's for my own satisfaction and for the rest of the guys' satisfaction.

So, this performance at this festival, have you played any festivals this year or are you planning to play any festivals or have any tour?

We played Netherland Deathfest, that's when we got stuck in the airport in Holland and then we played, oh my memory is so bad, ehm, I think we played a boat festival together with Dismember and Horndal (Gefle Metal Cruise - MW) but now after this June is going to be kind of quiet but that's fine. Then in July it starts again, there's going to be festivals for the rest of the year that we know now and in the fall we don't have much going on, so maybe, we'll see. But next year we have tours coming up and stuff like that 'coz everything got postponed 'coz of fucking corona. It's fucked up everything. But I think we have about 12 festival shows this year in total. And they are pretty good festivals too. It's going to be fun.

Do you have any time between those festivals to write any new material?

We talked about it. It's been covid and everybody, and friends of ours are like "oh we have to release another album" but it's like why, we haven't played Misanthropic Breed that much, or I would say at all for that matter. A good thing for us is that people are really starving for live music and they wanna hear the songs from the album live and there's no stress. Metal Blade don't push us, they are like "maybe a single if you want, guys?". But we have been talking about it. I started writing lyrics a couple of weeks ago 'coz I got really inspired watching the serial killer documentary on Netflix about John Wayne Gacy. I was like maybe it's time to start writing lyrics again 'coz I do that a lot - I'm not a guitar player but I do some just flicking the fuck around on the guitar and I send it over to Tomas or I just sing it on the phone and send it and he's like "that's shit, throw that away, okay we can use this". He's an amazing guitar player and he's an amazing musician. It's been him and me, we started this and we've got this formula that works for us and Nikolas always comes in with riffs of course and Antman is pretty new, but he recorded Misanthropic Breed with us. We don't really know what he has in the bag so that's kinda interesting. With that being said, yeah we kinda talked about it for sure. I would like to think that people would like to hear Misanthropic Breed first and just let this year go by and we'll see. We always get inspired during the fall, not in summer 'coz we're slackers. Like fuck that, we'll do that later. But there's no rush, we already released 3 albums and it's going to be hard to top Misanthropic Breed, we know that.

Not for you. The next albums will be better and better.

Maybe, hopefully yeah. I wish it would be that way, but we'll see. The criticism within the band is like this sucks. For example on Misanthropic Breed we have this song called 'Female Fatal To The Flesh' that almost didn't make it to the album. Tomas and myself were like "I don't get the feeling for it you know. You want the song to just sit there and play it naturally, but it didn't stick. And we we're like fuck this song, but Nikolas was like "it is, you guys can fuck off 'coz it's going on the album 'coz it's a good song". And we rehearsed it a few more weeks , and just one day we went in and both Tomas and I are stressful and nervous guys and we went. This sucks, it's not good enough, but then it just landed. It was okay, now it feels good. We found the tempo 'coz we don't record with clicks or anything like that - pure feeling.

Speaking of "Misanthropic Breed", apparently 'Corrosive Survival' is your favorite track?

He's just saying that (Tomas introduced this track during the show as Chris's favourite track - MW) because I came up with that riff, and I recorded it on the phone and sent it over to him, and he said "this sucks" then I said "play it on guitar" and then he thought it was pretty cool and then he came up with all his weird fucking riffs and I had some other riff and I was watching a lot of documentaries about stuff that actually happened. There's a series on HBO about the Chernobyl disaster, I think I've seen it about 6 times. It's amazing. It's a mini series like six episodes and I decided I have to write about this - this is fucking awesome. And I love Autopsy, they had "Severed Survival" so I decided 'Corrosive Survival' is a cool thing 'coz everything was just raining down and this guys was running in the street, and of course there were zombies and shit but hey, I'm just 46, I'm still childish .... but I just love that song because it has this old school death metal vibe that I really enjoy. I really love playing it live, I love rehearsing it, I never get tired of it. And for the crowd it's an instant headbanger when we play that song. You can say it's one of my favorites but he always uses that as a... I don't know.

Do you have any other favorite tracks from all 3 albums which you really enjoy playing?

Well, I guess we're never getting rid of 'Le Morte Homme' from the first album so it kinda got stuck there. I don't like rehearsing it but it's always fun to play it live because everybody goes crazy about it. From the second album, we used to start the set with 'To Kill', I like that song but we haven't played it for a while and I was like 'Death Cult' and 'Left To Die', and we played 'The Deranged'. It's nice if you need a breather and just relax and play along and on the new album I think 'Corrosive Survival' and 'Becoming'. I love that song. The ending on that is so perfect - that's our "Left Hand Path".

It is and I have to say from your music, for quite a few years it was missing from the Stockholm metal scene. We haven't heard new stuff from Dismember, we haven't heard anything new from Entombed.

Entombed, I don't think we should expect anything new from them. Dismember maybe.

I was about to ask, you have Matti as a guest on your album, how did you manage to get him?

Dismember are friends of ours, I've been friends with Matti for a long time and the same with Fred and the other guys too. It's like I just called him and asked "do you want to scream on a song we did" and he's like "yeah send it over, lets see if it's good". Of course it's good. He asked what it's about, I said war. He went "I'll do it". So he just came into the studio, got drunk as fuck and blegh. But yeah, it was fun.

Dismember are still touring a bit, but no new material.

No, they are just playing festivals and they are not going to tour again - I don't think so. At least when I talk to them but I'm not supposed to say too much. I know that they have been working on new material but if there's going to be a new album I can't say. I'm not in the band so. A fun story though is when Fred quit the band I was rehearsing with them but he came back full time fortunately because he has to be the drummer in that band. It's like Cannibal Corpse, if it's not Paul, it's not Cannibal Corpse. Some bands need to have that drummer, 'coz it's not the same.

I was going to ask you about your influences, can you tell us about your influences? Who inspired you to become a death metal drummer?

Someone who definitely inspired me was Dave Lombardo first of all. He's the king and Nicky Anderson when he played in Entombed. Still to this day, my favorite album ever is "Clandestine". The drumming on that album is like wow. It's mind blowing, it's so good. But there are a lot of drummers that are out there. I still listen to the death metal albums I grew up with when I was a kid. I still listen to it today and I still get goosebumps like Morbid Angel, Dismember, Entombed, Unleashed the first albums were so dear to me. Nobody beats that, that sound and that feeling is unbeatable. I think Chris Reifert from Autopsy, his drumming style is also so a little bit punkish sludgy vibe 'coz I would like to think I have that myself. I'm not a technical drummer in that sense, I can play it if I put my mind to it. I love to play with groove and feeling. I want to feel it. I don't have to show off to anyone, I don't have that. When I was young, yeah for sure 'coz you wanted to beat all the old guys like I'm faster than you motherfucker and I started to practice playing fast on the double bass so I can be as fast as Dave Lombardo. That's good enough for me. There's a lot of fast guys out there 'coz when I grew up I didn't have YouTube, I didn't have the tricks. I had to practice and practice and practice. I have a lot of odd drummers that inspire me as well in totally different genres and you can hear some stuff 'coz I'm a total nerd when it comes to drums. My wife is like watching something on a Friday evening and I lose interest or whatever and I'm on the phone, she's like "are you watching drum videos?" I might be watching porn, you don't know that. She's like, no you're not. Look at your Youtube . It's just drums, drums, drums, drums, serial killers, drums, drums, drums. So it's like yeah, I confess 'coz I'm a total nerd to that but I don't necessarily like that new sound that has come up now where the drums sound plastic. I hate that fucking sound. I want it to sound real. When you miss a beat or the sticks hit together, that's when it's real. Everybody's like "it has to be super tight". No, that's not drums. To me drums are in your fucking face. You should feel it in your chest. When you hear the kick drums, it has to be like yeah, kick me, now smack me in the face with the snare drum. You want to fucking feel that you know. I mean I hit it pretty hard but that's just because my idols growing up hit hard. One of my biggest idols from when I was a kid was Eric Carr from Kiss. He was an amazing drummer and a lot of guys don't realize that, they say Kiss suck, well that's your opinion and you're entitled to it but you can't say that Eric Carr was a bad drummer. You can't say that. Look at Dave Grohl. Amazing drummer. I get a lot of inspiration from all of them. Just to answer your question properly (I'm a blabbermouth I know), but Dave Lombardo, Nicky Anderson and Igor Cavalera from Sepultura - I love them and I guess Chris Reifert and I guess the list could be long but those guys inspired me and they are in my system. People notice that and say "oh that fill was like Nicky Anderson" and I'm like okay, cool. I'm satisfied. If you like it, it's cool.

We have talked a bit about the legends, do you see any new bands popping up in the Stockholm death metal scene that you think might follow the similar path or are trying to keep this similar style?

There are some other bands but not necessarily in Stockholm. There's one band that Tomas is friends with. Young guys called Katakomba. But I can't really say 'coz I haven't listened to them yet. But then you have Disrupted from Dalarna in Sweden up north. They are really good, they are fucking awesome. But like I said, I know what I like and I have a hard time getting new death metal to stick. Everybody today is really fast, I don't know what their competition is but this thing with groove and stuff like that - they don't care about it. It's always how fast are you , how fast can you play your double bass drums?. Does that really matter? Nobody can beat Dominator anyway and he's from Sweden and he is the fastest fucking guy I know. He's like wow, you can't beat him and Jalomaah who replaced Dominator in Dark Funeral, I don't know how they do it. It's amazing. And James who plays in Decapitated, he's also silly fast and there are tons of these guys but I think for these 3 guys - wow.

You also mentioned Dark Funeral, which seems to me like Sweden is dominating the black metal scene, Norway seems to be falling a bit behind. What bands do you like from Sweden who are playing black metal? Or are you not into black metal?

I'm into black metal but I'm thinking if there is anything from Sweden. I like Marduk. A favorite of mine - and they released an album this year - is Funeral Mist. Everything they released is like wow. I like my black metal violent, and that is violent with a black metal sound. It's crappy, but crappy in a good way, it's black metal crappy. I think Norway is still in the lead with bands like 1349 with Frost, it's really, really good. And Craft of course from Sweden, they are good. But I'm not out there looking for black metal, they just fell into my lap because my wife was big into black metal. She was a black metal bitch, she still is, but not a bitch, just still listening to black metal. She turned me onto a lot of stuff.

Thank you very much for your time and any last words for the readers?

Keep listening to Misanthropic Breed, there will be a new album out some time, but I don't know when. Maybe next year? Maybe the year after that, I don't know. Keep supporting death metal and smile while you're at the show, it doesn't hurt your face.