Revolting Greeks

Hellhammer_x09: Hello! First of all please tell us a short history of Revolting Breed...
Andrew: Hello Hellhammer_x09, and many thanks to you and to Metalfan webzine for giving us this chance of saying a few things about our band! Revolting Breed was formed in 2004 in Patras, Greece and through the next two years the band has taken part to several shows in local clubs over Greece. In may of 2006 we produced and recorded our first full-length "Rise Against" that was later mixed and mastered by Andy Classen at Stage One Studios (Germany) and is available as a self-financed work by the beginning of 2007.By the time "Rise Against" was released we gave several gigs here in Patras and all over Greece until now. But our current priority is studio work and pre-production for our new tracks which are already taking form and the recordings for our second full-length album are soon to take place within the late months of 2008.
 
Hellhammer_x09: Last year you have released your first full-length, "Rise Against". How would you describe this album to the people who haven't heard it yet?
Andrew: Rise against is absolutely an aggressive metal album based and influenced on the "new wave of melodic Swedish death metal" genre, bands like The Haunted, At The Gates,etc etc, mixed with "American metal" influences from bands such as Machine Head, Lamb of God, etc etc... We believe that the best term to refer to our album would be "Thrash/core" as it combines the classic metal "recipes" like fast thrashy parts and fast double-bass drumming with hardcore elements such as d-beats and groovy breakdown parts and all of the above combined with melodic based guitar riffs and aggressive high pitched socially related vocals and lyrics.

Hellhammer_x09: I've seen that even you are from Greece, your sound is somewhere between the Swedish and the American scene, which are your influences?
Andrew: It's just the combination of sound that Revolting Breed are mainly influenced by and would like to have on their own music as well but we believe that our previous answer covered that particular question.

Hellhammer_x09: Why have you decided to self release this album? Are you looking in the future to sign a deal with a house records?
Andrew: That decision was taken long before the recordings began. It was more like we wanted to have that album "constructed" and distributed to the people, completely based on our own financial efforts and our own moderated non profitable distribution means such as the internet, mail, distros, hand-in-hand distribution and of course our own gigs. Let's just say that by that time, in a simpler way, we were not feeling rather good with our album to be treated as a label's "Product" and of anyone trying to take advantage of it for his own financial profit and that also explains it's "low" price of 5 euros.

Hellhammer_x09: Which are the reactions world-wide regarding Revolting Breed? The metalfans, the metal media...?
Andrew: Since the release of our album "Rise Against”, people’s reaction was overwhelmingly good and more than positive! We receive many comments by  people worldwide, on a daily basis, telling us to keep up the good work and stuff and also a lot of people expressing their desire to see us "live" on many parts of the globe... which is more than hopeful and "welcoming" to us and we would like to thank all these people for their support. We have also received a rather large amount of good critiques on metal media and web-zines here in Greece, Europe and worldwide.

Hellhammer_x09: It's hard to make it as a band on the metal scene from Greece?
Andrew: We wouldn't say that "survival" as a metal band in Greece is difficult. Although there is a certain amount of good competition from bands that have been around or have been raised up in the last few years (in all genres including ours), we believe that with good-willed efforts and persistence to certain goals of musical nature, one metal band can make one hell of a good things here in Greece.

Hellhammer_x09: Let's return to your debut album, "Rise Against", where have you recorded it?
Andrew: The recordings as well as sound editing procedures were done completely by ourselves during the summer months of 2006 here in our home-town Patras in Greece. Afterwards during winter '06-'07(the first months of '07 actually) we had our album co-mixed and mastered by Andy Classen at Stage One Studios (Germany) and it finally came to surface a few weeks after, when the whole thing was ready including the
digipack printings and artwork.

Hellhammer_x09: What can you tell us about the lyrics, what are your preferred themes? Are they fantasy inspired or are dealing more with reality?
Andrew: Well we wouldn't say they are fantasy related at all... actually they are more like socially related lyrics, punctuating problems that the modern man and society faces in his every day life. Problems such as morals and dignity values being sacrificed and enslaved to financial profits and social benefits, mass media submission/hypnosis and etc of such nature.

Hellhammer_x09: Some metalfans think if that if you don't wear leather pants, spikes and if you don't wear black t-shorts than you are maybe some commercial band. What is your opinion about this kind of people?
Andrew: Well what can we say.... we guess every man with his own way of thinking...although we believe that it's quite narrow-minded for people to judge a band's music or it's levels of commerciality according to these ridiculous and stupid criteria! Yeah... it's just so stupid!

Hellhammer_x09: What do you know about Romania? About the metal/hardcore bands around here?
Andrew: The truth is we don't know much about Romania or even Romanian bands...but we 'd like to be given the opportunity to come in contact with bands from up there or even come and play some gigs with these bands and vice versa!

Hellhammer_x09: It would be any chance to see you here in the near future?
Andrew: Although our every day lives are so full of obligations such as "job" for some band-members and issues of financial nature, we sure hope to visit you someday in the near future!

Hellhammer_x09: Which do you think is the key of success as a band? First of all, do you play for the audience or for you?
Andrew: Now that's a tricky one... Our basic principal is to play the music, the way we truly want it without thinking the outsider's reaction while rehearsing or composing it. At least that's what counts for the word "personality" in a band's music, according to our opinion.

Hellhammer_x09: Which were your favorite album, band and concert of the year that just passed?
Andrew: According to my tastes, most favorite album for the previous year (concerning Greek bands) would be Inveracity's Extermination of Millions, and our favorite live show would be Metallica's Gig in Athens -July '07 that was quite shocking for us in many aspects... since we are great Metallica fans!

Hellhammer_x09: Thank you for the interview! In the end would you like to send a message to the metalfans from Romania?
Andrew: Thank you Hellhammer_x09 once again for this interview opportunity, and thanks to all our Romanian fans and supporters. We sure look forward to see you soon on a live show. Stay real!