PINK CREAM 69 INTERVIEW |
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German melodic metal band Pink Cream 69 have just released yet another brilliant album, "Thunderdome", and it was natural to shoot some questions on the way to drummer Kosta Zafiriou.
Interview by Claus Jensen |
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1) You've left Massacre Records after having been there for quite a good deal of years - why did you leave them?
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"SPV has the strongest distribution net in Europe for all kinds of rock and metal music. Besides this, the A&R manager of SPV who signed us always liked the band. A couple years ago he told us to contact him when our contracts with Massacre run out. Nevertheless we were absolutely satisfied with the job Massacre had done and still have a good relationship to them - still SPV is the bigger company, and we hope to benefit from this. Having an own management company, the most important part of the company for us is to simply place our CD´s in the stores."
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2) Your new label is SPV, who is one of the biggest labels in the hard rock/metal world nowadays - how did that deal come in place, and what do you think they can do for you that Massacre couldn't?
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"This goes together with question 1."
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3) "Thunderdome" is an awesome melodic heavy rock album - what makes this album different from your previous efforts?
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"Thanks a lot! In the mid of the 90´s we understood that if a music fan buys Pink Cream 69, he wants to hear Pink Cream 69. Simple as that. Our musical style is like a field, but within this field we try to check every corner. I think in this kind of music, the most important argument is strong songwriting - that´s where we try to improve and get better from record to record. The thin line is not to repeat yourself, but also not to go too far from what people associate with your name."
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4) There's a cover song on the album ("My Sharona"), and I've always hated that song. Not even your cover of it makes the song any better for me, hehe. What made you chose to do this cover version? And do you think that it fits in on the album?
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"It´s funny, I never expected that everybody would ask for this song, for us it was not a big deal. The story is very simple: After we were done with the main recording sessions for this record, we figured it would be better to record two more songs for the simple reason that we have to provide a bonus track for Japan, one for South America and one for the limited edition in Europe. Dave had a few songs recorded as a demo, one of those two was My Sharona. We thought it fits very well to his voice and decided to do it. To keep it interesting for ourselves, we decided not to rehearse the song as a band: We sat together and shortened the solo a bit, that was it. Everybody had to learn the song alone, then we met in the studio and jammed it out. That´s why it sounds in the arrangement very close to the original with a PC 69 vibe going on. Actually it was intended to become the bonus track for Japan, but after friends and management heard the song, they forced us to put it on the regular version ;-)"
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5) What is the thunderdome? Is it the place where you take your fans to with the music? :-) Or is it more of a futuristic concept?
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"Basically the lyrics of a few songs on this record are about the mania of talent shows in TV we have going on at the moment. Each journalist, I talked so far also had them in their country, but in Germany it is getting really extreme. Nearly every channel has his own talent show! We find it pretty sad, since it seems to us it is not about finding musical talents, it is more the show to see how they cry when they fail, how the big music producer will verbally kick their ass if he doesn´t like their voice, how they will throw mud at each other and so on. They are all thrown in the Thunderdome, and we all watch TV to see who dies and who doesn´t. It is meant more in a metaphoric way - to connect the Thunderdome to our band, we had our graphic artist build the dome out of guitar and amp parts."
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6) You're based in Germany, but the band is actually quite international - with members from USA, UK and Greece … what does this "internationality" bring to the music?
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"It definitely brings a variety in musical backgrounds and influences of each member. This certainly helped a lot to create our own style. If we all grew up in the same area of Germany, I am 100% sure the band would sound different."
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7) PC69 have been around for many years - which albums stand out as your high-points, and which ones as the absolute lows in the band career? And why …?
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"My all time faves are (at the moment…) One Size fits all, Electrified, Sonic Dynamite and Thunderdome. The weakest without a doubt is Change - although it has some good songs, the production is terrible."
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8) The melodic heavy rock scene isn't exactly as big anymore compared to when PC69 started out in the 80's … have you been experiencing this "on your own body", so to speak? Did you see a decline in your sales over the 90's? And how is it going right now sales wise?
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"Sure, we absolutely can tell that the whole scene went down very much. In contrary to Metal, Hardrock lost very much of the attention it used to have. Since we also changed our musical style in the mid of the 90´s, it´s hard for me to tell what is our part and what the scene. Put it that way: We started up with a lot of success, went down very much, and build the band up again to the point where we stand now: Being able to make records and tour in many countries - and we arte really proud of this!"
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9) Do you thinking in any way that the appearance of MP3's and file-swapping has had any influence on the number of albums you sell?
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"Definitely! There is not one band or artist in the market now which does not suffer from this. Myself being a part of a management company in the music business, I am confronted with this problem permanent. These days it is called file sharing, 10 years ago it was tape trading. I think the base of the problem is the price policy of the industry. The companies were fast with rising the prices when we changed formats from vinyl to CD - but they forgot to take the prices down when producing CD´s cost only 50, 30 or even 20 % it used to. They were fast with cutting down advance payments for the artists - but the prices stayed. I honestly think, with a price range around 10 Dollars/Euros for full price products, well made artworks and thought out booklets, the consumers will download or copy to have a check, but the majority will buy "the real deal" if they like the music. So did most of the tape traders in the past as well.... "
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10) Dennis has been producing your albums (as well as many other bands) … do you ever feel the need for an "outside" ear to the music and the production?
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"Not really. In the studio he is the man responsible for the whole production. He is very concentrated and works a lot to get the best results. In other words, he not really a band member of PC69, when producing our records. He knows very well how the band has to sound like. Working with Dennis also gives us the luxury of having un-limited time to produce until we are all happy. Besides the huge bands, who can afford this? At the end of the day, I think the advances are by far stronger than the need for an outside ear - even with these ears we did not always make good experiences…"
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11) David is also singing for Adagio, and several of you guys are doing other projects besides PC69 - how do you keep the focus on the main band?
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"Of course we need to arrange our timings: David is singing for Adagio as well, besides this he has two cover bands he is playing with in our area. Dennis produces a lot of bands, Koffl is a very active songwriter for several acts, I am a manager and a tour manager for my company. We talk about our jobs and arrange the timing and our obligations to the best we can. If nobody is jealous to the other, there is always a solution. Just to give you one example: David did many interviews so far, but now he went on tour with Adagio throughout February. Now Alfred and I will do all of them. Dennis has been in Brazil for the last two months producing the new record of Angra, so he couldn´t do any interviews. Therefore the other 3 guys will have to do the interviews on the tour, where I´ll do the tour management and therefore will be limited in my time. We look at it in a very professional way and help each other out."
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12) What can we expect from you guys in the future - both as projects and solo albums and of course also in terms of PC69?
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"Hopefully lots of good records! We never tried to plan too much into the future. At the end of the day everything depends very much if you still enjoy that you are doing. This is probably the key for us being around so long, and I don´t want to change this - very possible, a few of the guys will come up with their first solo records - don´t worry, not me!!! :-)"
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13) You've never played in Denmark - will we ever get to see you play up here?
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"It is not easy to decide for us, it strongly depends on some promoter to invite us….we are ready!"
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14) What's your 5 favorite hard rock albums of all time?
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"Ozzy - Diary of a Madman Rainbow - Live on stage The Cult - Sonic Temple Queensryche - Operation Mindcrime Def Leppard - Hysteria" |
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15) If you have to name 5 new comer bands in this genre that you really like, who would that be?
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"Unfortunately there is no 5 really good bands…..maybe I am not informed enough…. Edguy (are they still considered Newcomers?) I followed this band since their second album and I find Tobias to be a very talented songwriter. Shakra - good straight ahead AC/DC style band."
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16) Any last words?
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"Thanks for being interested in Pink Cream 69, I hope to see you on tour - one day...!"
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