What inspired you to first start making music? And how did you come to be in your current incarnation? Or if you prefer, a brief bio about you.
Harry V: My grandmother, after encouraging me to bang pots and pans with ladls and lids with each other, the vinyl player and Queen.
Harry K: The band started back in 2012. I was the only member back then. The bassist position was held for four years by Anthony, an old school buddy of mine, after him there was Alex, a former flatmate for a year and a half, and the current bassist is Harry, with whom we used to jam a lot in other music projects. We tried some drummers along the years, but unfortunately no one was able to play as fast and steadily as we wanted, so we got stuck with the drum machine.
Provide us with some info about your latest release…
H.K.: “Take me Home” is a song of ours drenched in nostalgia. It’s an homage to the time we used to live in Exarcheia, when everything was a lot simpler and ideal. Nostalgia can be a bitch you know, it’s a huge trap to fall into, a very escapist approach, so by writing about it we tried to kinda exorcise this feeling.
Which ones would you consider your main influences both music-wise & non-music-wise?
H.K.: It’s like a billion things. Music-wise we’re deeply influenced by the shoegaze, the post-punk and the noise rock genre, but some pop sensitivity can be found lying here and there. Apart from that there’s literature, haikus, art, minimalism, meditation, memes, politics, nature, astronomy, avant-garde and experimental cinema, pop culture, etc.
H.V.: BJM?, Psychic TV, The KLF, Robert Anton Wilson.
In what way does your sound differ from the rest genre-related artists/bands and why should we listen to your music? In other words, how would you describe your sound?
H.V.: We like loud noisy walls of sound, that being the reason why you both should and shouldn’t listen to our stuff.
H.K.: The repetitiveness of the drum machine gives more of a motorik approach to some songs, so yeah, maybe we’re also krautgaze? Is that a thing? It should be.
Please name your 3 desert islands albums, movies & books…
H.V.: Polygondwanaland, Time Machines, Apollo, Finnegans Wake, Infinite Jest.
H.K.: Scenery by Ryo Fukui, The Goonies and Catch-22.
Do you prefer studio or performing live and why?
H.K.: Isn’t this the equivalent of asking an actor whether he or she would prefer to act on stage or on film? Both have their perks, the stage energy is surely something that cannot be captured on record, but on the other hand the possibilities when you’re in the studio are virtually endless, and we like to have a lot of options. I’d go with the live performance, just for the “let’s see what can go wrong this time” factor.
H.V.: Wouldn’t have the one without the other.
Is there any funny-unique story you would like to share with us, always in relation to your music ‘career’?
H.K.: More of a warning, never leave your gear and music stuff inside cars and expect them to find them when you return. Last time they even took the earplugs for fuck’s sake.
Which track of your own would you point out as the most unique and why?
H.K.: “The Zadik” is probably the most unique track of ours, it was released in a compilation celebrating the birth of Leopold Von Masoch and it’s the most dirty and fucked up thing we’ve ever recorded.
Would you like to share with our readers your future plans?
H.K.: Our first full length album is coming soon, hopefully early 2019. It will feature 8 tracks and it’s gonna be aptly named “Sustain”, given that it almost took for us 3 years to record it
Free question!!! (Ask yourself a question) you wish to answer and haven’t been given the opportunity…
H.K.: What’s my favorite colour?
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Photo credits: Diana Kalimeri (1st one, left), Sofia Paflioti (1st one, right), Areta Katsoula (2nd one)
Curated by: Christos Doukakis
Recommended listening:
Connect with Acid Barretts:
https://acidbarretts.bandcamp.com/
https://soundcloud.com/acid-barretts