9+1 Q&A with The Page of Cups

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.

For as far as we can remember we have been listening to music. In our teenage years we started making our first songs participating in many musical projects and bands based in Athens, Greece. The Page of Cups consists of five main members. Panos Vlasopoulos (main composer, vocals, guitars), Thodoris Klavdianos (main composer, guitars), Dimitris Vlasopoulos (bass), Jason Vlasopoulos (drums) and Chris Bekiris (DJ, sound design). The band took its current shape following Panos’s idea to make an album featuring artists from different musical backgrounds other than rock.

Provide us with some info about your latest release…

Our latest release is the song “Take Μe Back to Roma” featuring rapper Complex Shadow from ATH Kids, a rap music collective from our city. As the title gives away, the song was inspired by Panos’s nostalgia for the eternal city. Panos and Complex travelled to Rome with a group of friends to film on the streets in informal style with hand cameras and a super 8. You can find it on our YouTube channel.

Which ones would you consider your main influences both music-wise & non-music-wise?

Naturally we all have varied tastes in music and diverse influences. However, we grow and our tastes tend to grow and change with us. Still there is some overlap and we connect over our love for Radiohead, Gorillaz, Massive Attack, Unkle, Viagra Boys, Tame Impala, La Femme, Lovage (and every project of Mike Patton), Sneaker Pimps, Orville Peck, King Krule, The Horrors… This list can go on forever… Movies are also a big inspiration, particularly epic sci-fi ones and David Lynch’s “Twin Peaks”. A couple of us have been influenced by classic American literature authors such as John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemmingway and J. D. Salinger.

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?

From the very start, this project was an experiment. Our vision is to connect different kinds of people from different musical backgrounds and styles. We love the combination of guitar-based music, blended with electronic elements and Rap lyricism. That’s also why three of our four singles that have already been released have featured artists from other projects. We avoid labeling our music to a specific music genre, but we think that the band is a combination of rock, electronic and rap elements fused with love and affection.

Please name your 3 desert islands albums, movies & books…

Albums: Aphrodite’s Child -666, Queens of the Stoneage – Era Vulgaris, Radiohead – In Rainbows

Movies: The entire Star Wars Saga, Dune by Denis Villeneuve, Blade Runner by Ridley Scott.

Books: The Stranger – Albert Camus, The Doors of Perception – Aldous Huxley

Do you prefer studio or performing live and why?

We started performing live in our early twenties, and that unforgettable feeling of playing in front of an audience changed our lives forever. It’s our favorite thing in the world. Now during and after the Covid restrictions and multiple quarantines in Greece, we adapted and learned to appreciate spending quality time in the studio. Recordings in the studio with our producer and mixer Alex Bolpasis make us happy and excited like toddlers in a playground.

Is there any funny-unique story you would like to share with us, always in relation to your music ‘career’?

As a newly formed band, we don’t have many funny stories to share with you, yet. Quite unique an experience was our first live performance that took place at The Intermission gallery in Piraeus staged by the internationally acclaimed contemporary artists Jannis Varelas.

Which track of your own would you point out as the most unique and why?

Every new song is like a newborn child and the band is like its mother. A mother (most of the time) loves her children equally. The same goes with us. We love each one of the songs equally and for different reasons. At the moment four of our songs have been released, “ADULTS”, “breakwatering”, “MIST” and “Take me Back to Roma”. Some of our favorite elements are: the vocal deliverance of Panos in ADULTS, the bassline of Dimitris in “Take Me Back To Roma”, the flow of Mi55t’s rapping style who is the featuring artist in “breakwatering” and the guitars of Thodoris that blend beautifully with Panos ‘s guitars in “MIST”. Bottom line, we love them all.

Would you like to share with our readers your future plans?

There is an album in the making at the moment for which we have already started recordings and production. The release is planned for the end of the year. On July 23rd we have a live performance at Little Paradise Bowl festival in the south of Peloponnese. We are also preparing a show for the Municipal Theater of Piraeus that will happen in September.

Free question!!! (Ask yourself a question) you wish to answer and haven’t been given the opportunity…

Coffee or Tea?

Both are contained in cups. We prefer coffee.

Curated by: Christos Doukakis

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