15225319_1196529347090609_405518045_o

A promising band from the Athenian underground, The Dead Dranks, will be playing live this Saturday, 26th November, at Death Disco. After many years of anticipation, their self-titled debut will be available in this unique concert full of energy and punk attitude. As they say…Rock ‘n’ roll!

Hi there! Please introduce the band to our readers…How did it all start?

Hi Christos! We are four guys from Athens, Soto Gem on vocals and guitar, Tony on guitar and backing vocals, Polydoros on bass and Akis on drums. Two of us are brothers (Tony and Soto Gem) and in our teenage years we fell in love with rock music and started scratching a guitar without knowing exactly what we were doing. However, forming a band became an obsession for us. In October 2005 we had our first gig as a trio named “The Dranks” at Rodeo Club with Soto on vocals and guitar, Tony on bass and Nick on drums. Two years later, we changed our name to The Dead Dranks, Tony left the bass and became the second guitarist and Polydoros joined the band. Through the years, several drummers  joined the band and many gigs took place in the city of Athens. In 2012 we were lucky to meet Akis and end up in this line up, which is the best we ever had.

It took you almost 11 years to release your debut album. Why so long? Are you satisfied by the result?

There are several reasons for this delay. First of all, it was difficult to enter the studio because we were always in search of a drummer that would be able to follow the band’s schedule and be ready to start the recordings. Also, financial problems made it difficult for us to start the recording process and complete it on time. As for the result, yeah, we are more than satisfied and we feel proud of it!

Reading your Facebook profile you are stating that you are inspired by bands like Ramones & Social Distortion among others. In addition, your sound is influenced by a combination of rock ‘n’ roll genres like 60’s garage punk, punk rock, Australian rock scene, post – punk scene. Could you discuss about your influences & inspirations a bit more?

Well, listening to bands like the Ramones and Sex Pistols blew up our minds and impelled us to hold a guitar and form a band. However, we have listened to a lot of great music that inspired our sound. So, we don’t consider The Dead Dranks as a pure punk or garage band. In our opinion, we are a high energy rock ‘n’ roll band with a lot of influences from anything that can speak to our hearts.

Which 3 songs would you pick out from your debut album and why?

That’s a difficult question! We would say ‘Rejected’ because it’s a song that speaks to all of us in the same way, ‘Rose Park’ because it is the first song we played on stage back in 2005 and ‘Haunted Love’ because deep down we are sensitive guys!

You are lucky enough to have played with great bands such as the local heroes The Last Drive, Panx Romana, Arnakia but also with the legendary Buzzcocks. How were these experiences like?

We grew up listening to these bands fanatically, so getting to play with them was a dream that came true and a really unforgettable experience too. But, the most important thing is that we found out how great and supportive people they are.

Since you are directly associated with punk, you might as well be politically active. Correct?

We believe that everybody must be politically active. We try to support political causes with our music  and we have participated in numerous concerts  that had political/anti-fascist background in the past and we will continue to do so, because we want to help as much as we can. Only through solidarity we can resist in this fucked up world we live in.

15224561_1196515307092013_525649801_o

What should we expect from your upcoming live appearance at Death Disco on 26th November?

We will play as we always do. Fast, loud and with passion. We will play our new album and we will be honored to share the stage with some special friends! Also, you will have the opportunity to get our cd. We hope to see you there!

Which are your future plans?

Gigs, gigs and more gigs around Greece is our main future plan in order to promote our album. Also, we are going to hit the studio soon and start the recording process of our second album. We promise that the second one won’t take more than ten years hahaha.

Last words belong to The Dead Dranks….

We’d like to thank you Christos for giving us the opportunity to be here. We also want to thank every one of our friends that have supported us through these tough years. Thanks for your patience! Rock ‘n’ roll!

Photo credits: Lliam Storms (1st one), Markel (2nd one)

Christos Doukakis