NO HAND PATH – Blodfersk gjeng med beskjedne mål og høy innlevelse

For en tid tilbake ramlet det inn en demo fra det greske bandet No Hand Path, og selv om fordommene var store og lysten liten satte jeg på de tre låtene og etter en nølende start har gleden over dette produktet nå tatt overhånd. Siden gitarist Antonis for tiden oppholder seg ved universitetet i Trondheim falt det naturlig å ta kontakt for å finne ut mer om denne ferske gjengen. No Hand Path ble dannet i Januar -06, ga ut son første demo i juli og dette viste seg å være Antonis sitt første face-to-face intervju, så her skjer ting ganske raskt.

ET – Not many here in Norway know about your music, so if you could start by describing your music. What will they be hearing if they put on First Farwell?
Antonis: The basis is black metal, but we have a lot of influences from other types of metal that come into our music.

ET – Ramin on vocal, Vassilis on guitar, and you are the three steady members of the group and none of you have ever played metal before. What have you been playing?
Antonis: I and Ramin used to have a band when we went to school together and played rock. Vassilis have never played in any bands before but we just got together and things happened.

ET – You used two friends from the bands Varathron and Revolting Breed to record the demo. The only negative aspect of the demo is in my ears the drummer; Haris, so I am wondering if you have found a permanent drummer or bass player to use on your next recording?
Antonis: We have not been looking for permanent members. For now we will just relax and see how well this demo will be received by the metal- fans and press. To tell you the truth we definitely want these two guys to stay in the band as permanent members but they have commitments in other bands, studies and we all live in different cities witch makes it all a bit complicated.

ET – What inspired you to go from playing rock to start playing metal?
Antonis: Playing rock was just a school thing, we have all been listening to metal for a long time and that’s what is interesting for us. When we tried to write some songs they all came out as metal in some form.

ET – Witch metal bands have you been listening to?
Antonis: Thousands! He he. I can mention bands like Mayhem, Darkthrone, Rotting Christ, Funeral Mist, and Opeth. We listen to a lot of different types of music; I like to listen to pop rock sometimes.

ET – There are some traces of Opeth in your music, but I feel a stronger connection to another Swedish band called Edge of Sanity, have you ever heard of them?
Antonis: Yes, but I have only heard the album Crimson so I would not consider them as influencing our music.

ET – How was the whole studio experience, the feeling of being in a studio for the first time recording your own material?
Antonis: It was great! We did not record continuously, it took us about two weeks, and it was really good. We had some cool guys in the studio that were completely professional and made the demo even better than we had expected it to be.

ET – So you had a lot of help in the studio producing and mixing the demo, but what about the songs? Do you write all your material yourselves?
Antonis: Yes. It is a group effort; everyone is involved in writing everything.

ET – What makes No Hand Path unique? Why do you of all the demo-bands out there deserve a record deal?
Antonis: I don’t know. To tell you the truth we are not searching for a label at the moment, we just want our name and music to be heard. We will wait and see what kind of response we get; maybe we will make another self release to become more experienced and better at handling our instruments. We just write what we like and express ourselves and if the public, the media, and the labels like it that is just great.

ET – And if you do not get any encouraging feedback from the press and labels, what will you be doing different on the next release?
Antonis: I don’t know. At the moment we have enough encouraging response from magazines, fanzines, and netzines so I believe that for the moment we will not change anything. I would like the next songs to be in the same style as Last Farewell, I would not like to force something into the music.

ET – No Hand Path started up in January -06 and released the demo in July -06. I guess you have had any time to play live in Greece with you living in Norway (till January -07) and everything?
Antonis: That is correct, but the problem is not me being in Norway, the problem is that we are three permanent members, and that we all study in different cities in Greece. It is hard to be that far apart and as long as we don’t have a permanent rhythm section there are many problems, but I hope we will overcome them and have lot of chances to play live in 2007.

ET – Is there a higher meaning to “The Journey”? Is there a clear intention and concept behind the three songs in the demo since they are called The Deepest Journey, The Darkest Journey, and The Longest Journey or did you just start with some guitar riffs and filled in the blanks?
Antonis: No, I don’t think there was any intention. It was just songs that we had composed and liked. We had some more ideas but they were discarded because they did not fit together with these three songs. The only intention was that we liked these songs and wanted other people to listen to them.

ET – What is the dream label to be on if you could choose freely?
Antonis: None! Not now. We have not been thinking about labels.

ET – Are you still writing new songs even thou you are far away from each other? Can we hope for a new release by 2007?
Antonis: Yes. We have some ideas, some riffs here and there and when we get together we will work with that and compose new songs and prepare the next release.

ET – How is the metal scene back in Greece?
Antonis: I think it is good. There are a lot of bands, but the problem is to make the bands heard outside of Greece. I don’t know why that is, but not many demo or first album bands are known outside of Greece.