As a brief introduction, during almost four years of its existence, the band has released a successful album in 2010, ‘We Are The Legions of Scums’, which was followed by ΑΩ EP that came out just January this year. The seven inch definitely bands and showcases that the band is getting steadily better. As the situation In Greece gets worse, the music of I Want You Dead seems to get more dark and tense. The new ΑΩ Ep is a massive slab of brutal and sinister hardcore that cleverly makes use of metal elements but still pays its homage to the roots of the genre. Here’s the interview which hopefully sheds some light on underlying intentions and ideas behind their music.
As a brief introduction, during almost four years of its existence, the band has released a successful album in 2010, ‘We Are The Legions of Scums’, which was followed by ΑΩ EP that came out just January this year. The seven inch definitely bands and showcases that the band is getting steadily better. As the situation In Greece gets worse, the music of I Want You Dead seems to get more dark and tense. The new ΑΩ Ep is a massive slab of brutal and sinister hardcore that cleverly makes use of metal elements but still pays its homage to the roots of the genre. Here’s the interview which hopefully sheds some light on underlying intentions and ideas behind their music.What would you say about the music and the lyrics of the “We Are The Legions of Scums” album? What was your main inspiration?
Musically speaking it is an album of heavy, agressive music. We believe that dark lyrics suit our music in the best way and create a suffocative and intense atmosphere. Our debut is a hardcore album made by people who love hardcore music. We got inspired by the bands we love of course (Slapshot, Integrity, Cursed, Carpathian, Reign Supreme, Celeste among others) but also from other non-music stuff such as movies or situations we are involved in. You can drag inspiration from anything actually. We prefer dark concepts.
What feedback have you received since its release and how are these new songs coming along in the shows?
We have received a quite positive feedback. Kids seem to dig our music and the shows are getting better and better! We tested our new tracks on tour and all is good! We think it is very important to be able to play live everything you listen in the record and this is something we always have in mind when we compose new songs.
What is the meaning behind “We Are The Legions of Scums” and how did the band decide on this title?
Actually it is a cool in-your-face title that we think gives you a good impression of what you are about to listen in the record. There's no big meaning behind it. It is just our way of telling you we play aggressive music. Plus it suits the “apocalyptic” concept we so much adore!
The ÁÙ 7inch is a big step for us, a critical release. We had a line-up change between this and our debut full length, specifically in the vocalist position. We also made a pretty observable change in our sound towards darker, more intense, black metal influenced hardcore. We worked hard on the new songs in order to achieve this and fortunately our new vocalist turned out to be a perfect match for our sound. We are really satisfied we the outcome of this 7inch and we believe it is the first step towards forming our own unique sound.
Lyrically, those new songs bring some really dark and intense tone. What was your inspiration during the writing and what do you want to convey to the listener?
Even though we live in a country known for its sunny weather, there are stuff going on here on both national & personal level that affected and inspired us, in order to write those lyrics. For the past years we have been receivers of bad news and cruel reality due to the situation our country is in. This affects literally everyone. Our families , our friends & ourselves.
Financial crisis and state suppression are now part of our everyday life and these are things we can't ignore. We try to be positive on a personal level (which is difficult) in order to deal with the situation but our anger and despair builds up inside us and expressing this through our music and lyrics is inevitable and kind of a vital matter for us.
To those who have opposing viewpoints from yours, what do you hope they take away listening to the album?
We don't really hope for anything. We make the music we want to make and we sing about the stuff we like. Sure we know that some people may not agree with our views/lyrics. But this is the message we want to spread. Embrace it or reject it.
How do you feel about the fucked up situation Greece has found itself in? It seems there are millions of explanations about why did it happen, but what’s your perspective as someone from there?
The explanation is pretty simple...A few people took decisions for the lives of millions and the only thing that mattered for them was personal profit. Capitalist pigs took advantage of a whole nation in order to make money. They borrowed money, on behalf of all the greek people, and now they can't pay back their debt. This is something that now affects everyone over here. They actually ruined our future as we have to pay for their mistakes. People of Greece are innocent, they are casualties of a financial war they never took part in. Politicians are cunts and deserve the worse ,for the impact of their greed destroyed our lives.
So, how do you feel about the future?
We can't really say we're optimistic about the future...Every single day major changes happen over here. New laws, new restrictions, suppression. We believe in the freedom of people and we are against all kinds of oppression. It is dark times for us here but we are not willing to lose the control of our lives even if this means conflict with the state and the police.
Is there any political or social movement that you sympathize with or that you're a part of?
All four members of IWYD are involved with political and social movements. We support the squats of our hometown and we are active on several levels. We live in a country where many things have happened the last years. It is almost inevitable to be involved in sociopolitical stuff. We, as a band and individually, despise any form of oppression, authority and racism.
Your music is hard to pin dawn – was it the idea from the start to combine different styles of hardcore? Where does I Want You Dead draw their inspirations?
Well, we listen to various styles of music and inspiration -as told before- can come from anything.Though we don't really have rules for our music, the plan is to sound pissed off. We love hardcore in general and we take the elements we like from any style of it. This just happens ! We listen to a lot of the old classic Boston stuff but we also dig modern bands such as The Banner or Rise and Fall and their approach to hardcore. Our sound is a combination of our influences plus the personal element of each one of us. In the future we won't hesitate to use in our music anything that satisfies us whether it's hardcore or not.
We formed in 2008 in order to play the music we love, tour and have a good time. The four of us study in Patras University and knew each other a while before forming the band. We had a different singer at the beginning who quit the band in order to focus on other stuff. He now is replaced by Michael, the singer/guitarist of Fields of Locust (excellent post-metal/sludge outfit! Check 'em out!). We are more than satisfied with this choice, the dude rocks!
Would you like to say anything to the readers?
Yeah. Come to our shows and don't go to church.
