RadarRock Magazine / Danger Angel

HELLENIC BANDS ONLY

... and nothin’ will seem greek to you!

DANGER ANGEL R EVOLUTIA

DANGER ANGEL R EVOLUTIA

INTERVIEW It’s been a little more than three years since Danger Angel came out with their debut, same titled album that made an impact into the Greek hard rock scene and turned them from a local band to a worldwide release group that stood out on their own. Since then they performed in several stages around Greece and made a name for themselves and it seems that all this time they were only getting ready for their next step.

And this next step came to surprise everyone since what they came up with is more than a new album.

T

heir new “Revolutia” CD is something totally different than what we expected. A new, modern sound, combined with the refreshed lineup that now makes sense and a completely new approach to what is this group all about. Their music now moves towards a form closer to contemporary hard rock, with new influences to be discovered in it, varying from modern US and British hard rock to today’s European melodic rock. There are so many things to discover in the band’s new work, sounds close to Nickelback, Sixx A.M., Hinder and the Foo Fighters or even Muse and 30 seconds to Mars tied closely together with W.E.T. and Eclipse or Place Vendome. This new sound goes all the way through the music, the production and the ambience of the album and becomes a new trademark for the band. With their first album they made a statement that said that Greek bands are here and are starting to move out of the underground and into the light. With “Revolutia” they are shining through what is now a pulsating, alive, rigorous and emerging Greek hard/heavy scene that produces bands with character and poise.

But it’s not just the music. It’s the lyrics as well. Drawing inspiration out of contemporary issues, the lyrics make the album sound even more fresh and “right-now”. With “Revolutia”, Danger Angel deal with what’s going on in

their lives, our lives these past couple of years.

They take the frustration and the anger and the loss and disappointment and they combine it with the love and affection needed to make the whole album an everyday story. It’s all there and everybody can find themselves in one of the songs. “Revolutia” works as well as a concept album as anything else out there and it’s not about fiction, it’s about reality.

It seems that when they invited Jeff Scott Soto to sing a song (“Never Let You Go”) for their debut album, they really had a plan. For “Revolutia” they chose to put Jeff on the producer’s seat and have him mold their music to what they had in mind. Jeff seems to have given the songs this polish that they needed to stand out in a competitive global scene. He put his expertise and his own character in there and it shows but he didn’t alter their sound to collide with his own work. He took the new singer M.T. and used his raw talent to form an accomplished singer using his rough, angry voice to bring out all the anger in the songs.

He followed the band’s new conception for the use of keyboards and helped them stand out as a second guitar, right on the path to creating this new, trademark sound that the band is craving for. He worked as a true producer leaving the tidying up to his long term sound engineer John Ellis who mixed and mastered the album to perfection. All this is, indeed, a brilliant plan and it works.

We asked Danger Angel about their new “Revolutia” and about what made them what they are now but also what this band can transform to in the future. Here’s what they said:

free to work on what we thought was our real thing. And we did, and we came up with this

“Revolutia” works as well as a concept album as anything else out there and it’s not about fiction, it’s about reality.

Why change what was already working? What was it that produced that need for change?

We saw the new album as a new beginning right from when we started working on the first few riffs and melodies. Between the debut album and “Revolutia” and after the changes made to the band, we realized that we had so many different new things to draw inspiration from. The final line-up only worked together as a band in the studio after we were done promoting and presenting the first album and that’s when we saw this new diversity that we could use to create something that we thought was special. The new singer was totally opposite to what we had in the first album and his musical education is also very different. We started from that and we built on that and then we realized that we all had evolved enough to let go of the past and try something new. The first album was fine, we were happy with it but when we sat down together and started discussing on how the new stuff should sound like, we came to realize that we all had changed, musically, we had changed a lot. The songs for the first album were the songs of a different time. There were songs in there that were written many years before they were released, songs that were written for a specific purpose, for example the song that Jeff did. We were now totally

new sound. We used several instruments in a different way than what we did in the past, for example, the keyboards are not just a backing track anymore and they don’t need to be.

We thought about moving them up to take the place of the second guitar that we didn’t have anymore and we think that we have created something that will identify us in the future.

That’s what we were trying to do in the first place. To make Danger Angel sound like a new band that has some unique qualities to offer.

We believe we did that.

Weren’t you afraid that like this you could alienate people that were used to listen to Danger Angel and expect something specific?

We thought about it and we decided that we didn’t care. You can’t put restraints to music just because you are expected to sound a certain way or because you are afraid to disappoint a number of people. Right from the start we wanted to make something new that would help us to reach over what people expected us

to reach in the first place. We really want everybody to love the new album but if they don’t because they expected something else, that’s their problem. What we have to do is what we need to do and we think that our new sound is more interesting and more compelling, to ourselves first of all. We are all very fond of bands that dare to leave their comfort zone and try things. We want to reach that point where people that will be listening to one of our songs will identify us without asking. When we finished the recording for “Revolutia”, Jeff said that he couldn’t really label what we did and he tried to come up with a fancy new thing to say. He mentioned something like “Millenium Rock” and it would be fun if we would ever be able to label ourselves with all the others agreeing with it.

Are you now closer to what you wish your sound would be? Is there more searching to be done?

We are not there just yet. We know where we want to go and we know how to get there but it takes time to incorporate all those things we need to incorporate. When you asked, we said that we didn’t really care if past fans would follow the new sound of Danger Angel. That was true, but only up to a point. As we said we were happy with the first album and we didn’t want to discard everything all at once. It’s the same band, basically, moving to a new direction and we need to make this transition step by step. But we will get there. That’s the plan.

It is evident that “Revolutia” does have a specific concept that most of the songs deal with. Was that the target right from the start or did it come along the way?

The “concept” is something that was born of necessity. We didn’t plan ahead on a specific concept. We were just trying out new music and then it all came together. It was that time in our lives that everything started making sense. The first album was a product of our youth and what we were living through at that time and the years up to when we started recording. “Revolutia” came to existence right when everything was falling apart for all of us and for people we care about and our friends

and families. No matter the bells and whistles, we are a rock band in our core and rock bands were always socially aware. With everything collapsing all around us, with our lives changing radically and rapidly we couldn’t sing about love and girls and flowers and knights and castles. We had to bring out what was bothering us, what was making our lives difficult, what killed thousands of our fellow people out there. We had our own friends taking their own lives and we walk the same streets as everybody. Three out of the five members of the band are unemployed and can’t find a decent job. How could we not sing about all of those things? What kind of a rock band would we be if we didn’t? That’s how the concept took form and that’s where the album title comes from.

It all comes out of our everyday lives and it talks about what we experience and what we hope will happen someday soon. A revolution through love and understanding and brotherhood and hope.

How different was working with a proper producer this time? What was that Jeff Scott Soto brought to the table?

Working with a producer is a totally different experience altogether. With a producer you have an insight to what you need to do to become more relevant to what a broader audience is looking for. Through his experience and artistic expertise, Jeff helped us realize the full potential of the songs we had. He “polished” the sound of the songs and made them shine. He has that knowhow that we lack, both artistically and technically and he put all of that in the mix. There were part of the songs that needed tweaking and parts that needed to change. The most important thing was

and mastering them. He was there from the demos to the final product and his input was dramatically important to get the songs out right. And it was a unique experience too. We got to discover how people with years in the business do the job. We were working fifteen to sixteen hours a day, non stop and when the recordings where finally done and the songs were sent to John for mixing, we still had to go over what was happening for weeks. It took more than a week for each song to come to completion and to ours and Jeff’s satisfaction.

It was a process that took us well into the small hours every single day, getting the songs from John, listening then sending them to Jeff to listen and alter this thing and the other and then back to John and so on and so on. But we learned so much from those two, things that would take years to learn ourselves, we learned in six months’ time.

What comes next? You have a European tour in the making, you have a new video…

Yes, we do and it’s a fantastic think to have to plan if you come to think about it. It’s the first time we get to do this and even before we fly out, we are eager to repeat. We will be playing all through the UK and most of the continental Europe.

It’s that thing that every young kid dreams on doing when looking up on the posters on the wall and all those people that became teenage idols and we will finally get a taste of it! Even more, we will bring “Revolutia” to a much bigger audience and we have this hope that they will like us and our music and what we have to say. You know, planning this first tour brings a hunger for so much more. More tours, more music, new places new people. We want to do it all and we want to do it now and, you know what? That’s the plan, that’s all we’re thinking

Jeff helped us realize the full potential of the songs we had. He “polished” the sound of the songs and made them shine. that he realized what we wanted early enough and worked with us into structuring the songs the way we wanted and not the way he would do them for his own work. We brought him to Athens to work with us in the studio, he recorded all the vocals with M.T. and guided him to how he should pronounce each word in order for the lyrics to be appealing and relative to an English speaking audience. When we were done with the recordings he guided John, the sound engineer to what the songs should sound like and how to work when mixing them

about right now. A nice touch is that the tour schedule (we go out with Jeff and his guitarist’s Jorge Salan own band) is very convenient for us since we get to finish in Greece, we play Thessaloniki and Athens, we will complete this thing on our own turf and we can’t wait to bring all this experience back with us and show our own people what we have.

We do have a new video, it’s “When I’m Gone” and we’re really excited about it too.

It’s our first proper video and it’s out there for some days now, we’re getting great feedback, you know. We plan to do another one, maybe two, when we get back from the tour. We haven’t decided what song yet. The video is a cool way for people that never had the chance to see us up close to get to know who we are and what we do and see our faces and it’s a great way to warm them up if they’re coming to the shows.

How important is “Revolutia” for Danger Angel? What do you expect to get out of it?

We expect everything and nothing at all.

It can bring what it may, we’re still following the plan. You ask if it’s important when it’s all in the title. It’s our own little revolution, it’s

our evolution, it’s our new sound and our new identity. It’s everything to us as our first album was too, but this time it’s different. We have more to look towards and it’s more interesting to us. It has already brought things that the first album never did or we brought them ourselves, you know? It’s also our statement and our anger management for things we can’t control but can always speak about. It’s something that came out of necessity and turned into a necessity of its own. It’s something that we hope will show the world that the Greek rock scene is a force of its own and that people should look this way for great music and amazing bands because there are many. And after all it’s what we do and in this concept it’s the most important thing in the world.

Date Venue Apr 05 Apr 06 Apr 11 Apr 12 Apr 13 Apr 16 Apr 17 Apr 19 Apr 20 Apr 21 Apr 23 Apr 25 Apr 26

The Asylum The Camden Underworld Rock n’ Roll Warehouse The Biebob The Rock Temple Turock Le Forum Paunchy Cats Barba Negra Music Club Sofia Live Club w/ Silent Commitment Club With No Name w/ Silent Commitment 8Ball w/ Silent Commitment Kyttaro Live Club w/ InPhaze, Backstage Love

Location

Birmingham, United Kingdom London, United Kingdom Hamburg, Germany Vosselaar, Belgium Kerkrade, Netherlands Essen, Germany Vauréal, France Lichtenfels, Germany Budapest, Hungary Sofia, Bulgaria Burgas, Bulgaria Thessaloniki, Greece Athens, Greece