Mike Pougounas - Eleven Years With Many Stories To Tell

The13th AÑO: 4 | NÚMERO 41

UNA R E VISTA IMA GINARIA

MIKE POUGOUNAS ELEVEN YEARS WITH MANY STORIES TO TELL

[ Interview With Mike Pougounas from New God Zero by Diego Centuriรณn. ]

ELEVEN YEARS WITH MANY STORIES TO TELL

In the previous issue we had the Greek vocalist Mike Pougounas reviewing a song from the last work of Merciful Nuns. Today we introduce ourselves in his history and nowadays of his band New Zero God, who recently have released a four track EP called "Under the Influence of Captain Pan Ikatac". We reconnected with Mike and talked about his past with Flowers of Romance and other projects but we emphasized in his band "New God Zero".

Hi Mike, thanks for accepting this interview.

To get to New God Zero we have to start many years before the gestation of the band.

We have to go back to the early 80's in Greece.

Taking the name of the mythical band of Sid Vicious, is born The Flowers of Romance, and although well-known like a band of Gothic rock, was born like a punk band. What do you remember of those early years of the band in that Greece of the beginning of the decade?

Well, things were tough but we had fun. Tough cause Greece was coming out of a civil war that started with the end of WWII and seven years of a right wing dictatorship that ended in 1974. Time for the country stood still and when the first Greek punk rock bands appeared the Greeks were still catching up with hippie music of the 60’s and the early 70’s. We formed the Flowers of Romance in 1981 playing in a style close to the Clash and the Damned. Back then, in Athens, we were around 250-300 punks and we were constantly attacked by either the cops or the football hooligans. So, this brought us all together in order to have safety in numbers. We were rehearsing in the same studios, going in the same clubs downtown Athens, hanging around the same record stores, going all together to the same gigs and as for our own bands, it didn’t matter if we couldn’t play very well.

It was all pure fun. When my guitarist came home one day, to listen to the first album of The Lords of the New Church in 1984, we decided that, that was the sound we wanted to turn to. We were even playing a cover version of their track “Holy War” on our shows in the 80’s… This is how the

punk rock sound of The Flowers of Romance was turning into something darker…

What was the Greek rock of those years like?

It was mostly classic rock (we were not calling it classic back then of course cause it wasn’t “classic” yet…haha) and there were also some progrock bands around. The top Greek band was a hard rock-blues band called Socrates that had been around since the late 60’s. Punk rock bands appeared in the late 70’s and as the punk rock scene evolved, new wave, dark wave and more experimental projects were formed.

After "Dorian Gray" they mutate to a more rock, more gothic sound. That is the sound of the band that is most known in Latin America.

How were those years within a band in Europe, but not in England or Germany, which are the most promoted by the press?

Greece was always isolated. This is not a central European or North European country that a band can jump in a van and drive for a few miles to play live. The expenses are higher for a Greek band to play in European countries with an audience that is interested in rock’n’roll. Plus as a nation, we are not famous for exporting rock bands but mostly for our traditional music. This is something that the major local record labels did and still do. The punk rock outbreak was the reason why some independent record labels were founded in Greece.

That gave the Flowers of Romance the chance to release the first album and get some distribution in Germany, Australia and parts of the States such as Wisconsin. We are talking now long before the internet and it was a great success when the album “Pleasure & the Pain” that we released a little later, secured us a record deal with a German label and a worldwide distribution… We were still in Greece but we had managed to one foot over the borders…

Wayne Hussey and the album "Brilliant Mistakes" appear What do you remember of those years?

I met Wayne in London and he liked what we were doing with the band so he told me he wanted

3

to produce the album. We had some great time in his studio at the Old Fire Station in Bristol recording the album. We became good friends and he did additional vocals and played some guitar too on the album. I think it took us something like 700 hours for this album and it was around the time the Mission released “Blue”. We agreed to go on a European tour with The Mission but unfortunately it didn’t happen as Wayne decided to put his band on hold for a while. Steve Whitfield was the sound engineer. He worked with The Cure on “Wish” and also with The Mission. Later he would produce a great number of bands such as Terrorvision.

Today he is playing the guitar for a post punk band from Leeds, named Klammer. One night we went out for beers with Wayne and Gary Numan who happened to play live in Bristol. Wayne is a very good musician and a wonderful man.

Your current band, of which we will speak later, always had very present the songs of Flowers of Romance. What impact do you think Flowers of Romance had for you within the gothic rock scene?

After working with Wayne Hussey, the Flowers of Romance opened for the Sisters of Mercy and New Model Army. The band was on national tv shows since 1990 and with “Brilliant Mistakes we had one song on #5 and one on #12 on the Greek charts and ofcourse this brought new audience to the Greek Goth scene. As you realize, with a worldwide distribution through a German record label we were connected with even more people around the world. Thanks to this band I met people I would never had meet otherwise, I lived a rock’n’roll life and had the chance to travel pla-

ces. There was a man from Brazil that sent me a message a few years ago to let me know that he bought our albums in Japan and that we were one of his favorite bands. This is always so flattering. He even made two New Zero God videos…

It is not like we invented the wheel, or we lived like the Beatles but I did what I did in order to express myself and when strangers tell me that our music has some impact to their lives it always makes me blush…

As soon as Flowers of Romance dissolves, Nexus is born, a project oriented more to the industrial electro, at the same time that Cyberdelia Records is born. How were those years?

It was at least educating. In the mid 90’s I found out that the sound of bands like Nine Inch Nails, Prodigy or Die Krupps was very interesting. So I came up with the song “Channel Z”, an electro-industrial track for the album “Brilliant Mistakes”, that reached #5 at the Greek charts. I found the combination of musicians and samplers on stage to be a very tempting idea. So, I formed Nexus in 1999 and released a CD single that became

the first industrial single ever released with Greek lyrics. Nexus helped me become a better producer, and gave me the freedom to experiment with the sound. I experimented with Greek lyrics for one more album and then we put out three more full length albums in English and played live with the Mission of my old friend, Wayne Hussey.

By the same time I founded Cyberdelia Records cause I grew tired of being with labels that were doing one mistake after the other. I believe that musicians should fully own their work and that we should all have full responsibility of our good or bad doings. So, in 2000 I created Cyberdelia Records and released albums such as “Aura” by the Mission, the American band Casualty Park, the four Nexus albums, the Greek bands Past Perfect, Genetic Variation, Rag, Into The Abyss and imported EBM, Goth and Post Punk releases to the Greek market. I had the distribution of LTM Recordings that carries the catalogue of Factory Records, World Serpent, Momento Materia, Dependent Records etc.

In 2005 comes the break of both projects and the following year is born New Zero God. From

5

what I've seen many members were part of your previous bands. Can you say it's a band of friends?

It is always nice to play with people you know…

New Zero God was formed cause we wanted to kill some time playing songs from my previous two bands. We never intended to see it like anything more… At some point of course we came up with new material…

In 2009 they released the debut album "Fun Is A Four Letter Word", with a sound that returns you to gothic rock. What do you remember about this first album?

Well, after supporting The Legendary Pink Dots and Christian Death in 2007 and 2008, we thought it would be nice to record those new tracks we had so we booked a recording studio. After doing all those numbers I received one day a phone call from the owner of Puzzlemusik Records saying “I went to the studio and gave a listen to your new songs and I’d like to release your album”. This is how the album came out. "Fun Is A

Four Letter Word” spent two months on the top 10 of Dominion, the Gothic section of top UK music magazine Terrorizer exposing us to a whole new world… Our song “Kiss the Witch” seemed to be everyone’s favorite…

In 2013 comes the second album "MMXIII" and with it a quality leap. What changed from one album to another?

"MMXIII" was a whole different beast. The success of our first album got us a deal with an English record label who initially released a mini album titled “Club Bizarre” and then, the full length "MMXIII”. A very honest and friendly cooperation indeed. Before that, I was invited by Curehead’s singer, Gary Clarke, to do a cover version of David Bowie’s “Everyone Says Hi” with English and American musicians. A little later New Zero God recorded the song “Second Chance” for a Massachusetts based organization called HAWC (Healing Abuse, Working for Change) as New Zero God and Friends, with the participation of international musicians such as Adam Ant’s guita-

rist Will Crewdson, Chris Tuke from Berlin Black, Raymond John Ross from the South African band ANKST and others… It went #1 on CD Baby so with the band being more famous, things changed. We even appeared on an English movie titled “Athens Drift” directed by Paul Druce. "MMXIII" had a heavier Goth sound from the first album and was opening with Damaged. A song influenced by the book of French author Anatol France “The Revolt of Angels”. That was when English radio DJ, DJ Po, said that “New Zero God is one of the leading bands of the Goth scene”. By the same year we put out the track “The Night Calls Your Name” for the benefit of Sophie Lancaster Foundation and the year closed releasing the 7” vinyl single “Destination Unknown”…

In 2015 they publish the first live album, "Zona Pericolosa - Live in Italy", have you been satisfied with the result of the registration?

We wanted to share with our friends the fun time we had playing in Italy. We decided to make it available for free on Bandcamp and people are downloading it ever since. Someone even uploaded it on YouTube. We took the title “Danger Zone” from a sign on the road, warning people that this is a dangerous road with lots of accidents…

A year later comes a new work called "Short Tales & Tall Shadows" and growth of the sound of the band can be clearly heard. How was the writing process of this work, and how was the recording process?

We made our own studio. It is called QZN and I produced the album with my old Flowers of Romance drummer from the “Dorian Grey” days, Babis Efthimiou. We wanted to create something like a book with short scary stories. This is why the album opens with “King Pest” a song about a short story that E.A. Poe wrote and this is why the album closes with the sound of ravens in a cemetery while it rains. It is like a little tribute to Poe. I also came up with a character for live appearance by wearing a coachman hat, gloves and a long coat. We use a lot of smoke on stage and it works out fine… Regarding the album, we really put a lot of hours in to it. We experimented with a lot

of things. "Short Tales & Tall Shadows" is the beginning of something new: I will try to make the listener feel the atmosphere of the song…like being in a movie… The year ended with a 7” release again, this time it was a split 7” single with the Scottish band Savage Cut… We come to this 2017 and release an EP "Under the Influence of Captain Pan Ikatac” which for me is the best of the band, very rocker, with almost perfect recording and editing, and four powerful and direct songs. A hard blow to the jaw. Do you think it's the best version of "New Good Zero"?

The band consists by me on the vocals and keyboards, Akis Nikolaidis on the guitars, John Psimopoulos on the drums, Michalis Semertzoglou on bass and Babis Efthimiou on production and programming. I wanted to write about a new problem of the Greek society: Panic attacks. Since the recession started, a lot of people are visiting psychologists or join group therapies, use a lot of medicines and almost everyone suffers from panic attacks. Suddenly couples started breaking up and people realized they are not happy with their jobs, with their decisions and with their lives in general. It is the modern way of living and this is what the EP is all about. I am glad you like it cause this dark rock’n’roll sound was something new for us and everyone is happy with it. We also had a friendly project going by the name Dark En Ciel, doing a remix on one of the songs and I think everything worked out fine for the EP. As I said before the importance of Flowers of Romance in the shows of New God Zero, since they usually recreate some songs from your first band. What does Flowers of Romance mean to you today?

I gave 18 years of my life to The Flowers of Romance. If it wasn’t for that band I don’t know if I would be a musician. One can say that New Zero God is a continuation of The Flowers of Romance and this might be right. ¿What differences do you find between the first album "Fun Is A Four Letter Word" and

7

the last production of the band "Under the What plans does the band have for this 2017 and 2018?

Influence of Captain Pan Ikatac"?

We agreed not to use any extra treatments on We usually have a couple of those old Flowers "Fun Is A Four Letter Word" cause we wantedof Romance tracks on our playlist but this year, them to sound raw. Like the old punk rock albums.we will go on tour with New Zero God paying a Plus we didn’t have the money for big time pro-tribute to The Flowers of Romance playing only ductions… Don’t forget we were recording just forFlowers of Romance songs, starting from Athens fun. We didn’t intend to release anything… on 15 December. We will visit all major Greek ci"Under the Influence of Captain Pan Ikatac" wasties early in 2018 and We are looking to book gigs recorded in the convenience of our own studioin Europe. We are already started recording our and with the knowledge that this is not the end ofnext studio album which we estimate to release the band. Our future was not uncertain like it wasaround September-October 2018 on CD as well when we were recording our first album… as on vinyl LP. We saw this happening to “Short Tales & Tall Shadows" which was released in both New God Zero has completed more than tenformats and it did well. years of career. What joys and sorrows brought you in these eleven years of existence?

To finish and thank you, once again, for your I feel happy cause people like the band. Music iswillingness to answer these questions, I leave life and a band like this can bring you only joys. Itthis last space for you to say something to the was eleven great years with lots of fun and manyreaders of our magazine. stories to tell…

Thank you too for this interview. The only thing I can say to your readers is to follow their dreams Today New God Zero is positioned in an ex-and wish you all to be safe. pectant place in Europe, what do you think the band is lacking to make a leap of popularity Thank you! within the scene?

A big badget… hahaha…

Thanks, Mike!

9

The13th U NA R EVISTA IMA GINA RIA