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Interview with
Alex Sarantis of Kachana
By Steve Green - April 2010 |
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| We've been covering UK Metallers
Kachana since I started the site at the beginning of the
last decade. Now with their 2nd album, Of Gods And Men,
they've really come of age and have produced an album of
Classic Metal in the vein of Iron Maiden and Symphony X.
I caught up with guitarist Alex Sarantis to find out
about the struggles of being in an unsigned Metal band in the
faltering UK underground scene and other such delights.
Kachana formed way back in 1997
when you were all at university in Bristol. What were
your goals when you first started the band?
At Bristol, most of the students were toffs, and I never
imagined I’d end up in a thrash band there, but one day
Sacha (former singer) approached me in the canteen, said
he’d heard I liked to strum away in my room (oo er!) and
the rest is history! From the start, the band was a
hobby and our simple aim was to write tunes, record CDs
and play gigs. We never set out to do this as a career.
What’s been the most difficult thing to overcome in
keeping the band together for the past 13 years?
My move to Oxford in 2000 when the rest of the band
remained in Bristol made it tough for a while,
especially because I could not drive then. More
recently, the suburban domestication of most of the band
(settling down, marriages, careers, and fatherhood) has
naturally made it much harder to get all 5 of us
together on a regular basis for practices. However, the
fact that the band has always fundamentally been a hobby
for us has kept us together in spite of such obstacles.
I think everyone sees it as a welcome release from the
pressures of gardening, house-buying and baby yoga!
After your original vocalist, Sacha Darwin, left in
2004, you changed direction and headed in a more
Progressive/Power Metal direction after your
Thrash/Death origins. Do you think you’d still be
together if you’d stuck to your original direction as
the line-up changes seemed to give you a new lease of
life?
No. I think we were ready to pack it up after Sacha
left. The feeling was that we’d taken the band as far as
it would go within that genre. In addition, the
remaining members (Shieldy, Dan, Tom and I) had always
preferred more melodic/classic metal and were very
excited by the prospect of having a melodic vocalist.
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On your last album, The Plains
of Illyricum, I detected a certain amount of
“manliness”. You’ve toned things down a bit for your new
album, Of Gods And Men and have headed in a direction
that’s best described (by me at least) as an almost
Power Metal version of Iron Maiden’s more progressive
elements. Would you agree with that, or do you see your
sound as something completely different than that?
I hadn’t thought of it this way, but your description
does make sense. It wasn’t a conscious decision. We tend
to write the tunes and see what sounds best to us at the
time. I suppose we did want to get back to more complex,
faster music/guitar riffs with more tempo changes. I
would say that Symphony X, Manowar and Maiden are our
biggest influences bands and with the new CD we’ve moved
a little bit further away from Manowar and closer to
Symphony/Maiden.
I have to say, the ballad, Wings Of Time, is a bit of a
departure for you guys. Why did you decide to record
such a heartfelt song?
We’ve always wanted to do a cheesy power ballad, and
hopefully this will be the first of many! Singer Tom
wrote it sat at his piano.
Your frontman Tom Morton has a mighty fine melodic
Metal voice. We’ve produced some great Metal vocalists
in the UK over the years, such as Bruce Dickinson, Rob
Halford and Biff Byford. Do you think that rich heritage
is now drying up and that the UK is lagging behind most
countries when it comes to producing quality Traditional
Metal bands?
Yes. Dragonforce are obviously great, and underground
bands such as Conquest of Steel and Crowning Glory carry
the Power Metal flag honourably, while NWOBHM bands such
as Cloven Hoof and Elixir are also still going strong,
but the scene is not as thriving as it is in countries
such as Germany. We’re in our 30s and, having grown up
with bands like Metallica, represent the last generation
that will hold the classic metal seed deep in our balls!
In contrast, if you go to the Revenge of Rock club in
Athens, you will see loads of people of all ages and
classes seriously rocking out to the likes of Priest,
Maiden and Manowar. There IS a future for traditional
metal in a country like Greece!
I know you’ve landed a few supports slots with the likes
of Blaze Bayley and Sabaton, but as an unsigned Metal
band in the UK, how hard is it to get decent gigs?
Bloody hard! The gigging scene is much tougher than it
was about a decade ago. There don’t seem to be many
venues with regular multi-band line-ups and in-house
scenes (like the old Red Eye/Devil’s Church). So many
pubs have been converted into wine bars e.t.c. that
there is now little choice. Unless you can guarantee
getting enough punters in to justify the venue’s
commitment, it’s not worth their while. Off the back of
the ‘Plains of Illyricum’ CD we either got fairly high
profile support slots (thanks to Arcane and Sinister
Heart Promotions) at venues such as the Purple Turtle in
Camden, or nothing at all. You try contacting venues on
Myspace e.t.c. but responses are rare. Live music is on
its way out to be honest. The next generation is focused
on playing guitar hero and will be happy to simply plug
an ipod into a PA system rather than bother with the
hassle of lugging around speaker cabinets and banging
out real tunes. |
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And on a similar theme, you’ve
self-released both of your albums, the latest in a very
nice digipack. Since you started the band you’ve seen
the change in trends and the emergence of illegal
downloading, how difficult is it for an underground band
to make any progression in today’s free-loading society.
And did this influence your decision to only charge £5
for each of your albums?
We have always done the band as a (expensive) hobby, and
not to make money. We are realistic when it comes to CD
sales. We know that most people these days won’t even
bother spending a tenner on a professional, big band’s
album, so why would they bother spending anything on our
offering? At a gig, you often find punters with a fiver
in their pockets, and after a few pints this doesn’t
seem like a bad idea to them if they’ve enjoyed the
show. The most important thing to us is that as many
people hear our tunes as possible. Illegal downloading
doesn’t really affect us because we all have good
careers, and will continue to plough our own money into
the Power Metal quest.
And I have to end the interview with a question
that’s dear to my heart. What’s the chances of you and
fellow Kachana guitarist Dan Beaufort reforming Torso?
And please explain a bit about Torso to those not
lucky enough to see you back in the mid-90s
Torso was an underground heavy metal band based in
Harrow in which Dan and I played between 1995 and 1997.
The other members were Paul Gallagher on bass and Derek
Rodriguez on drums. I did vox as well as rhythm guitar.
We produced one EP, ‘Voices from the Grave’, which
featured the legendary homily to the victims of genocide
in Rwanda, ‘Tribal Massacre’. We played at the Swan and
Bottle in Uxbridge on numerous occasions between
September 1995 and January 1997. Not sure about a
reunion, although a cover of ‘Tribal Massacre’ has
always been talked about!
Thanks for your time
Please visit the band at:
www.myspace.com/kachana |
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