EMQ’s With PEOPLE OF THE BLACK CIRCLE
EMQ’s With PEOPLE OF THE BLACK CIRCLE
Hi everyone. Welcome to another EMQs interview, this time with Greek Doom band, People of the Black Circle. Huge thanks to them for taking part.
What is your name, what do you play, and can you tell us a little bit about the history of the band?
We are People of the Black Circle and we play Doom Metal with a Synth twist, spiced up with a little cosmic horror. We started playing together in January of 2020 and have been going on ever since.
How did you come up with your band name?
People of the Black Circle is the title of one of Robert Erwin Howard’s stories, with whose fiction we grew up. That’s where we borrowed our name from.
What Country/Region are you from and what is the Metal/Rock scene like there?
We grew up and live in Greece, which is a quite productive country concerning Metal music, especially in the Stoner / Doom Metal genre.
What is your latest release? (Album, EP, Single, Video)
We have just released our self-titled, debut LP. You can check it out at our Bandcamp page. If you feel like it, take a look at our YouTube page too, you will find two videos of our songs ‘Alchemy of Sorrow’ and ‘Ghosts in Agartha’ that may also be of interest to you.
Who have been your greatest influences?
Electric Wizard, Yob and and Alice in Chains certainly rank at the top of the list. Black Sabbath, Thin Lizzy and Jethro Tull are also huge influences, while we also have great respect for the music of Tangerine Dream, John Carpenter and Goblin.
What first got you into music?
Watching Metallica play ‘Seek and Destroy’ in the “Cliff ‘Em All” videotape. It’s one of those things that if you have the chance to watch in a young age, you go “That’s what I want to do with my life” forevermore.
If you could collaborate with a current band or musician who would it be?
Even though it will probably never happen, we would be more than honoured to work with Steve Moore on a horror movie soundtrack project. Especially if the movie was directed by Joe Begos, Benson & Moorhead or Panos Cosmatos. If you‘ve never heard of them, go check their films, you are in for a wild ride.
If you could play any festival in the world, which would you choose and why?
For our kind of thing, Desertfest and Roadburn are the places to be. We hope we will have the chance someday, you never know.
What’s the weirdest gift you have ever received from a fan?
No weird gifts yet, everyone is so civil and polite. We suppose we are the weird ones.
If you had one message for your fans, what would it be?
Thank you for making this important. You are the real thing, we are the illusion.
If you could bring one rock star back from the dead, who would it be?
Robert Johnson, the Mississippi bluesman that composed the ‘Crossroads’ and ‘Me and the Devil Blues’. It would be fun to take him to a Black Sabbath or a Venom concert and see what he thinks. Also, if we could have a second pick, we would ask for Lemmy to come back from the grave, just as he did in ‘Killed by Death’ video.
What do you enjoy the most about being a musician? And what do you hate?
We enjoy crafting songs, we hate asking ourselves again and again if they are good enough.
If you could change one thing about the music industry, what would it be?
The extremely low rates artists get from streaming platforms. Don’t misunderstand us; we are not saying that it’s easy or insignificant to run a music streaming business. On the contrary, it is a very important innovation that has helped a lot of musicians make their art available to a broader audience. All we mean is that the scales have to be a little more balanced, so that new artists have potentially the chance to fund a tour, for example.
Name one of your all-time favourite albums?
“Aqualung” by Jethro Tull is the one. This album is perfect from the very beginning until the end!
What’s best? Vinyl, Cassettes, CD’s or Downloads?
This may sound weird, but our hearts and ears belong to the cassette. It’s that mix of analog sound and nostalgia that is just irreplaceable.
What’s the best gig that you have played to date?
Even though each one of us has played numerous gigs with other bands through the years, we haven’t played any with People of the Black Circle just yet. That’s a plan for the near future.
If you weren’t a musician, what else would you be doing?
If we weren’t musicians, we would keep on struggling to be.
Which five people would you invite to a dinner party?
Hannibal Lecter, Issei Sagawa, Amin Dada, Elizabeth Báthory and Andrei Chikatilo. Of course, everybody else interested would be welcome (as dinner). It’s unfortunate that we would have to skip the meeting for obvious reasons. We remind you that the question just said “who would you invite to a dinner party”, it didn’t say that we would have to sit through.
What’s next for the band?
Creating an interesting and theatrical live experience and then present it to the public.
What Social Media/Website links do you use to get your music out to people?
We mostly use Bandcamp and YouTube, but Facebook and Instagram are also a must. You can check us out at the following URLs:
Bandcamp: https://peopleoftheblackcircle.bandcamp.com/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7-6GJ3p33n8m3INUc3keuw
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PeopleoftheBlackCircle
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/peopleoftheblackcircle/
Jaffa Cakes? Are they a cake or a biscuit?
They ‘re a biscuit, but more than that, they are a gift from the dark gods that lurk in the frayed edges of our reality, giving us a taste of the unspoken and forbidden pleasures that await all those daring enough to beckon their ominous call.
Thank you for your time. Is there anything else that you would like to add?
First of all, we would like to thank Ever Metal for giving us a chance to speak. It’s hugely appreciated and we are grateful. We would also like to add one more thing: Creating and enjoying the darker aspects of artistic expression is not meant to glorify negative things in life, but to make us appreciate where we are, what we have and makes us happy, fragile as it may be. If you find yourself struggling with depression, please consider asking for help. You are important, everyone is important, even if you might not think so. We will meet again on the road, stay well and safe!
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