Hello Adonis and thank you for the interview. After 3 years of absence you have finished recording your two promo's "Revenge", and "War in the sky". How did the fans and the media react up to now?

Firstly, let me respond to the thanks giving' for the interview and allow me to wish you the best for your online magazine "Metal Perspective". As far as your first question is concerned, I would say that the whole atmosphere, is quite embracing. All these, as you already know, happened real fast and as a band we are unfamiliar to such an adaptation after being away for 3 years. There was period of time, from December to June, when we came up against with a majority of e-mails and letters. 500 of our demos had been sold and there is already a fan club under construction. All these facts make you wonder " how can this be happening for an underground band such ours?". Above all, what amazes me the most is that our general consideration, expressed through our music, have gained the approval from many people out there. It is true that Acid Rain are back, full of power and energy, ready to demolish everything in the metal world, and fortunately, they are not alone.

Your promo release includes a promo and a demo. Wouldn't be easier to head for a demo just from the beginning and how satisfied are you from the result?

We are pleased and satisfied by the whole appeal we have on what we are trying to accomplish. As for the result, trust me, there are more to come. Nevertheless, we try to think that this release will happen only for once. "Revenge" is dedicated to all these people who helped us reform the band and to all those who had been a personal support through all these years and wanted to see Acid Rain on the road again. This is the reason why the promo is for free. It has been released in 500 pieces, it has a different production from the demo and this is something that composes its high value. But above all, what concerns as the most on our every release, is firstly our fan's response on our work, their love and support, and secondly our total expression through music.

What are your expectations from the promo release ?

Nothing the more, nothing the less. We would like our music to be heard from as many as possible. We want people to perceive ,in any way, our personal emotions and feelings that we express through our music. Alex we are back and we are not willing to surrender in any motherfuckers expectations and wants. There is no possible way to comprehend what Acid Rain are facing every day, so as to keep on producing material and remain as a band. Personally, I work more than 17 hours per day, something that worsens my touch with music. The other members of the band are facing the same difficulties. Every day, as individuals and as band members, we give an every day struggle and as a result of this, our top priority is first to familiarize our music and becoming well-known comes in second place.

Share with us some moments that have to do with the recording session, such us where the whole procedure took place, how much time did you spend...

Well the only thing that I can reveal is that inside "K Sound Studios" ( where we recorded here in Volos), an every day epic battle occurs. F*** Yeah!. Seriously now, the whole atmosphere is a cozy as hell, the studio surroundings are great ( it is the best as possibly for our region ), and the personnel are very cool and well qualified producers. We wanted our material and the it sounds, to offer something different in the Greek music world and it is my personal belief that we are managing very well in this sector.. Everything went very well, even more than we had expected. The only problem that we are facing, is that the Studio is located outside the city surroundings, so we are forced to be on the road for some time. But obviously, this is nothing compared to the passion we have for music, our full expression, the sense of creativity. The duration of the whole process ( recording and mixing) lasted for 8 weeks ( 4 hours every weekend). But to use a fixed expression "they all lived happily ever after".

During all those years of your absence, did you exist as a band or we talk here about a fresh new start ? More than that, through all this period of time, how how much was your mentality and philosophy affected?

Good topic of discussion ! Well Aleko, besides myself, all the members of the band, never stopped messing around with music. Dimitris ( bass ), plays with Side Effect and Alimentary Canal, along with our drummer Stauros who has also been working with some other projects. John plays for MortFontaine and George os formally playing in a band for the first time. Spyros, has quit everything for Acid Rain. As for me, my personal contribution was through my radio broadcast, my magazine and by organizing some festivals. What happened next was me and Dimitris to have the decision of reforming Acid Rain, after a period of endless conversations with our close friends, who finally managed to convince us.What we really desire is to have a great time and it is up to us to achieve that, despite the fact that we do have a strong enemy against us and that is time. As far as if there was any alteration in our away of thinking and our whole perception for music, I would say that yes there was. Personally I became part of a musical scenery, in which sometimes some situations really made me sick man, but now I'm back, ready to spit on every motherfuckers face, since that now I'm willing to act

How would you describe your music on your latest demo release? Is there a concept or something?

What we play is epic heavy metal and nothing more. It is my firm belief that the section of music that refers to heavy metal, has always been in conjunction with the political and economical substitutions occurred during the period of time. This music established its beginning like that and must continue in a similar way. If you look back at the history you will observe that we face same situations from Woodstock to live gigs organized in our days against the war in Iraq. And just let me put in another way. I believe that we should all be free , we should all have the freedom of speech without any censorship. Every human community on this planet must live in harmony without any kind of intervention. Everything flows and must continue to evolve without the undercut of ethical values. I believe that the musical critics should split their work into two; the first 50 % should refer on the music part and the other 50% on the lyrics. But let's get to our concept now. Its outcome has to do with the downfall of the Centaurs caused by the humans. This concept clearly states the human injustice and the results of our intervention to everything, especially the nature. For this the Centaurs wanted revenge over the humans and the two sides were involved in a great battle, the greatest of all times. 90000 Centaurs, half human and half horse creatures, have fallen in this battle that took place in the southeast region of Thessalia. As I foretold this was a great battle and the blood that had been spilt was enough to quench humans thirst for fame after death and to satisfy their egocentricity. In addition the fact that the Prince of the Centaurs died not by human hand, but by one of his men, reveals in a great way the hypocrisy and the betrayal that is always present in a war, and if you like to say, it reminds a bit of the commercialized religious remnants of our time. It as simple, unbound, pounding and easy to understand, as that. Easy to understand in anyway your mind or soul commands you to. You must also know that you can still hear the shout of the traitor our days, every spring from the Centaur's Mountain in Pilio. It still cries and laments, while it gallops through the enormous forests, for this injustice and takes a vow of death for the enemies of freedom, that it had once betrayed and still can't rest in piece because of that. Maybe in the future it will be able to take power in its hands. Or maybe it just stands for our romantic and at the same time controversial weapon for expressing our beliefs.

How the whole composing procedure and the lyrics writing occurs?

Well, as a band we compose the music and the lyrics are basically mine and Spyros.

Beside your role as a musician you are also the editor of the Greek webzine "Golden Rules" that supports the Greek underground scene. What is your personal view for the Greek underground? Does it worth? The reason I am asking this is that we have a variety of great Greek back that have been step aside. Why do you think this is happening?

I'm not an editor, neither a radio producer, nor a live gig organizer. I 'm a fan of my personal pleasure. As far as my personal view is concerned I believe that the scene it is indifferent. I give interviews as the font man of Acid Rain, who are part of the Greek scenery but they are not willing to express their opinion at the moment since we just reformed the band. But we do believe that the scenery has lots of o members, some remarkable and some indifferent. For example, nobody can question the contribution of many individual such as ….. ( I apologize if I forgot anyone). But it is my firm belief that the greek scenery lacks unity and this can be easily perceived by remarking that few Greek metal heads have gained a worldwide reputation. We need to understand that the Greek market is too small, and benefits such as money, fame and glory are divides and shear among the big labels. This is something natural since the only way to become well known is to sacrifice everything, to make good productions and to be devoted 100% to what you are doing. Those are the demands for a great carrier in the heavy metal. As far as Acid Rain are concerned, something like that are not part of our dreams, but if it was, our effort would be different. Acid Rain is a value, something immaterial, and this is something that we won't ever purchace. Acid Rain will remain Acid Rain, end of story. Myself and Stauros we would like to become heavy metal stars, but this is something that will not happen with Acid Rain.

Do you have any plans for any live appearances?

After we reformed, we never had a live gig. But we do prepare something real good and please allow me not to mention anything about it. We will spread panic around the world on our reappearance.

What's your prediction about Acid Rain's future and which are your future plans? What should we expect from you next?

Basically we just play our music or if you like we simply "hurt" our instruments ha ha! Well there's no certain plan, we just play because we like it. We wrote our latest work because we liked to do it and then came the idea of promoting it to the fans. We simply released a promo cd and our intentions were to promote our name and to make people notice that we are back. This promo is entitled "Revenge" and it's the second of the three songs that are included in our concept demo "War in the Sky". But I need your attention here. Acid Rain prove with these two releases that everything we do we do it only for ourselves. The recordings took place in a local studio only because we didn't want a good production. We don't pretend to be "something", this will happen, if we deserve it of course, eventually. We just want to revive the period of the primitive productions that's why we don't force anyone to pay for these cd's. We respect every single minute a fan spends on listening and enjoying a band's work and for that we just give away our promo to the metal fans and in the symbolic price of 1 euro the can also get our demo. They don't have a good production deliberately. We want our basis to be this f*****g feeling that made us all love this, torn apart from "intruders", innocent genre. In the future thing will get a little bit different but not too much though, because we will continue to do what we choose and this will overwhelm only our thirsty souls. For us, epic heavy metal is a way of life, since we live and breathe heavy metal every day. This is what we are and we accept everyone's value and we move on. We promise everybody that we will offer them what we know to do best, which is to play pure, true and dirty epic heavy metal. We are not a bunch of college kids that easily master their instruments in the way Dream Theater do, we don't come from rich halls, we don't do public relations, we are just a street band. Our vocalist is a savage guy with feelings and our bassist is a big fan of Mastrokalos (editor's note: Mastrokalos is the bassist playing together with Pavlos Sidiropoulos, who was a famous unconventional Greek musician). So, what else can we ask for? I guess we just want to live every single moment and crush everything that stands in our way. I can assure you that Acid Rain will become a permanent threat for the modern dominant music industry. Now do we want to sign for a label? Of course we want to find a label, but the only reason we need one is the massive distribution it can offer, which makes it easier for the fans to get in touch with our music and learn what we represent. We prefer a small underground label, since we don't care about earning money and I don't believe we can deal with the high demands, a big label might have from us. A big label is not a charity group. It has high demands, such us tours for live performances for promotion purposes and we don't have that time to handle with this. Nevertheless we will do some live performances and we're going to have a good time with all the people that accept us as we are. Now if a lebel dares, let it come with its offer… ha ha ha!

Which are your favorite bands or musicians and which metal genre do you prefer to listen most?

We like many bands on different times. We consider Inner Wish to be our brothers and their latest work is amazing. We were waiting for a long time to be released in Greece since it appears that the distributors had other plans. They messed it up and we all know the truth about it and why this had happened. I also like the latest solo album from my friend Babis Katsionis. It's a killer one and Babis proves one more time that he is the best. Finally I also like Kostas Karamitroudis' Firewind who is also known as Gus G. As far as I'm concered I think of Firewind as a Greek band and their cd's are simply divine. They also think of them as Greek band since their site is www.firewind.gr and not .com. In addition the sign up of Babis Katsionis on the keyboards has changed the Greek to foreigners ratio, which is now 3 out of 5. I've also listened to the new albums from Battleroar, Bloodstained and of course Marauder, Raging Storm and the amazing "Am I Jesus" from Nightfall and all of them are fantastic. My 5 favorites are:
Inner Wish: Silent Faces
Firewind: Burning Earth
Battleroar: Battleroar
Bob Katsionis: Imaginary Force
Nightfall: I am Jesus

Antoni thank you very much for this interview and good luck for the future. I leave the closing to you.

Thank you for this opportunity and good luck to Metal Perspective. Contact us at acidrainband2003@yahoo.gr or visit our site http://www.acidrain.gr. We're back!!!! Do you remember us you a*****s!!!! Hail!!!