Dear Ryan hi. Since "Demo 2005" is the first release of The Kolios Project and the band is fairly unknown, I would like to give us a few details about your history.

The Kolios Project evolved out of my desire to do something with a few songs I had begun working on in high school. The other band I'm in, Oneiros, in my home town of Atlanta, plays songs that are mostly written by our other guitarist Micah, so I was looking for an outlet for my own creative endeavors. One of my main influences was Gordian Knot, and I thought it would be interesting and fun to do some sort of project like that, not necessarily jamming and working through parts together, but each member contributing his own ideas virtually independent of the other members.

What is so far the acceptance of your first demo? Are you satisfied?

We're getting close to having the demo ready to present to labels now, and so far the response has been pretty good. It's tough finding an audience for our stuff, especially since we don't even have a full-length recording, but the reviews have been pretty positive so far, and we've been starting to get some good exposure (thanks in part to you and Metal Perspective). I'm hoping that some of the smaller progressive labels will be interested in our music.

Do you think that you could do something better than the final result?

Whether or not we get picked up by a label, I do want to release a full-length album, and probably we will record new versions of all our songs for it. I've been pretty satisfied with the recordings thus far, but it's still fairly obvious that they aren't professionally recorded or produced. One of the biggest problems I've had is my computer crashing several times over the past four years. I lost all the original tracks and files to most of our songs at various points, so several of the songs exist only in mixed down versions, and because of that I can't change anything in them. Manfred's V-drums have been great because they sound good without requiring a lot of technical recording expertise, but I still prefer the sound of acoustic drums, and would like to feature them on the full-length. I'm also hoping to find a vocalist for an album.

How could you name your music? The term progressive metal is so vague and sometimes abstract.

One of the things I love about "progressive metal" is that it is just as you said: fairly abstract. The term encompasses so many styles and approaches to music, and I think our project definitely fits into that category. I have a lot of musical interests other than metal, but bands like Metallica and Pantera, and later Cynic, Meshuggah, and Aghora, were the first ones I really fell in love with, so I think I'll always have that element in my music, but I also love the progressive aspects of those bands, and some of the prog rock bands from the 70's like Camel, PFM, Banco del Mutuo Soccorso, and Area.

What exactly means your name? I mentioned in my review that it is kind of funny because Kolios in Greek is the name of a fish.

Well, it's kind of a funny story behind the name. Three years ago when I was first starting the band, I was having trouble coming up with a name for the project, so I just made a list of names and phrases that either had some meaning for me or that I just liked (some picked randomly out of the dictionary). Kolios was one of the random ones I happened to come across, and I had no idea what it meant, but I thought it would be an interesting name for a band.

Do you believe that your music is appealing to the masses? How challenging is this approach; to compose music that is not so mainstream?

I don't really know what the average listener would think of our music, especially since it's instrumental. I know a lot of people that basically won't listen to anything that doesn't have vocals because they need that hook to keep them interested. On the other hand, most of the people I've talked to who do like progressive metal and other music like that have had a pretty positive response to our music. Even if it's not quite their style they can at least appreciate the technical aspects of it. For me this style of music is what comes naturally. Most of what I listen to has a lot of odd time signatures, key changes, and crazy solos, so when I sit down to write music, that's usually what comes out. I used to try to force the music to be more technical, for instance if I came up with a riff in 4/4, I would take off or add a beat just so it would not be in a regular time signature. I've gotten past that point now, and if something sounds good in 4/4, that's fine. I no longer feel the need to make the music overly technical, but it usually comes out that way anyway.

Have you ever thought of getting a regular singer?

I've talked to a lot of singers over the years, because I think vocals could really add a lot to our music, but I've never found someone with the creativity (both musically and lyrically) and the recording capabilities that we need. If we ever do a full-length album I definitely want to get a singer. One of my goals with this project was to distance myself from the recording process as much as possible, since I'm already dictating the song structure and basic parts and everything. I didn't want to write any of the parts for other instruments, because I tend to dislike projects where one guy does all the instruments. Unfortunately none of the singers I talked to were interested or capable of writing their own lyrics, and many also wanted me to write melodies for them, which is not what I wanted to do.

Do you have any specific kind of singer that you believe that would be suitable for your music?

I think it would have to be someone very flexible and versatile in terms of style, because our music goes everywhere from quiet solo guitar parts without even any drums or bass to really heavy parts that are almost death metal. I don't know if distorted vocals would go well with our stuff, but it would probably be good to have someone who can scream. Daniel Gildenlow from Pain of Salvation is probably my favorite vocalist, and if I could have anyone I wanted to do vocals, it would be he. In general I think fairly standard progressive metal vocals, something like James LaBrie from Dream Theater, would sound good.

And what about the lyrics? If you would add lyrics to your music with what issues they would deal? I have the impression that sci-fi topics are your favorite.

I probably wouldn't be writing the lyrics (or I'd prefer not to), so I couldn't really say what topics they would be about, but in general when I'm writing songs I'm usually thinking about philosophical topics like the existence of God and his relation to man, and also issues like depression, and the search for meaning in modern life.

Forgive me for insisting on the issue of titles and names, but I always wanted to ask how someone names his songs. It's easy to understand when it has lyrics, but what about when the music is fully instrumental?

Most of the time I just pick titles at random for my songs, since there are no vocals. I try not to make the titles have a message about the mood of the song, because I like the music to speak for itself.

What are your connections with other bands and more specific with Aghora? I think that it's very unfair for such a talented band to stay inactive and to lack of support.

Aghora has been one of my favorite bands for a long time, and I have been very exicted to work with Santiago Dobles recently. He is one of my favorite guitarists, and one of my goals in starting this project was to be able to get some of the musicians I admire to record solos or other parts for my music, so this is like a dream come true. I think it's a shame that none of the larger progressive labels were interested in Aghora, since they are much more talented than a lot of the bands already signed, but I'm glad they are nearing completion on the second album, because I was afraid it would never happen. I know Santiago has had a lot of trouble with members having health problems and just not working out with the band, as well as with hurricanes more recently, but I hope all that trouble is behind them. I first got in touch with Alan Goldstein when he was in Aghora, and I loved the bass tracks he did for us when we were first starting out. He is working on rerecording some older songs not on the demo right now.

Do you ever fear that you may also never find the support that you wish or require?

It has been my life-long dream to be able to play music for a living, specifically this kind of music, but I'm not too worried about our future, because this started out as just a fun thing to do in my spare time, and it has already grown into something bigger than I thought it would, since originally I never even thought about trying to get the project signed. I'll be disappointed if none of the labels I present our stuff to is interested in signing us, but it won't be the end of the world, since the purpose of this project has been to have fun and create good music. Obviously it would be great if we could get a contract and start playing live as well as record an album, but all of that is secondary to just having fun and making music.

What is your opinion for free music downloading from the Internet? How do you feel when you discover that many people around the world know your music, but have never spend a dime to buy it?

I think some people overreact a lot to file sharing. In my opinion, either a band is relatively unknown, and so they get extra exposure through free downloading, which will probably make their record sales go up, or the band is so popular already that even if thousands of people download their music illegally, it doesn't make a dent in their paycheck. I understand why some bands and record labels really want to crack down on file sharing, but at least with my music, it's more important for me to let other people hear my music than to try to make as much money as possible. I may feel differently once we have a full-length album out, but at least right now, I would rather people hear our stuff without paying for it than never hear it at all. Right now we have several full tracks from the demo posted on our site for anyone to download.

What are your experiences from your live appearances? How often do you play live and how difficult is to perform your music live, especially with this full instrumental nature?

Unfortunately The Kolios Project has never been able to perform in a live situation since we have members that come and go, and we all live in different countries. I would love to put together a band to play this material live, but so far it has not worked out.

Do you have any plans about the future of the band? I mean do you have designed your following steps, do you know where do you want to go or is it something that will come spontaneously?

Right now we are trying to get this demo finished up and polished to present it to record labels in the hopes of getting signed. I hope to be able to record a full-length album in the next few years, either with the current members or with other people if they are unavailable, and I would also love to put together a line-up to play live and hopefully go on tour.

Ryan this is the end of our conversation. I wish you all the best for The Kolios Project.

Thanks so much for the interview. This is our first one and I appreciate you and Metal Perspective helping us get some exposure.