Thank you for taking the time for this interview.
Can you give us some quick background on how the project came to be?
Manos Six + the muddy devil is my personal project along with Stamos Abatis. The two of us have been playing music together since 1999 in various projects. Our current main band is: Skull& dawn:, a 5-member Americana, dark-country band. Apart from this band, I had the need to express a more avant-garde country sound, blended with black metal elements and a more theatrical aesthetic, so I created this side project.
-What was the decision to make this style of music?
All my previous music projects were inside the dark folk and black metal spectrum. After I discovered old country and gospel music, I have decided to combine all these genres in my own way. This is how I feel comfortable to express myself artistically…
-The new album is really fantastic. It truly brings a downtrodden feeling, but in a really
authentic way. Who were the main influences you had while recording this album?
First of all, thank you for your kind words and for appreciating our album.
We didn’t base our creative process into the music influences so much, but we got inspired by the American literature, old western films and horror movies. Another source of inspiration was the darkness of the extreme Christian cults and the strange atmosphere of the deep American South…
-Are there any plans for any tours in the United States or other countries?
It is a great dream of ours to tour in the U.S. and we hope it will come true one day.
For the time being, we have played and will play again in our country and of course we are open to new proposals.
-There’s some, at least to me, clear religious statements being made in the lyrics of the
album. What would you say are the main take always listeners should have when listening
to this record?
The religious statement is clear and bright as Lucifer’s light upon the world…
We don’t want to guide anyone into a main takeaway , every listener experience the album in his own way..
…we are all gonna burn in hell after all…
-Can you give us any background into your decision to work with FYC records for this
release?
Nikolaos Spanakis (FYC Records owner) is an old friend of mine. He happened to come to one of our gigs, he liked it and afterwards he asked us to be a part of the FYCR family.
Of course we accepted his proposal and it is a great honor for us to belong to this truly underground and exquisite label.
-Are there any artists you would want to collaborate with, in this particular style or
otherwise?
There are a lot of artists I have in mind , so I will name a few: Kim Larsen ( of the wand and the moon ) , Hank III , Jay Munley ( Slim Cessna’s Auto Club ) , King Dude … and in my wildest dreams Nick Cave and the bad seeds…
There are also a lot of black metal artists I would like to collaborate with, but let’s skip that for now.
-Are there any current plans for a second album?
Yes, we are planning to start recording our new EP on January.
Thank you for this great interview, your kind words, and the time you have devoted to us.
All the best
Manos Six
