Darkened Skies has some moments that are very much like the tone that Tito And Tarantula's After Dark. Both have a dark, sultry tone to them. The songs you have written are a reflection of your tastes. What artists have influenced your tastes in music?

  Yeah, I see what you mean, that is a good comparison, I remember the track from the film. I like slow songs with a drone like hypnotic feel to them, this is how I wrote " Darkened Skies " I wanted to create a cinematic feel to it to and to create the right atmosphere for the lyrics, creating a song with aggressive lyrics sung quietly instead of shouting, almost whispering.. As far as the influences go there is a very long list I guess, I am into everything that has a dark feel to it not necessarily gothic stuff but other things as well ranging from Syd Barrett to Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin , from Delta blues to classical music like Bach or Albinoni, from German Industrial and Kraut rock to punk rock and the first wave of gothic bands , old and newer metal stuff, doom and even ethnic music that I find very enchanting, you can hear some of that actually on " Darkened Skies", my background singing and the rhythm itself have a very " oriental" feel to it. My list of influences as you can see can be a mile long so maybe it would be easier to tell you what I do not like instead!! hahahahah...like generic pop, hip-hop and all that "radio friendly" stuff.

  Artists that have dual roles sometimes start out as one or as both. Did you start out as a singer or as a guitarist?

  It was the guitar that mesmerized me, right from the start, the sound of it, magical, powerful. I never realized that singing came hand in hand with my guitar playing because I was too busy learning licks off records , until I noticed that I was singing already, every time I learned a song on my guitar I tried to learn the lyrics and the vocal melody as well so that it sounded more complete when I played alone in my room, around this period , I guess I was like 12 or 13 I started really paying attention to the lyrics of the songs I liked and the first seeds of my future songwriting were planted. By the time I was 14 I had already started my own band at school and I officially became a guitar player/ singer, mostly due to the fact that most of my friends were tone deaf and could not sing, all I wanted was to be left alone in my world and bang out some loud solos...but, hey.. that's life for you a series of incidents or maybe accidents that complete the chain, even if you are unaware of it at the time. The funny thing is though that although I am known as " Vocalist / Guitarist" I still refer to my self as a " guitar player" when people ask me what I do and I have been singing all my life..
 

  Have you done any tours for your album Liquid Grey? If so, where have you toured?

  No, initially that was the idea in my mind , I got the live band together and started dusting off the instrument flight cases and thought that it would be amazing to meet all the LIQUID GREY friends out there up close and perform for them but the logistics involved in such task and the financial crisis that most European countries face right now made it very hard. We would have to tour very few places and as a result the friends of the band would have to pay a very expensive ticket to see us, which I am totally against. I might do a few Scandinavian dates before the end of 2012, if I can steal some time off the recordings for the new album. In the near future I hope that I can find some dependable booking agent to help out with the plan to go out there and play for our friends which is always the best experience.

  I could see you easily performing at a festival along with the likes of March Violets, The Mission, Danse Society, and many others. Do you think this could become a reality or even a tour with one of these bands?

  I can definitely see LIQUID GREY performing on a festival stage along other bands that I like , it would be really cool to make some serious noise on a bigger stage and I am up for it!
 

  Your 13 tracks show a personal style, but each doesn't define your album as a whole. How long did it take to develop this many tracks and to have them in a finished album?

  When you asked me earlier about being influenced by the Mission I revealed to you, for the first time ever actually, that " In Black " was an idea I had and used to play it to Wayne Hussey 15 years ago! That song stayed with me for so many years, half finished, I wrote it and re-wrote it several times until it materialized as we know it today at the very last minute before my album would be send off to mastering, on the other hand I wrote " Fire " in 30 minutes, so " Grey Matter " is an album that took both very little and very long time to make ! I write a lot and usually I write fast, so the rest of the album materialized in the course of a few months and of course I have written a bunch of tracks that they were not used for this album. This is my life in a nutshell really ,walking the tightrope between extremes in order to achieve balance.