Athens, Greece experimental, mathcore act FRIEND OF GODS have debuted a full stream of their new exciting record ‘You Gotta Look Good In This Fuckin Business’, a record that’s a mixing pot of chaotic twists, noisy experiments, raw garage feel, and cotagious hooks that make this EP feels like lighting a fuse and detonating a huge bomb. Be sure to check it out, scroll down to check out mini-interview and leave your thoughts on this effort in the comments section below.
Track “Terrible Best Friend” features lyrics taken from Christos Pithara’s poem of the same name from his poetry collection “ΛΕΥΚΕΣ ΜΕΡΕΣ¨. The title track includes a saxophone line written & performed live by Vassilis Zarikos, somewhere in Samothraki island.
Who are you & what the hell does your name mean?
Hello IDIOTEQ! We are three troubled musicians from Athens, Greece. We play some kind of math-punk thing. It’s chaotic, it’s aggressive and it’s sloppy at times. We put a lot of energy in our playing, and we like to mix things up all the time. Our name is basically a bad google translation of a Greek suburb. We have nothing to do with any god or religion whatsoever. We just liked the sound of it.
Tell us a few words about your latest release “You gotta look good in this fuckin business”.
Well, this is our second self-financed work, after our debut album “mad music for the apes”, which was released almost 2 years ago. It is a much more focused album in terms of sound, production, performance and songwriting. It was recorded live at unrealstudioz.com. It’s not a concept record, yet we feel one must hear it in its entirety to fully understand what we’re all about. There’s a lot of mood and dynamic changes in there. Two full years, documented in 20 minutes worth of music, so it’s intense in its high’s and its low’s. For the time being, we’re releasing it in digital format, and you never know, if we win the lottery, you might see some vinyl or something.
What about the artwork?
It’s a hand made illustration by an exceptional artist named Christina Tsevis. She is responsible for the artwork on our first album also. We gave her the title “you gotta look good in this fuckin business” and this is what she came up with. Obviously she was inspired by Kafka’s novel “The Metamorphosis” which kind of gave us a new perspective on what we wanted to say. It’s like “you gotta look good in this fucking business”, but who decides what looks good or not? Who decides what is a piece of art and what is trash? You know.. perspective!
lease share a few words about the Greek scene.
We are very proud of our local scene. There’s a lot of really good music coming out of our country these past few years and from many genres. Check out insect radio, blame kandinsky, rita mosss, calf, ruined families, minerva superduty and chronoboros. And those are just a few of our personal favourites. There’s a whole lot more going on so start searching and you will find exceptional stuff. Trust us.
Should punk be political?
We think punk shouldn’t be anything. If punk HAS to be something, then it’s definitely not punk any more. We are not political. Not because we don’t have an opinion, but because we prefer to talk about other stuff. After all there’s a lot of bands, especially now, that do that job very well. For us, our band is more of a psychology project. We try to deal with our own personal issues. We’re using the band to become better people and better musicians. And for us it’s not about playing fast or aggressive either. The most “punk” track on our new record is the album title track. It’s a good friend of ours we recorded in samothraki island, playing his saxophone all by himself. No guitars, no screams, no blast beats. Just a friend playing this really depressing melody on a saxophone. Now that, to us, is punk.
So, what next for you guys?
Right now, we are very excited about this new album. A video clip is also being prepared for the final track and we are pretty damn proud of how its turning up. Other than that, it’s LIVE, LIVE and then some more LIVE. That’s what we love most anyway. We are by no means a studio band. We just got back from a mini tour in Greece and have some shows coming up in Athens. After that, its time for us to tour Europe and we are working on that right now. We’re really not good at planning, but we’re really good at getting things done. It’s like a train that must keep going for us, but we have absolutely no idea where the hell we’re heading. We’re just going. Just keep writing music, keep playing live, keep meeting new places and people. Keep doing stuff. That’s what’s next for us. Keeping the band alive.
