• Phase? As far as I know, your started from cooperation with Microsoft as your debut. What was this cooperation about and what was the result?

 

Microsoft was running this campaign when we were starting off recording as a band and we thought we’d go for it so we secure the name ‘Phase‘ that loads of people seemed to like to use at the time, for the few years Phase was dormant. They had given us some money so people could download our song ‘Perdition‘ for seven days off their website or something like that.

 

• Phase was formed in Greece but moved to UK. What made you to change country?

 

Oh that was solely for the weather! Jokes aside, we think the audiences here are more educated, even from the very first gigs we’ve done over here, people would let them selves carried away by the music, it was a. while back in Greece people would talk all the time over the songs even at gigs they’d pay 40 and 50 euros to see their ‘favourite artists’, I think that’s very silly if not disrespectful, but then again everyone is free to act as they wish, and throw away their resources but for an artist this is a more healthy environment I suppose, making art is not frowned upon, on the contrary it’s encouraged and respected.

 

• What was the most significant concert in your history and why?

 

I will have to answer the obvious, the Syrian gig is to this day the most significant experience we had as a band… We were caught around major significant historical and political changes… If the regime would fall in Iran and played there or North Korea or something it would be the same… We still follow the news about the war and we contribute as much as we can from time to time. We were offered to play Cuba once you know, before the rolling stones did, but there were come implications around it and it never happened in the end.

 

• What motivated you to play a gig in Syria? How was it?

 

We were offered the gig and went straight for it really, we didn’t put much thinking to it and ignored the political situation there, of the fact that ‘extreme music’ is very underground because Shareef Didn’t like it much. I mean, rock music used to be banned in the Soviet Union too back in the day. It was amazing, the whole thing… We’ve met all these beautiful people there, and got to discover their take on life and all… It’s a shame we didn’t get to visit Palmyra before it got destroyed just because of a hangover…

 

• What makes Phase to be the most proud of?

 

The fact that we can still make time to do things together even-though our commitments have changed dramatically from when we were still students.

 

• With which artist did you had the most interesting collaboration with?

 

I really respect Duncan Patterson for wanting to participate in our first album, I cherish these times close to my heart, there are a few more people we were discussing on playing with, that didn’t work out and we might do it on an anniversary release or something we’ll see… Then with people we’ve played with it was interesting with everyone separately because they didn’t treat us like the little band that would open for them, since day one and that made us think that we really counted and felt well respected by people we had spend a good amount of hours listening to ourselves… so…

 

• Tell us about your future album. What will it be about?

There’s going to be a central idea again, like it happened with its predecessors, and its becoming a bit of tradition, it will be there to dress the whole album with an atmosphere and not dictate how the song lyrics should strictly be. The title is going to be Family and what I can tell you is that it’s not going to be all picnics, holidays and quality family time! Musically it’s going to be a good mix of styles again and it’s always interesting how we mix old material with new song passages as we have that idea pool that’s full of riffs and it’s always growing!

 

• Ukrainian Bandura: how will it feature in your next album?

 

We are still figuring out parts for it as it’s an amazing sounding instrument, like a friend of mine used to say, instruments were created to produce sound, not certain styles or accommodate certain techniques. It’s a really interesting instrument on its own right!

 

• Which direction will you chose after album release? What are your future plans?

 

It’s going to be a record with the familiar dark rock atmosphere and a bit of folk and industrial in the mix like the way we always do, it’s just going to be more mature in sound, since we’ve learned a lot during the course of Phase‘s existence. Our plans are to release a few more things like the new album, a few singles on vinyl records, and a box set and a photo book for our 10 years, I personally think they are being done beautifully and have collector’s value, and I can tell you that since I am the number one Phase fan.

 

• Do you plan to play in Ukraine? Maybe, Ukrainian audience will get lucky to hear Phase with Ukrainian Bandura live?  

 

Quite possibly, we’ve used quite a few fancy instruments over the years but it’s costly to bring them on a tour, but since we are in talks with promoters for gigs there, I bet it’s rather easy to source one locally!

[taken from: http://www.dailymetal.com.ua/phase-pro-kontsert-v-syriyi-spivpratsyu-z-microsoft-ta-ukrayinsku-banduru/]

Interviewer: Jasia Reznikova / Sandra Konopatska
Publication: Daily Metal
Period: August 2018