Kinetic and the horrible side of life

interview with Savvas on 16-5-2005

Hello..what's up Savvas? What’s your position in the band and introduce the other members please?
Hello everyone and thank you for this presentation!!! I am Savvas Betinis, bass and vocals in KINETIC. We are a 4-member band and all the members are coming from other historic bands of Greek underground. I was in ACID DEATH for 12 years, ACID DEATH was one of the few Progressive Death Metal Greece had born with some interesting releases in various labels, Manolis Mamas and Stavros Bonikos, our guitarists, were playing in BRAIN FADE, a Power Metal band and Costas Alexakis, our drummer was in a Heavy Metal band called WISDOM. Being friends all the past years, when our bands stopped, we formed KINETIC in 2002. Having enough music material we created a respectable number of songs in few months and using our demo-CD released in 2003 we got a geal with the Greek label SLEASZYRIDER RECs for this full-length CD “The Chains That Bind Us”.

You just released your CD `The chains that bind us`. The reason you read this interview is because I like it a lot. You recorded it yourselves; how did that process go? It must be great with production like this...
“The Chains That Bind Us” is our 1st full-length recording. We had the opportunity to record it in our own studio, better in the studio that belongs to Manolis and Stavros and things worked really good. Stavros was on the sound-engineer`s chair and all of us over his head on producer`s point. We processed our material about 7 months, a very long period in studio, trying our best on its production. We had to do 2 or 3 different mixes in every song just to choose the right one. Of course if we hadn`t this opportunity we wouldn`t be all this time in studio, just because it would be a total financial destruction!

Is there any concept in your lyrics related to your bandname? How did you get this bandname?
Well, when we started the band in 2002 we were looking for a simple and easy-sounded name. We tried ZERO for some time, having in mind that we were four men who started a new course from “0” point. Soon this name was getting disliked by us. Trying to find a new better one, Costas had the idea of KINETIC. We liked the philosophy behind it, “something unfold, something that isn`t stable” and we kept it. On the lyric subject things are different. We speak about the horrible side of life describing simple human emotions by indicating simple human stories, phantastic or true. These human emotions are “described as “Chains” in our full-length, that either “bring together” or just “unite” the humans “Us” and it is clear looking at the CD cover, having all these chains into the fire and a spirit of light over them...

Tell us something about the label you're on? Are you satisfied with their  promotion/distribution?
Well....things are going too slow... SLEASZYRIDER recs is a small independent label with many bands and that means some things needs a long time to be done. This label was our 1st step but I think we deserve something better for the continue... A big rate of band`s promotion was done be me, of course this is not problem, I love the band and I want to do anything I can for its progress, but some things have to be done by the label and not from the band....

There's a mix of some styles in your music. What are your main influences and how does that reflect in your music?
Our main mix is Swedish/American Death Metal, with a lot of Power/Heavy influences, even some Industrial ones. They just reflect our personal influences which come from these fields. As separate personallities we come from 3 different directions, I was in Death Metal, Manolis and Stavros were in Power Metal and Costas in Heavy Metal. You know, when we started KINETIC and announced the line up most of our friends and some older fans fromour previous bands had some words in their mouth like “...what the hell they want to do??” but when our demo came out most of them had a good word to say. I believe that we have mix our influences in a way that any Heavy listener can find something interesting in our music without getting tired or confused with what is in the CD.

Is there many gigs organised in your area or in other parts of Greece? Or are there any places you can go out and meet other bands and fans of metal or do you drink Ouzo at home?
Haha!!! Do you know ouzo? It is a traditional dring of Greece with ... a lot of Power!!!!! Anyway. Things are going too fast for the Greek organizers. Some years ago we had one or two live shows from bands coming from other countries in a month, now there are many times that we have the one here and the othere there the same day. There are many Rock/Metal clubs in Athens and almost in every city arround Greece, some of them are organizing live shows and generally life is good for a metalhead here in Greece. There are many examples from bands who came for a show and finally left Greece with the idea “These Greeks are crazy!!!!” The same happens with the local bands. There are many good relationships and freindship between us although there are always some assholes who just exist to create problems to the others...

What other bands in your area or country are worth to be mentioned in this interview?
Many!!! Greece is full of good bands but there are also many difficulties for them and most of them have a long way to see the light. I can mention hundreds of names but I think its better of someone to have a good look in Greek underground and he won`t get dissapointed. Some of our better names in my opinion are: D-NOIZ, SARISSA (An old Power Metal band with enough discography in its back and a big history too), W.E.B., SHADDOWS DANCE, EMERALD and CROSSOVER.

What kind of music you listen to besides metal? Are you involved in other bands/projects?
We like some fusion bands like TRIBAL TECH and some cult bands like CURE or DEAD CAN DANCE. I dare not say we are into many other kinds of music. Also there are no other music-projects out of KINETIC. We want to give all our temper and passion to this band and having other music projects is something that won`t help at all on that.

If you would change your musical style into gothic or whatever, who would be the female singer? Vicky Leandros or Nana Moskouri?
Mmmm.... I would chose Vicky Leandros, she`s more “underground” and darker that Nana...

What's your opinion on the internet? Does it help you to get exposure or do you agree with Metallica that downloading is steeling money from 'rockstars'?
You speak to a good person about the Internet....you know I`m Computer Engineer as self occupation haha! Well, I strongly believe that Internet is today`s blessing for anyone who wants to be exposure, and having this in our conversation, it is today`s blessing for band`s exposure. I still remember and I think I`m not the only one on this, those years of stone, when a band tried hard to be presented to anywhere by sending those damn letters, when someone was waiting for months for just a simple “no” on a letter he sent demanding something and hundreds of stories like that. Today things are so easy.... Of course I don`t agree 100% on free downloading except if it becomes for promotional reasons but in anyway Metallica`s view on this subject was too “excess”. They have gained a lot of money from their work as band and downloading wouldn`t make them loose anything. Besides that all these “rockstars” have more money from their lives and less from Cd-sellings, so... Mr Ulrich, be quiet please!!!!

What's your all time favourite top 5 of metal or rock albums?
Well....here we are:
SLAYER “Hell Awaits”
POSSESSED “Seven Churches”
WASP “The Last Command”
DREAM THEATRE “Images And Words”
LOU REED “New York”

Do you have any plans (or wishes) to do a tour outside your country? What places would you like to go to, and which band should be headlining?
We had the opportunity to make a 15-days tour in some countries in Europe this winter but we finally we didn`t just because of tour`s bad timing for us. You know, except KINETIC we have our self-occupations and we have to fix everything in time if we want to do something like that. This season we have finished a small tour in Greece, visiting several cities and having live-shows in Athens of course. We hope to re-errect on an European tour next season but things aren`t easy. KINETIC is a new name and there are many out there who just wait to see if this band deserve to be in a higher place that they are. We don`t have any preferations on what countries we`d like to visit or who will be the headliner, we just want the oportunity to do it!!!

Are there any things worth mentioning about your lives besides this band or is this your main occupation. How much time you put into your music and rehearsals?
It would be lovely for KINETIC to be our main occupation but it isn`t. We have our professions for having the necessary in life, we have our famillies... but we put a lot of time into the band on writing new songs, on aranging lives on making rehearsals and all the othere activities. In fact all our time after our works and familly goes to the band and we love it. We see a “child” that is growing day by day, becoming stronger and we feel happy for our creation!!

Thanks for this interview, take care and good luck for the future. Do you have anything else to add to this?
Thank you too for this presentation, wishing the best for BRUTALISM! Check KINETIC, guys, we won't dissapoint you! That`s for sure!