I N T E R V I E W

Interview Christianna, Johnny Zero

First of all, can you introduce your band?

Christianna: First of all I would like to thank you on behalf of all Elysion for having us! Elysion were founded in 2006 by Johnny Zero and Elysion's former singer Maxi Nil, who then invited friends they considered to be very talented musicians to join them in what they hoped to be an ambitious and beautiful plan. Gladly, chemistry worked perfectly and that was just the beginning. Today the will to make our dream come true is stronger than ever... apart from myself and our guitarist and composer Johnny Zero, Elysion are aparted from Petros Fatis (drums) and FxF, our bass player.

Why did you call your album "Silent Scr3am"?

Christianna: Well, we needed something to best describe Elysion's sound: something simple but beautiful, quiet but strong and alluring at the same time. Picking out two words contrasting one another for the title best communicates this element. I guess this, as well as the outcome of the entire album, was a team work. "Silent Scr3am" is what each of us would like to whisper, sing or cry out to life, hoping to be heard.

The melodies are catchy. How did you work the composition?

Johnny: We had no plan of intentionally composing the melodies to be catchy, but we did want our music to be simple and straightforward, strong but beautiful in its simplicity. The final outcome of the composition was a mixture of different elements, ranging from atmospheric metal to electro, with our personal musical identities as musicians. We didn't choose to sound a certain way, we only wished to create a beautiful musical platform to lay our emotions upon.

Some can be tempt to compare you to Evanescence. For you, is it a compliment or not?

Christianna: Any comparison to a band who has been so widely successful is an honor to us, however, we would love to stand out for our own musical character! Elysion is a combination of metal, rock, gothic and electro elements influenced by both the American and European scene. Perhaps an overall American-like approach of" Silent Scr3am"'s sound is the amazing result of Ted Jensen's mastering, whose contribution to the album's high quality was major! We are working hard to establish our own musical identity and wish to copy no one, however successful. Hope we can reach out to people and be embraced for who we are!

"Far Away from the Edge" is a ballad. Do you think it's necessary to have a ballad on an album when we do gothic metal?

Johnny: I think that regardless of the music genre, there is no such thing as a "recipe" when it comes to inspiration. "Far from the edge" is one of the two ballads of the album, and both were written not to serve any other necessity but only that of expressing our feelings through its melancholic atmosphere .It does not matter if an album is full of ballads or if there is not one in it, what matters is for the band to put down their soul into whatever it is they compose.

There are electronic sounds for the keyboards and also for the voice. Why?

Johnny : Since our influences in music vary a lot it was obvious that our sound would blend many different approaches together, electro elements being one of them. We enriched our songs with whatever idea we thought would bring out the feelings we wanted to express, since "Silent Scr3am" is all about human emotions. We felt completely free to include all we thought necessary to create that strong, simple yet dark and alluring atmosphere we wished the album to have.

"Silent Scr3am" is your first album, but you have already sign with Massacre Records. How did you signed with them?

Christianna: To begin with, the material we had to work with appeared very promising from the beginning, so once Elysion worked on their demo a number of labels expressed their interest in us, for which we are grateful. We were lucky enough to sign up with Massacre Records, achieving a very important deal with one of the leader labels in this industry. Having all the support such a label can provide was definitely a big advantage to us, but also a great responsibility, so we worked as hard as possible to measure up to our label's trust and support. We hope to have done a good job!

You've worked with Ted Jensen. How was the collaboration?

We feel we were blessed in all aspects concerning this album. Working with one of the top sound engineers of the industry was a huge honour and opportunity, to begin with. Over the years we have been very impressed by Ted Jensen's work, since it has contributed so much to the sound of many of our favourite bands and artists, so we totally trusted him to do whatever he thought best with our music and, of course, he did. We should at this point give great credit to our producer Mark Adrian who did an amazing job recording and mixing the album, and therefore "feeding" Ted Jensen with a very high standard material so he had a wonderful platform to work on and master "Silent Scr3am".It was very important for us to have our very first album sound exactly the way we had dreamt it would, it was a thrill to have the production bring out the best in of music!

Why did you choose an artwork done by Natalie Shau?

Christianna: We have actually been following Natalie Shau's work for several years and loving it...she is an extremely talented artist and she has worked miracles with so many bands, among them "Poisonblack" and "Lacuna Coil". She was the first to come to mind when it was time for us to decide upon our cover. We needed the outside to match the inside...we wanted Elysion's simplicity and beauty to be captured on the cover and be just what the title says: a silent scream is quiet but loud at the same time. Natalie took this all to the next level: she managed to come up with something so pretty, inviting and eye-catching but at the same time dark and weird, we knew from the moment we saw it that this was it. The girl on the cover is so still and silent, but yet breathtaking and intense, it couldn't have worked any better!

Christiannas, your look is based on the gothic style. Does the look is important for the image of the band?

Christianna: It surely is, as appearance is the very first impression we all have of anything. However, looks can never take anyone far on their own,they might attract some attention but if there is lack of substance nothing works...Speaking of myself,I don't consider my style of dressing as part of creating an image for the band, I prefer to dress same way even in my everyday life so I am just being myself...I think being yourself is essential to achieving anything.

Some bands need time to write an album however others need to work on new compositions all the time. In which category are you?

Johnny: I guess I am the type of composer who will always wake up in the middle of the night to work on a new idea and will not rest until the song is ready...we all enjoy composing all the time because writing and playing music is what we live for. This is quite important because when the time comes to record the album there is plenty of material to choose from and make sure we include the best of the best. There are many songs pending in our drawers, some of them might never see the light of day, but still they have served their purpose: they helped us express ourselves and feel alive.

You are coming from Greece. How does the metal is seen there?

Christianna: The metal scene in Greece is getting quite crowdy, actually! Competition is getting greater and greater and this is a good thing because it's very beneficial for the Greek scene to see the standards improving. I am proud to see talented bands hitting the international scene, after Rotting Christ,Septic Flesh and Firewind there now seems to be quite of an activity going on in Greece. Still, it is difficult to overcome certain obstacles and stand out but I still am a romantic thinker who believes that whatever the difficulties, there will always be space for beautiful works and talented people.

You did two gigs in the beginning of January. Do you plan to do a tour with more dates and all over Europe?

Live dates are to be announced any day now! Touring is our top priority at the moment, like you mentioned we have already began by touring Greece. We wish to honour our homeland first for all the great support and have our European tour follow right after that. An American tour is probably going to follow in second half of 2010 so we are thrilled about this all, looking forward to visiting as many countries as we possibly can and getting in touch with all this wonderful energy existing in live shows!

Excepting touring, what are your plans for the upcoming months and this year?

Christianna : Making a videoclip is definitely among our plans for the upcoming months...we are trying to pick out which tracks are going to be visualized but it's a tough call...But we can let you know that "Killing My Dreams" is probably going to be our first videoclip!Apart from that, we are always composing new songs, although it is extremely early to talk about the next album, we are always in a very creative and inspired mood!

Have you something else to say to end this interview?

Christianna and Johnny: We would like to thank you all for your support, it honestly means everything to us to see people responding to Elysion's music. We will never forget all the strength we are given in these very first steps of ours. Can't wait to see you all at a show!