SadDoLLs - Interview

One month ago, I had the opportunity to meet in person this new reality of the Greek dark-wave scene. The occasion was the release party of their latest album, “Grave Party”.

A month later, we wanted to have a chat with the lead vocalist George Downloved, to ask him how all of this was born.

Hi my boy!

First of all, I wanna thank you again for the great experience in Athens last April, for me it was fantastic to know you and breath the sound around your world.

Well, let’s start?

-"Grave Party"came out last month. What do you expect now?

George Downloved: Hello to you too and thank you for this interview.

This album is a major change in our musical and lyrical direction, we made this album in a way that many different “ears” will appreciate it. There are goth rock songs 80’s style, many industrial metal songs, some black metal vocals from time to time, a cover song and a ballad, and of course there’s Skinny Disco from Deathstars doing some vocals for the track “Terminate Me”. We are planning some shows in Europe and the feedback we are getting is really positive so let’s see what happens.

-What’s the concept behind this album and its emotional impact?

George Downloved: Well the album was originally to be called “Valentine’s Breakup” and the story behind this title was the series of bad relationships and breakups had happened to some band mates during 2012-2013 :P Even one member broke up on Valentine’s day. After the composing though we thought that the title did not suited the songs decently, so we decided to change it to “Grave Party”. Anyway it is an album driven by rage and anger, but made with love and unity.

-What are the main differences between this album and your past ones?

George Downloved: As many out there already know, we were and still are HIM fans and fans of the Finnish so called “Love Metal” bands. This was our influence too. An influence that one could tell by listening to “About Darkness” or “Happy Deathday” (especially the latter). The songs were more melodic, more goth-pop rock in the style of Join Me In Death by HIM or Hollow Heart by To/Die/For and some of them even more poppier  than that :P Grave Party has it all. It has our previous two albums combined but with many more new stuff added. The songs are darker, heavier and danceable. It is also a synth-driven album. This is our own little goth party and we invite everyone to join!

-You have lost a little bit of 'love metal' sound like HIM, I mean, I'm happy for you, because It's very important for a band born as a cover band like you, to find own personal  path  … Could you tell us something about  the lyrics of this album, is there a general concept running through everysong?

George Downloved: Just like i said in the previous question, the tag  “Love Metal” or  “they sound like HIM” or “they sound like...” was something that got us tired through the reviews from the previous albums. This is why we decided to: quit the band OR do something entirely different. So we sat down and wrote the songs. The deal was 50 – 50. If the songs came out well and got us satisfied we would make the album, if not, we would just break up. So when “Lady Cry” was born we just said that not only the album was going to happen but this abomination would be the first clip too :P I Also tried to do the lyrics in a more dark and twisted way and so I presented my perverted nature from within the lyrics. Some of them are extremely pessimistic, some of them are sleazy, some of them are just crazy. For example the song “Suicide Girl” is dedicated to all the suicide girls out there that love to paint their sins on their bodies in the form of tattooes. ”Lady Cry” is kinda ironic about the cry babies that finds their way out from bad situations simply by crying to gain some pity, ”The Last Valentine” talks about that breakup I mentioned above, ”Sexy and Undead”  talks about a zombie girl and “On The Road 66” talks about a car crash and the Devil that came and took the girl to Hell.

-Why this radical change compared to the last ones?

George Downloved: The main reason was that we wanted to create our own sound and we are really proud of the outcome, so we are continuing in this direction from now on.

-How do you feel after 'Grave party' release? Would you change something?

George Downloved: No, just some minor details, but nothing major.

-Is there in your mind a song that isn't come out yet?

George Downloved: There was this song that our drummer Gus wrote back when we were making the pre-production called “Cold Blooded Sacrifice”. I think it was the greatest ballad along with “On the road 66” we ever composed. But when he left the band the song left the band with him too so it never made it to the final tracklist, but it’s lovely and now that Gus is back we could use it for the next album, but I don’t know yet, we’ll see.

-What are your greatest not musical influences in your life?

George Downloved: My mom, my band and her…

-Do you have played some gigs around Europe, what is your relationship with fan?

George Downloved: We had the chance to appear at the Dark Storm Festival in Chemnitz,Germany in 2013 along with VNV Nation,Blutengel,Solarfake,Gothminister and Mono Inc. And through this gig we introduced our sound to the German audience and we gained some more popularity from that show and recently we opened for the 69 Eyes in Tallinn, Estonia at the Rock Cafe, and it was a great show and we gained some new “fans” from there too. Our relasionship with the “fans” is like pure and simple, we do not consider them as “fans” but more like people that enjoy our stuff and sometimes we go out and drink beers with them :P We are no rockstars, we are people with lives just like everyone else.

-In which country, or perhaps even more specifically, what city, do you enjoy playing the most, and why?

George Downloved: I Personally just LOVE Prague, although we had never so far the chance to do a gig there, I really adore this city and I would go to live there in a heartbeat.It’s the No.1 gothic city in the world!

-Could you describe every single members of the band through your musical or personal experience with them?

George Downloved: Well ok, let me see...Right!

Paul Evilrose: He is the boss :P He is our manager and booker and promoter and he writes most of the songs and sometimes he writes lyrics too. He is my bro, and I love him but I want to punch him sometimes cause he is a pain in the ass :P

J.Vitu: He is the calm guy and the most emotional of us all. We all love him cause he is always so kind and helpful and he is great to hang out with. The only bad about him is that he is joining the Greek army in a few days for 8 months :/

G.B: He is a crazy motherfucker! He is a sound engineer, a video editor and film maker (he is going to shoot our next video too) he is also a pervert and he is half American :P The only bad thing about him is that he has so many things running in his life that sometimes he has zero time, and we can’t even get him on his phone.

St.Gus: Well Gus left the band back in 2013 cause we had a disagreement on the musical direction we would take for the next album, and the main reason was that he likes to play metalcore music, a genre that differs a lot from the SadDoLLs style. Now he is back with us, he likes the outcome of the new album and he still likes and plays metalcore with his other band :P He is a hipster and a redneck :P

Thank you so much George and...much LOVE guys!

Interview by Michela

Official Link: www.saddolls.net

Original Interview for Ondalternativa HERE