Intervista Rotting Christ (Sakis Tolis)

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Hi Sakis, how are you doing?

A little bit tired, you know, doing show every day, but we have the spirit and that keep us going on.

A few months ago, you released “The Heretics”, your 13th album in 26 years. The numbers are quite impressive, on average it’s an album every two years…

Every two and half years.

… do you find it hard to write new music?

Do you know what I’m doing now?
I’m writing some new music [laughs].
But, yeah, it’s very hard, you have thirteen albums, you have a whole history, but you know something? That keeps me alive.
As long as I create, I feel that I am strong enough to keep on going, and that’s very important because we are getting older and for me inspiration is the number one thing in my life, as long as I feel inspired, I feel young and I can keep on going.

“The Heretics” is a quite dark album, can you talk me through the lyrics? Is it a concept album?

Lyrically yes, it’s an album that is based on big quotes from people that have been called heretics back in time, people that say some really good words, some wisdom, but they were cast from the system, from the Church – which is system too – as heretics.
So, I said myself, “Maybe I’m one of these guys, an heretic”, what I’m doing with my life is not going with the flow, so I took influences from all these big people during the history of time and I write down.

When you write new music, and put together the setlists for your shows, how much of that is for yourself, and how much for the fans?

It’s difficult, that’s why I’m planning maybe to record something, maybe one solo album, some side project, because I have too many ideas in my life.
I like to play guitar, I like to write music, and I feel like, alright… but, with Rotting Christ, I have to be honest, I always think about the fans because if you have a history you can’t whatever exactly you want.

In the album, just like it happened in the last few albums, you have lyrics in different languages. Is it a choice only due to the musicality of the songs, so to say, or is there a deeper meaning behind it?

You know, I’m a traveller, I have travelled all over the world many times, and I have realised that metalheads are a very strong community worldwide. It doesn’t matter where you come from, you come from the East or from the West, the main thing is that the metalhead has the same codes, so I said to myself, “Alright, I want to write in different languages”.
Only Italian I haven’t tried, I have Latin…

Maybe next time.

Next time [laughs]. Next time we’ll try to write something in Italian, it’s not that easy because I always ask for help from other people.
But I like this multicultural thing in the Metal music.

I was looking at the recording credits of your albums, and realised only yesterday that you’ve been playing all the instruments, but the drums, in the studio in the last few albums…

In all album, actually!
Almost all our albums.

… how challenging is it to play everything?

It’s challenging, but I like to do something by myself.
Many people tell me, “Why don’t you get a guitar player, why don’t you get…”, you know, it’s a great pleasure for me when an album comes out and I say, “Alright, this is myself”.

You’re now almost halfway through this huge tour with Moonspell…

Not even that, we are at 30%, it’s 50 shows, very long!

… how is it going so far?

Very good.
Every night is full, it’s packed.
I don’t know about today, usually in Italy we pull a little less people, but still it’s a pleasure to play with all these guys because we know Moonspell personally, we’ve been very good friends for a very long time, and that makes things easier.

And how did the idea of this tour with them came about?

We have offers for a tour, but as soon as Moonspell came up with this long schedule is said, “Alright, I believe in this tour because, okay, the bands are not the same, but they have the same atmosphere, mentality”, and it’s a big thing for the European market when southern European bands sell out some shows, it’s a very big thing.

Talking about tours, even today, in 2019, you sometimes have problems because of the name of the band and of your lyrics.

History make circles, that’s why I told you before we are kind of heretics or something.
Many of our shows have been abandoned but we keep on going because, first of all, the most important thing is to send the message, and this is sometimes more important than the music.

What I wanted to ask you is, how is it like for you, do you like to cause a little controversy, to upset people…

Not anymore, I’m not young anymore.
When I was young, when I was very young, yeah of course, that was my goal.
But now I say, “Alright, maybe the world can change with actions, not, like, words”.
I want to play my music in different territories, in weird territories instead of saying, “Alright, fuck you all, stay home”.

So, it feels a bit like a mission, bringing around your message?

Of course.

This year you changed both your guitarist and your bassist…

Yeah, in Rotting Christ come and go many people, me and my brother are the only ones always there.
Sometimes some people cannot afford this, they have plans… when you are young you want to do your own thing, you think that maybe you can do better, you know how it is when you are young.

Between the demos you recorded and the show you played in the early ‘90s it’s safe to say that you were one of the protagonists of the early European Black Metal scene…

Let’s say, yes.

… when did you start to realise the influence Rotting Christ’s music has had?

When you influence history you never realise that you were part of this big thing, I just realised in the last years that whatever we did was important.
What I see with the new generations make me very proud.

What are your memories of that period in general?

Chaos.
Chaos is a good way to describe it, with all those people from Norway, from bands, from all around the world.
Very good times, good memories, but the world has changed dramatically and living in the present can sometimes be difficult.

I think ‘Non Serviam’ could be easily considered your most famous and representative song…

Representative, yes.

… okay, let’s say only representative: you also got it tattooed on your belly, Behemoth’s Nergal got it on his arm, I’ve seen many fans with the same tattoo as well. What other songs by Rotting Christ you think are the most representative and significative for the band?

Alright, it could be ‘Athanati Este’, it means “You are immortal” in Greek, it could be… ‘χξϛʹ, that’s “666” in Ancient Greek.
Songs like that can be considered representative of us.

Rotting Christ now have been around for more than 30 years: once Rock was considered a young people’s music, but it turned out that bands like Black Sabbath and Judas Priest can still kick asses with their members being 70 years old.

I don’t know, Sabbath do it because they play easy, we play very fast songs sometimes, that’s why sometimes I calm down a little bit.
People tell me, “Why do you calm down?”, come on guys, I’m 48, I’m not 28, it makes a difference, believe me.

That’s exactly where I wanted to get to: do you think Rotting Christ could go on for as long?

This is an experiment: ours is an experiment in extreme music.
I see some people who are 55 doing this, if you play easy songs instead of [plays fast riff] it’s totally different.

Do you think it’s only a physical limit, or also a matter of attitude and mentality?

It’s biological, yeah.

I was thinking, with bands like Metallica…

These bands inspire us!

… but, I mean, in their early songs they talk about being young and wild and against society, but now they are Rockstars and they are nothing like that so, can they still do that?

It’s difficult to stay young and wild all your life.
I thought that would happen but it doesn’t, of course you keep your roots, you keep some very important ideas in your life, I cannot go away from non serviam, but I cannot pretend sometimes that we are the most evil band or something.
That’s not good for my age, and it’s not honest with you, I cannot say “I’m the most evil and I will fuck you up”… come on!
 

That was my last question, do you have a final message for our readers?

Italy feels like home here, everything is quite close to our own land, Greece, people have the same mentality and hope to come back here often.
Non Serviam!

Davide Sciaky