- Describe your sound in three words!
Movie scenes sonified.
- What inspired the name ‘The Last Humanist’?
Well, actually it is inspired from Taylor Hackford`s movie “ The Devil`s Advocate” starring Al Pacino, who is playing the devil in the movie and personifies the dark side in all of us. Also it sounds cool (at least I think so). Easy to remember.
- Which films would you like to hear your music playing?
I love the vibe in Tarantino`s Pulp fiction and Jackie Brown. My song “Jackie” was inspired by that movie. Also Wayne Wang`s “Smoke” and “Blue in the face” and Jim Jarmusche`s “Ghost Dog: The Way of The Samurai” and “Mystery Train” just to name a few. But I can go on and on about movies..haha!
- Your music incorporates numerous improvisations. Is improvisation a talent or a skill?
I`d say it is a combination of both. You have to be quite fluent in any spoken language in order to be able to express yourself without restrictions.
I think the same goes for music too. First you have to learn the music language, the phrases, the licks, learn to make sentences, not necessarily music theory.
For example if you like the blues, you should pay attention to the blues vocabulary, meaning the music phrases that have been used by so many and have been evolved throughout the decades.
Same as the funk and jazz vocabulary or eastern music vocabulary. Many musicians are able to recognize a blues or jazz phrase used in 2020 that goes back to the early 1920s or even longer back.
I think it’s possible that without realizing it, through historic continuity, we might play rhythmic patterns and licks that our ancestors played 5000 or 15000 years back in Africa, back to the roots..haha! Or even come up with your own words, why not? And of course talent makes all that journey much much easier and more enjoyable and boosts your creativity I reckon.
- Can you describe the Greek music scene and what you love/hate about it?
What I hate about the Greek music industry is that it treats artists like pariahs. In my opinion, if you want to elevate a society’s mental, intellectual and spiritual level, you have to at least provide artists, not only musicians with the basic necessities to be able to live with and continue to create. And society will get back its money’s worth multiplied. That’s for sure. What I love about it, is that it combines so many different western and eastern music qualities and characteristics and the way those qualities blend with each other.
- Dream place you’d like to play?
Blue Note jazz club in Greenwich Village New York City. That would be fun.
- You mostly release instrumental music. How easy it is to promote music that does not have lead vocals?
I dont have much experience in the field of promotion. This past year I learned a lot though. I like to create music that I enjoy listening to without letting promotional concerns interfere with that. I like instrumental improvisational music with extensive soloing. I really enjoy listening to an artist`s connection with their conscious and unconscious inner psychic segments while improvising over a groove. What psychic processes does that groove initiate? And if they are masters in their craft like Medeski, Martin and Wood, Keith Jarrett or Stevie Ray Vaughan then you are off on a ride. And I think there is a market for that too.
- What are your plans for the future?
As an artist my plans are to continue upgrading my studio over the next years and to create music consistently. And as a person, to be more and more present, stop swaying between past events or future possibilities and be the best father and best husband that I can be for my 2 year old daughter Dimitra and my wife Vicky.
- Thank you!
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