Cyanide4 are in great shape and have already played in Thessaloniki and Ioannina during the last weeks with a final stop in Athens and Remedy club. The frontman and guitarist of the band, G.A. Sinn, is catching up with us about the latest developments in the band, the new line-up that plays its first concerts, the evolution from one album to the next and promises that the band will not follow the tradition of releasing new work every five years and will deliver the goods faster! Interview: Sakis Nikas
Rockpages.gr. After a long absence from the stage you are back. Why now…what has changed?
G.A. Sinn: What has changed? Quite a lot of things around us and in the band…we went through lockdowns, pandemics, overseas moves, repatriations, pressure, disappointments, but finally we got out of that “black cloud” we had over us since about 2020 and now with Tony and George on guitar and bass respectively, we continue where we left off, even more dynamically and with great appetite again!
Rockpages.gr: What were the first reactions of the crowd but why not your impressions from the first two concerts in Ioannina and Thessaloniki?
G.A. Sinn: Surely, playing live was something like a medicine for us, because the truth is that a musician feeds off the stage… getting back on stage and playing some songs from “AmaΛgamA” for the first time was like a “redemption” after so long and a lot of hardships we had to face.
Adrian Kyprianos: Obviously, this excellent mood is evident, “there is a good atmosphere in the locker room and it shows” as they say, so the audience definitely had a great time with us! At least that’s what they showed us, that’s what we understood, haha! Thanks a lot to everyone who came to these two live shows and of course to the bands that shared the stage, the young and promising “Lucenthia” and our good friends and excellent rockers “Felony Case” in Ioannina, as well as the crazy rock & rollers “Poison Heart” in Thessaloniki! Rock on guys!
Rockpages.gr: It’s been almost 2 years since the release of your last album “AmaΛgamA”. Looking back now, would you change something? Are you completely satisfied with the album?
G.A. Sinn: Well, I have to say that there’s a lot of “behind the scenes” stuff for “AmaΛgamA”. The album was ready since the summer of 2019! Since then and until about the 1st lockdown, in March of 2020, we were in the mixing phase, but we had to change producer in between the process in order to achieve desired result… That plan failed, although it was a “well-known” producer abroad and went back to the first one, where with a lot of talking, patience and guidance we came to the result you can finally hear on the album! So practically, we have changed things, haha…We are satisfied with the final result of course, we worked hard and we achieved it! We believe that both compositionally and sonically, it is a clear evolution of our previous album, “Nekyia”!
Rockpages.gr: You have an informal tradition of releasing albums every five years. I hope we don’t have to wait until 2027 for your record return…
G.A. Sinn: HELL NO! As we mentioned above, the plan was to release “AmaLgamA” in 2020… Whatever happened, the quarantine sat, so it went back.
We won’t hide it, there is already enough material, we are talking about 15-17 songs in “demo versions”, we don’t have a plan regarding the completion of the pre-production and the recordings yet, but we’ll get to that. Right now we are eager to play live, so recording will be the next stage for sure!
Adrian Kyprianos: Soon though, expect something “new…from the past” and not so common in Cyanide 4’s discography. Apart from the live show, we have other things to do next weekend! You will be informed about it soon on our social media!
Rockpages.gr: We all know the difficulties a hard rock band faces in Greece. We know each other since the early days of Cyanide 4 and I know the sacrifices you have made. Things are easier now compared to a decade ago or do you think that nothing has changed?
G.A. Sinn: My personal opinion is that after the pandemic a lot of things changed for the worse, especially in how the whole situation “works”! Of course, the truth is that there is also a thirst in the world to “make up” for this lost period in a way, there are big crowds at live shows, but in general we don’t think that the situation is better now than it was 10 years ago…but it’s not so much worse either!
Adrian Kyprianos: And especially this particular scene was never so fashionable let’s say, here in Greece…
Rockpages.gr: So, what should we expect from the show in Remedy?
G.A. Sinn: A very dynamic hard rock show, new songs from “AmalgamA” live for the first time and a good mood! It’s rock ‘n’ roll guys, it’s party time!
Adrian Kyprianos: We can’t wait to see you all on Saturday 24/02 at 21:00, at Remedy (N. Heraklion) together with “Betrayed Dots”! Rock on!
