A TZEEEAC INTERVIEW: Giannis Nakos (MORTAL TORMENT)

It's been a long time in the making, but I'm STOKED to finally be able to show off this fantastic interview with the wonderful and insane Giannis Nakos, vocalist and dress-up magician for the excellent Greek brutal death metal band MORTAL TORMENT. I saw them live back in Greece and hooooly shit, did these guys SLAY! If you want good, dirty, bloody, gruesome fun, then look no further than a Mortal Torment show. In this interview, we talk about their upcoming new album, the art of SLAMMING, Greek food, being brutal, losing your underwear to an angry mob, obscure TV show stars and eating shit. ARE WE HAVING FUN YET?

1. Hey dudes! We’re very happy to have you on our beloved blog. What are you guys up to?

Hey bro! All is well here, we're preparing for our first gig abroad, that's in Sweden, and we are more than excited about it! We are also working on new songs for our second full length album. Fuck, we are busy and lazy at the same time, not sure how we manage to do that but I can tell you we are constantly doing shit. Oh, we also just released a 4way split with Cenotaph, Demoniacal Genuflection and Hatred. The last few years have been productive for the band.

2. First up, we just want to let you know that we won’t ask you anything about how Mortal Torment came to be or whatever, since all that stuff is already up on your Facebook page. So this is going to be more of a free-flowing conversation. Also, Greece is fucking hot these days! How do you cope with this terrible heat?

That's a good question: we don't! The heat here is unbearable man! Though this year things were somewhat better, the Greek summer is a reason to abandon Athens and go live in Antarctica. We sweat our asses off at rehearsals, shit's crazy. Last year we did an open air fest....you don't want to know...all in all we will survive, fuck the heat. It's all about making music and eating pussy.

3. Your first album Resuscitation was an excellent cut of gory brutal death metal and I've enjoyed it a lot. Word on the street is you’re working on a new album. Tell us a bit about what we can expect. Are you going to add some more slam? How about a dubstep song right in the middle? 

Aaaah you'll never see me hating on dubstep, that's for sure. I actually enjoy it! Thanx for the good words on Resuscitation man, the truth is the new material is way more straight-forward and "to the point". Resuscitation will be wiped off the map, I think it already is. Some slam parts yes, others more old school oriented but filtered through the MT point of view. In total, the album will be groovier yet more aggressive.

Sacrifices to the gods of gore have begun. Our offerings are shredded cunts and severed heads boiled in gastric fluids. The gore theme will remain the same more or less as you may guess, we can't get serious about anything for fuck's sake! You'll see for yourselves.

4. We’ve asked this same question to Planet of Zeus – what’s some of your favorite traditional Greek food that you think everyone in the world should try? My Greek food of choice is two souvlaki skewers (one pork and one chicken), a generous helping of French fries, a huge bowl of Greek salad with tons of olive oil and a nice cold Fix beer to wash everything down with. Heavenly!

Dude, we couldn't have described it better ourselves though you forgot to mention tzatziki! We eat just about everything, especially meat and its products. Seftalia, kokoretsi, gardoubes, steaks of all kinds, lamb brains, eyes, tongues, and one of my all time favs: snails. Pork skewer is like nectar for us, food for the gods! I bet Babis from Planet of Zeus gave a good answer, cheers bro, so he's got us covered too!

5. Having witnessed your last show in Larissa, I was surprised by the massive response you got and all of your energy on stage. Tell us your craziest concert story since touring Greece and spare no juicy details!

Glad you enjoyed the show bro, really it was definitely one of our best! We were stoked to see all those people staying to the end of the show, most of'em being fans of doom and all. We do this to have a good time and it seems those people actually enjoyed themselves. Well, we haven't toured yet but there have been some cool stories here and there. One of the sickest would be from our show in Crete (cheers to Nick and the guys!) where we got UTTERLY wasted by raki shots and lost control with reality for some hours. So, I got on stage wearing only my underwear which got ripped off during the second song and I had to hold my balls with one hand whenever I stepped left or right in order not to get them...well...exposed. I threw it away after the shows and went through the night without underwear. But it's one thing describing this and another actually being there, having people pulling your pants down...

6. One day I went to university wearing the “Nice Sexual Tits” t-shirt with Theoharis’ face on it and all of my classmates were like “Oh my god, what the fuck is wrong with you?!” What’s the story of this particular design?

Ha ha ha that's the reaction we want damn it! Fuck yeah! "Nice sexual tits" is the top comment from our official video on Youtube. We think it's hilarious so we thought we'd use it on a t-shirt. Simple as that. Who doesn't love tits man? As for Theoharis, he is one of the coolest characters ever seen on the Greek TV(one of the most brutal too) so it didn't take much thought. There you have it.

7. Giannis, I know you're quite an accomplished graphic designer and you've worked with a whole bunch of cool bands. How did you start doing this and what was your favorite project to work on so far?

Accomplished? Me? Hell I really don't think so but I'll take that opinion for granted from now on, thanx dude! I started in 2006 doing free work for bands I liked. I didn't even ask'em, I just did some stuff, send them over (the Myspace days back then..) and if the band liked it they'd keep it. So, I slowly started creating a portfolio. It took 2 years to have a good back catalogue and thing took their path from then on. Some of my favs include the logo work for Slavebreed, the cover art for Severe Mutilation, and the honor of doing a shirt for one my favourite bands: The Crown from Sweden! I hope this shit continues to bring in more bands. Have a look if you're intersted: https://www.facebook.com/RemedyArtDesign

8. Which bands would you love to see perform before you die?

Awesome question man, I've seen tons of gigs having been to 5 festivals abroad but the only band I haven't been able to catch on stage is The Crown. I'd kill to see'em perform the entire Deathrace King album one day! Also Soilwork, though I'd much prefer the Predator era, Devourment, Insidious Decrepancy and The Dropkick Murphys. Yeap, that would sum it up.

9. Some people dismiss the slam as being brainless, failing to pull the stick out of their asses and just enjoy the appeal of a monstrous breakdown. How should we punish these worthless people?

Hmmmm I 'd let'em eat a 2 kilo pile of rotten shit but I won't cuz it's all a matter of taste. To be honest, I dislike bands that only have that repetitive slam pattern over and over just because they cannot write anything better. BUT I sure as fuck enjoy a well structured song that contains a variety of rhythms, changes and a mind-fucking slam part to break your neck to. Check Vulnus, those guys would destroy each place they'd play. But at the end of the day: to each his own.

10. Aaaand we’re done! Thank you very much for chatting with us. As per tradition, we leave the last words up to you. MOSH!

Thanx so much for the time to write this down and for your patience man, it took forever to complete this intee ha ha and it's been tons of fun! I truly hope we meet again sometime soon, beers on me! Til then, mosh, fuck, suck, eat and shit cuz we only got one chance to fuck shit up!

[Haha, thank you very much! You are a true gentleman and meet again we shall!]