Recently, Manilla Road came to Greece for the special version of “Up The Hammers” festival. A festival which is named by them. Rock Overdose and Apostolos Pantazoglou, had the chance to speak with the legend himself, the founder and guitarist of the band, Mark “The Shark” Shelton, a couple of days after the concert. You can read the interview below.
Rockoverdose.gr: Hello Mark, and welcome to Rock Overdose. It’s an honor talking to you.
Shelton: Thank you very much.
Rockoverdose.gr: Let’s start with the show which was great. The reaction of the crowd was awesome…
Shelton: Thank you. Yes the crowd was fantastic. As I said it was like I was coming home, to my second home. The response of the people here was just fantastic. Very glorious. I couldn’t ask for anything better. We had great time, it was much fun.
Rockoverdose.gr: It was truly a great show.
Shelton: Thank you. You know we made a couple of mistakes here and there but some of the stuff we didn’t even have the chance to rehearse them. What’s funny is that the songs that I thought that we would probably mess up the most, were the ones we did really good (laughs). And the ones you don’t expect to make a mistake on, you make a mistake on. But it’s a live thing.
Rockoverdose.gr: What made me a huge impression is that you seemed to have a lot of fun on stage and it was like a huge party. It was not one of the shows where the band comes, plays, says goodnight and that’s it.
Shelton: My feelings on that is, that if you are not having fun doing it why are you doing it? Especially the Greek people are so friendly to us, they respect us so much, and the give us so much honor that I feel that I know them all anyway. So it’s like a big family. A family with which I can joke all the time. It’s like a having a big party with your family. And we always keep it that way you know. And I hope it stays like this because the last thing I want to be is a stuck up musician.
Rockoverdose.gr: You said that with the current line-up, you can play everything that you have ever recorded.
Shelton: With Noedi (Neuderth) playing drums for us now it’s great. He is a very big fan of the band and he knows almost all our songs. Because he is such a fan he knows the ideals and the style behind the band. It’s very easy to play with him. And of course he has such a classic style of drumming that it makes it easy also. I don’t know anybody else in the world that can play like Randy Foxe except for Noedi. So it’s a match made in heaven for us. Josh (Castillo) is willing to learn and play anything that we’re telling him to so he makes it very good as well because in the past some of the other members I had, they preferred to only play the new stuff and not the old ones because they were part of the new stuff. But this not good for me and I don’t think it’s good for the fans either. Now it’s much better because we can do stuff from everything. I am very happy now. For me this is the best situation that the band has been for many years.
Rockoverdose.gr: With this line-up you are releasing a new album in a couple of months right?
Shelton: Yes. It will come out on February and it’s called “Mysterium”. It’s a move back to the classic style of Manilla Road. I think everybody will really enjoy this album. We had a lot of fun working on this album. Everybody did a really good job. And our production is getting much better too. We are still recording the projects in my studio but we mixed with another engineer who is much better than I am and it sound really better. I am very proud of what we’ve done this time. I think everybody will really like it when it comes out.
Rockoverdose.gr: Will there be a new tour for the support of the new album? Will we have the chance to see you again next year?
Shelton: Absolutely. As a matter of fact I am sure we will back in Greece next year and hopefully in more cities. We’ve signed to a new label in Germany, called Golden Core / ZYX. They are really good, they have great distribution through Europe and they are also going to work with us on touring. You know, it might be a situation where we will be touring with another band and we play support for them which is fine with us. We don’t care if we headline or not. We just want to play music. So I think there will be many many more shows especially in Europe next year.
Rockoverdose.gr: You have a great fan base especially here in Greece. As you said it’s like being in a family. Why do you think there is such a connection?
Shelton: Well maybe it is because I tend to write about Greek mythology (laughs). I love the history of Greece. I love the history of Europe. But Greece I so full of history and legends and mythology. Most of the myth-structure of any other culture, comes from Greece. And plus it’s the birthplace of democracy, land of the ancient Gods. How can I not feel the connection? And plus friends and supporters here are so fantastic. And as I said they make me feel like I’m part of the family. It’s another reason why we feel very connected with Greece. I hope that it will never change.
Rockoverdose.gr: You’ve been in the scene for 35 years. Did you expect back then that you will still be alive and kicking after all these years?
Shelton: No. I thought that I was going to be dead long time ago (laughs). I think the thing that surprises me most is that we have so much support as we have now. Because many years ago, it felt like we were going nowhere. But once we started coming in Europe, and Greece was one of the first places, everything went good for us. And because of that everything has gotten better for us year by year and more than anything now I am just surprised that even though some of our newer material has been very experimental, that the fans are still with us. We changed many styles of music and it’s part of what makes us unique maybe. To see everybody following us through these phases and still be supportive of the band is very cool.
Rockoverdose.gr: The influences you had back then, do they still have an impact on your music?
Shelton: Oh yeah. My old influences like Deep Purple, Black Sabbath and bands like that, still have a big influence on me even now. And I think that it will show in our new album even more than the past. I always try to keep an open mind with music. I think it’s very important that there is no competition in music. Because everybody likes more than one bands. There should be no competition I think. The metal audiences everywhere we go they feel and love the same music. Music is a magic that talks to all of us. It doesn’t matter where we are from, who we are or what we do. It’s very important I think that we all keep an open mind that’s why we touched so many different styles in our music. Because I like all sorts of different styles in music. I think it’s important to realize that you can do many things. It works if you combine this and that.
Rockoverdose.gr: And the last question. Anything you would like to the Greek fans especially?
Shelton: Thank you. Thank you so much for all these years of support. Thank you for receiving us as gracefully as you have with such respect and honor. It’s our honor to be here and I hope we get to come back forever. To all of you up the hammers down the nails may the lords of light be with you and we will be here as your friends to death and beyond!
Thanks to Kostas Tzortis of Battleroar and Manolis Karazeris who made this interview possible.
For Rockoverdose.gr
Apostolos “Astaldo” Pantazoglou
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