Interview with Michel – Guitars/Electro with Skeptical Minds and Pete Devine of Pete’s Rock News and Views (https://petesrocknewsandviews.com)
PD: How would you describe yourself or your band as an artist?
Michel: Hi Pete, Thank you for this interview and your interest about Skeptical Minds.
I will speak in the name of the band, I think it’s more fair And what Skeptical Minds does doesn’t reflect what only one of his components is.
Skeptical Minds is a band that mixes different influences but mainly : electro, electric guitars and female melodic voice. Our music has a dark side, mixed with sadness or aggressivity.
Our lyrics are always related to a woman’s story. Someone who had some bad experiences in life. That allows us to go behind the masks people show every day. But behind the mask, everyone hides many things… And when you look behind, you’ll see that many people have many hidden things in common too… Maybe more than what we show, because most of time, we show more fake things than true ones .
When we see someone or something, we are skeptical and then, we want to go to see what’s behind.
PD: Can you tell us briefly about your background – i.e. where you’re from, how you came to make music, etc.
Michel: I will speak briefly about each one of us Not in the usual way, but I think it’s nice to give a short bio of each one.
First of all, Karolina, the singer. She was born in Poland and we met her 16 years ago, when she was looking for new partners and we were looking for a new singer. Her father was metal and blues guitar player. She grew up with music and metal. On the other side, she loves celtic and folk music.
Ben, the drummer is from Italian origin and was born in Belgium. His father was musician too, guitar player. More into classic rock things, but we could easily corrupt Ben into metal . Ben is with us since 12 years now.
Adrien is our bass player and the youngest of the band. HE’s Belgian born in Belgium.
He joined us begin of last year.
In fact, it’s a cool story. I met his father when I was at university like 35 years ago and we were very good friends. He was into metal way before me and teached me almost 95% of what I know today. Then, I know Adrien, since few hours after he was born. And for his age, I guess he knows more about metal than 95% of the people of his generation because (or thanx) to his father). Many years ago, he bought a bass and was really into it.
Adrien is a fan of the band, and after a gig he came to see, I asked him if wanted to join us. We were looing for a new bass player and things were obvious
Let me tell you that he’s good !!! To be continued on stage…
About me, nothing special… I bought my first guitar more than 30 years ago (with Adrien’s father who bought his first one too the same day, in the same shop) .
We were into metal of course and we wanted to play like our idols… once home, we were like : “shit… and now??? What do I do???”. It looked so easy…
I don’t come from a musician family… I’m the only one, but my father and all the family were listening to music always… I come from Greece is music is in people’s genetic… or you play music, or you listen to, or you dance, but there is always music around you.
Let’s stay here for this questions or we won’t have time to answer the 10 others
PD: Who and what inspires you to make music, both in terms of musical and other influences? What do you like to write about in your songs?
Michel: As I said in the first question, we like to speak about women’s destinies. And look at the hidden part of people.
We never tried to copy anyone, but just do what we felt we wanted to do.
Our music starts from a story we want to tell and then, we add the emotions and melodies.
It comes like this. Of course, we cannot avoid to have links with our influences… it’s very
difficult to create something new. We often combine things we like and play in the way we like.
PD: What are your aspirations as an artist?
Michel: Here, I’ll speak for me, because it’s bit more personal.
My aspiration is to do music I like and that’s it.
When you are 18, you expect your demo to open the doors of some major labels etc… innocent dreams.
After years, you see it was crap but anyway, what I want to say with this is that every period has its motivations, it’s level, it’s dreams.
I think everybody passes though that. Or you have success, or not.
I think first of all, as teenagers, you seek for that.
After a while, you become more realistic and you focus on the music. You focus on what you want to share.
When your have a job on the side to earn your money, your aspirations may change…
Mine did. I felt I was not slave of the music. I mean, I was free to do what I want. I didn’t had to please any label or respect any contract or guidelines.
I can say it’s a kind of freedom. Then, you can make the music you like. Without any consequence
PD: What is the proudest moment in your music career so far?
Michel: I think that first of all, what makes an artist proud is to have a new release or to be able to perform and share his creations.
Every first time is a proudest moment on your lifetime
First gig, first festival, first time you can share the stage with some bands you admire, first time you play in front of more than 100 people, first time you play in front of more than 1000 people etc…
We passed through all those steps, as many other bands and each of those moments was a proudest moment…
Of course, today, I wouldn’t probably tell you the same, because the actual proudest moment is closer in time of what we achieved recently, as we try to make few steps further on each release.
Actually, my proudest moment is the release of OMEGA THANATOS. It was a challenge for us to combine an album with a comicbook. Our Collaboration with Alain Poncelet started years before but we all wanted to create something personal and achieve that challenge. We did it and during the official release, we had a totally successful signing session. That was just fantastic. After that show, many shows and signing sessions (including Alain Poncelet with dedicated drawings), talking with people and seeing their enthusiasm It was shared and we all were very proud of that for sure !!
That gave us lot of motivation to go further with the trilogy Kharon is the second epidod. And we are also very proud so far in terms of production level, it’s our best album. So, our proudest production Ok, I stop here. Proudest is question of relativity… in function of what goals you have and if you reach them or not. Small or big goal, it’s not the most important. Most important is to do all what you can to reach them .
PD: Promoting one’s music is such a challenge these days, especially with so many new artists emerging from bedrooms in the day of the home studio. How is that going?
Michel: I think It always was a challenge. Now, it’s different, but in the past, we didn’t have as many communication and contact channels as now. Now, you can reach anyone, but everybody can. So, it’s bit overcrowded. Before , you had to know who to contact and how. Now, you know easier, but they are drowning under thousands of demands. I think every decade has it’s advantages and difficulties. I wouldn’t say it’s more difficult now. It’s different As self produced and promoted band I mean Without fight and lot of investment, you reach nothing. In the past, in the present or in the future. That is a constant.
PD: And how do you book and promote your live shows and tours? Any performances coming up?
Michel: In the music world, a very important thing is to have contacts. Best is to start from there.
Beside that, you research, you ask, you send emails etc…
Doing things by yourself is always more difficult, it takes lot of time to make contacts, to collect data, to build a visibility etc… Professionals do it better when you reach your limits or if you don’t want to spend lot of time and energy into it.
Before, we did everything by ourselves. And since 10 years I think, we work with a fantastic promo agent (Hard Life Promotion – Hello Mike !!) who helps us a lot to promote the band worldwide, getting interviews (like this one), etc…
That’s a big part of the job. Beside that comes the booking. We work with a booker now and we are also contacted in direct sometimes. But mostly, promoters pass through him.
We’ll be back on stage on 5th may at Hell Diest Festival (Belgium), where we will present the new album in exclusivity.
More shows will follow, we are busy with the booking now, but no greenlight to
announce anything for the moment. Tour dates will start in September 2024.
PD: What do you think about downloading music online? What about streaming sites like Spotify?
Michel: A fact is that if you are not on those platforms or present on the social networks, you miss a big visibility or you don’t easily reach lot of people. Bands need visibility and to have a way to share or sell their music.
There is a need on the side of the bands and the platforms provide a solution.
By solution, I mean a way to be on streaming platforms and be available in the all world. But on the other side, they put the rules. You have nothing to say and bands cannot expect to live from those incomes… not even cover their costs. The best you can expect (in our case) is to pay the annual fee to put your albums online and to reach people worldwide. Up to us to accept those shit conditions and take what they give or just reject. Not many options.
You always are free to try by yourself the traditional way. You will reach your private network and that’s it.
For my part, I don’t mind if people download our music, I did it a lot when I was younger and I couldn’t afford to buy all the CD’s of all the bands I liked. There were like minimum 20 new albums per month we wanted to listen to. We bought many, but couldn’t buy all of them.
Illegal copies always existed and will always exist. I have no problem with that. I don’t like to see what we don’t have but what we have. In that way, we use the streaming platforms too, we take what is to take and we also do some things on our side.
More than that you cannot do and you won’t change anything if not EVERYBODY moves in the same way. That’s another topic
PD: What song do you wish you’d written and why?
Michel: If I had to choose a song from another band, I think it would be “The Ace Of Spades”. It’s a classic answer I guess, but it’s probably the cover I played the most in my life and the song that I enjoyed the most to learn and to play. I learned it like 30 years ago and I still play it at least once a week .
It’s not the biggest composition in the world, but it has the energy, the power, the rock and roll that makes me want to play all night long !!!
PD: Is there anything you don’t like about the music industry, which you would change if you could?
Michel: I don’t like the way bands are considered (if they are) and treated by the music industry…
It’s like any industry : the base of the pyramid receives the smallest part of the cake.
The bands (workers, slaves, call them like you want,…), produce the material that can be sold and bring money… The industry that uses that material, makes big benefits and refunds some dust to the bands… we don’t even speak about 1% of the benefits… That would already be a dream. We speak about almost nothing compared to what they win. As always, without the workers, nothing exists… but our this case especially, workers (musicians) live for a passion… I said “for” and not “from”. Few of them can have the chance to live ‘from it’
So, they are not seen or considered (even by themselves) as workers or slaves. They just like to produce music and the rest, I already said… Exploitation…
Once again, if we reject ALL TOGETHER, everything will fall, but we don’t…
Priorities… or self priorities instead of a cause
PD: So, what are you working on at the moment?
Michel: Just right now, I’m busy to answer this interview
Outside interviews, we mostly work on booking gigs and getting ready for the gigs. Lot of practices.
In about 1 year, we’ll focus on writing the new album, but for now, we mostly focus on the upcoming concerts
That’s it
PD: Where can we learn more about you and buy your music/merch online?
Michel: All social networks will provide you all info, news etc…
For the moment, just digital music is available and a brand new website with a brand new merch section will be available in the following weeks
Stay tunes, all info will be shares on all the social media. As you can see, we don’t escape them, as we said before haha.
Thank you for this interview and Watch your back !!!
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