The band "Mystic Prophecy" around founder and singer R. D. Liapakis (center) is one of the most famous metal bands in the world. Their new album is called "Hellriot". After the release concert at the Kaminwerk in Memmingen, the group will go on tour around the globe in the coming months. © Mystic Prophecy
Memmingen - With a release concert last Wednesday (May 17th) at Kaminwerk, the heavy metal band "Mystic Prophecy" released their twelfth studio album "Hellriot". The band, founded by R. D. Liapakis, is an absolute force in the scene. The last album reached number 20 in the German charts. The Memminger KURIER spoke with R. D. Liapakis, who lives in Bad Grönenbach, about the metal scene in Germany and about the group's tour plans.
Memminger KURIER: Mr. Liapakis, you are the founder and singer of the band "Mystic Prophecy". Why did you decide to form a metal band in the early 2000s?
R. D. Liapakis: Heavy metal fever gripped me at the age of six. My brother brought home records from Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin – I've had the virus in me ever since. I founded my first band in 1994. In 1999/2000 I started "Mystic Prophecy" and in the following years two more groups. For me, rock music is a mission and a way of life. That's why I founded the bands.
Is there a place for heavy metal musicians, like Nashville is for country musicians, where people say, if we played there, we made it?
Is there a place for heavy metal musicians, like Nashville is for country musicians, where people say, if we played there, we made it?
How often have you performed with "Mystic Prophecy" in Wacken?
We've played in Wacken three times so far. However, I think that in the last 15 years it has developed into a kind of Ballermann. It's now less about the music and more about partying and drinking. This is not the Wacken I got to know 20 years ago. Nevertheless, it is a career highlight for everyone who was allowed to play there in front of 100,000 people.
How do you get such a gig as a band?
For such a stage, and this is the case with all major festivals, you are invited. The slogan also applies in heavy metal: the more popular a band is, the more popular concerts it plays.
How big is the metal scene in Germany?
The scene is very big in Germany. I think you could even say that not only Wacken, but Germany as a whole is the heavy metal mecca in Europe and worldwide. This is where the biggest concerts and festivals take place and where the biggest labels in the scene such as Nuclear Blast or Century Media are based. In addition, we still sell most CDs. In other countries, such as the USA or Scandinavia, the digital music scene now dominates the market.
What does "digital music scene" mean?
I mean streaming music, for example via Spotify. This is certainly the future, because young people no longer buy physical products. For us bands, this has an advantage and a disadvantage. The advantage is that you can spread your music worldwide. In Africa or India, people cannot buy several CDs at a unit price of 15 or 25 euros.
But for ten euros a month, they can listen to pretty much any song and genre of music from around the world via a streaming service. Because of these possibilities, we as "Mystic Prophecy" are one of the top 400 bands in the metal sector with more than 000,20 listeners per month. But this cheap offer is also the negative of the story. It doesn't pay off for us. I don't think it's okay to sell music as junk. It's destroying the music scene.
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My Area
What exactly do you mean by that?
As a musician, I earn around 0.003 euros per song for a single stream. If you extrapolate that, it means that if my song is streamed a million times, I earn 3,000 euros. Now please think again about the CD, which costs 15 or 25 euros per piece – that is out of proportion. It's very important to me to emphasize: I don't make music for the money. And I know that I'm in the comfortable position of earning enough with my music and at the same time not being dependent on it. But I think it's crazy how little the artistic performance of musicians and bands is worth nowadays. I always say: In the 80s, the division was 98 percent music and two percent business. Today it's 99.9 percent business and 0.1 percent music.
Do you produce and write your own songs?
Yes, we write and produce all our music ourselves. But I have to admit, after more than 20 of my own CDs and over 300 songs, it's challenging to write new lyrics and find catchy titles (laughs).
Their new album, which will be released this week, is called "Hellriot". What does the title mean?
"Hellriot" means hell rebel. On the one hand, it's an easy title for metal people. For us, it's always about hell, fire or something like that (laughs). But we also chose the title because we made the album in Corona times. Those were hellish years for all musicians. From one moment to the next, we couldn't do what we love and we couldn't perform in front of our fans and in front of an audience. With the title we show that we are coming back after the difficult years as a kind of hell rebels.
What's next for you and the band in the coming months?
The gig at Kaminwerk is our tour kick-off. After that, the new album will go on some trips, such as many festivals in the summer, including in Greece, Finland and Switzerland. At the beginning of 2024 we will be at "70000 Tons of Metal" in Miami and the Caribbean, the biggest metal festival on a cruise ship.
Dear Mr. Liapakis, thank you very much for the interview and all the best for the upcoming performances.
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