They have stood out with their explosive temperament and musical personality. The String Demons, literally brothers Lydia and Konstantinos Boutounisare the so characteristic string duo, who have conquered the public with their musical proposals, but also with their unique live performances and present the new album “Theãtrika”.
With their magical bows, they once once more break down musical barriers, approaching heretical yet unifying different influences, from traditional music to rap and rock and even light singing.
Two shows
In the last two years they have found a different way to communicate with their audience, as they have become part of not one, but two different theatrical and very successful shows, one for adults and the other for children. It is regarding the famous “Party of my life”, where they stand next to Eleni Radou, at the DIANA theater and regarding the award-winning show for children by Ilias Karellas “Rapunzel without a fairy tale” at the KAPPA theater. As they point out, they have exceeded 400 appearances in total!
Theatrical, but also very musical, the String Demons run across the stage with their bows, becoming actors and musicians at the same time, an integral part of the performance in which they not only participate, but are the protagonists, so to speak, since anyone who has watched both shows realizes that their role is primary and decisive for the good result.
On the occasion of the release of their new album “Theãtrika” String Demons spoke to “ET” of Sunday regarding the content of this inspired work, but also regarding their future plans and the creative relationship between them.
What does your new album of stage songs include?
It features seven songs from our “musical life” over the past two years in the shows “The Party of My Life” and “Rapunzel Without a Fairy Tale”. Basically the original music we wrote for these two shows, where we’ve been playing live for two seasons now, for over 400 shows in total. Songs like the traditional Smyrna “Doctor” and “Breathe”, influenced by the murder of George Floyd that shocked the USA, to Suyul’s light song “Let’s come for a while”, in a different performance.
A special color is given by Idra Kayne who participates in “Tree”, a song from the show “Rapunzel without a fairy tale”, which talks regarding the absolute ecological destruction that is happening at a terribly fast pace.
We are proud of this album, it hides in it all the incredible experience we spent the two years in the theater condensed into seven songs, each of which separately captures important and very powerful moments of the works.
In recent years you have been very successful part of shows. How do you feel regarding it?;
Happy but also exhausted (smile), as the pace of the performances is incredibly intense. Our music and the way we play found a welcoming home in the theater, where it can unfold without fear, with all the special, different, “strange”, perhaps even contradictory elements that characterize us as a band, without restrictions.
It’s a relationship that came regarding effortlessly, that we never thought regarding, or planned, at least in the way it came regarding where our music and our live performance on stage becomes part of the show, with a lot of our movement on stage, intervening in the plot, almost as if we were… actors. It’s a relationship that took us by surprise and we’re really enjoying it. In general, we believe that if theater is combined with live music, in a beautiful and true way, miracles can happen!
Would you say that these performances of yours are small theater concerts? How many have you given in the last two years?
First comes the fact that in a way you are serving and embracing the work itself and the director’s eye and secondly, and this is what surprised us, is that at times it functions exactly as a concert. That’s one of the reasons we’ve been able to put up with this rate of shows, maybe over 450 in the last two years, when you consider that in one day we might play three times.
These small performances in the theater make us feel closer to our natural environment, which are the concerts, the live performances, the atmosphere of music in general.
Are there things to consider when playing for adults and playing for children?
Let’s be as honest as possible in both cases. We have never adjusted our appearance, because we will play for children or adults, perhaps that is why the performances for children, which we have done with Ilias Karellas, are also seen with great interest by the adults who accompany the young spectators. In “Rapunzel without a fairy tale” we were certainly guided by the work and the unique perspective of Ilias, but essentially we wrote and played everything we would play in our own live.
Are the songs you write for the theater sure to stand with self-sufficiency even outside the theater scene in your concerts?
It concerns us, but it is also something that, at least so far, happens by itself, without thinking regarding it or planning it. “Theãtrika” is an album that musically and lyrically stands independently of the performances, that is, one can listen to it without having watched them.
Often in your compositions there are many traditional elements, but also modern and intense rhythms, even rap. Is the combination of different headphones in demand for you?
As soon as we take the instruments to make something, an alloy comes out of what is inside us from the years we live and what concerns us in this particular period. The ideal will be to write and play exactly what we really love without a trace of discount or adaptation.
It is not possible to be driven anywhere effectively if we deliberately act cerebrally, e.g. let’s say we’re going to put a rap passage on this track too, so because it has to be something different. Everything emerges effortlessly and creatively and then the building and completion begin, sometimes with great speed, sometimes very slowly.
“We write songs accordingly with the ideas that everyone has, we don’t… plan it”
Do you write your songs together? Does one have a bigger part in the composition and another in the verse?
This is something we don’t “plan”, we never plan. It arises according to the season, the period we are going through and the musical ideas that each and every one brings to the table each time. Other times it happens that a piece has been completely written, music and lyrics that is, only by Lydia or Konstantinos, other times it has happened that Lydia put lyrics on top of Konstantinos’ music and also other times it has happened that everyone made it alone from something and when we find ourselves unifying them, in ways and imagination that may never have crossed our minds before we heard each other’s creation! This, for example, happened last in “Three Cousins”, a special song from the last record “Theãtrika”.
Lydia, have you thought regarding performing other people’s songs since you have an amazing voice? Are you interested in acting only as a performer? Or does your expression always include the violin?
Thank you very much! Although I like maybe a little more to sing my own and our songs, other people’s songs are also something that within String Demons I have done, do and will do with love, always with my/our own aesthetic, eg, like “Let’s come for a while”, which is also in “Theãtrika”. Beyond that, being put into “labels”, boxes and a specific context, i.e. being called only “singer” or only “violinist”, is something I don’t care regarding. I like to define myself very simply as a musician, meaning a person, a woman who writes, plays, performs and sings music and brings that “whole” on stage and on records. And this “whole” as Lydia of String Demons I realize and express it.
You, Constantine, have you thought of yourself outside of String Demons (without wanting to sow… demons of course), since you are also a self-sufficient musician?
What I want at the moment is to calm down from the many appearances and then to further explore the world of… demons, not the ones you say, but the others, the creative demons with the strings and Lydia always a companion, in the composition and in poetry.
Future plans for the summer?
We are already preparing our next steps for the summer very specifically, some shows few and far between and of course studios, but first a vacation, for a while away from each other, so that we can recharge our batteries.
Info
The album “Theãtrika” by String Demons is released digitally on all music platforms and on CD by Metronomos publications
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