ARTICLES


From "Demis Roussos - Question De Poids"
by Véronique Skawinska and Demis Roussos
Article translated by Paulo Mouat


A DECISIVE MEETING

It was at this moment that a decisive event in my life occurred, since it was at the end of the summer of 1966 that I met Vangelis. He was already a big star in Greece with his band "Phormynx," he filled stadiums with 10.000 people. One afternoon, Lucas, whom I worked with and was a childhood's friend of Vangelis, took me to his place. He lived with his parents in central Athens. His bedroom had musical instruments all over the place, and he had already that smuggled Hammond organ we always carried with us subsequently, from which he produced some terribly electronic sounds, which had always characterized him. We talked for a while, played, and Vangelis asked me to sing. I chose the song I would perform first on stage, "House of the rising sun". He immediately told me I had a unique voice and that I should do something. We have seen each other from time to time in winter, while in my band I sung more and more. Backing vocals at first, but I eventually became the main singer. Over time, we understood that if we were to have an interesting career, we should leave Greece. It had quite a backward mentality, something like in the countryside, and we were pretty much out of the international scene.

I abandoned my band and started rehearsing new songs with Vangelis, and since it was necessary to earn money to pay for our trip, we played at night on the Hilton and private venues.

By the end of March 1968, we had packed our belongings and Lucas and myself took the train to London, where we should meet Vangelis and his girlfriend a few days later. But our trip was tragically cut short: arriving at Douvres, at the english border, the customs officers had found pictures of the band and a few tapes while searching our luggage.
They had immediately understood who we were, despite not taking our instruments along, and we were barred entry.
Since the 60s, England was invaded by musicians from all over Europe, to seek in this island fascinating and international glory, and it is out of the question for a musician, particularly an unknown musician, to enter the country without a valid work permit, which is granted only with good justification. Well, we returned to Paris and we let a room at an hotel in Rue de Bon Marché, which we all knew. In the morning of March 26, we were told that Vangelis had arrived and we went to his room. He was quite surprised to meet us there, we told him what had happened, and we decided to stay in Paris, since it was impossible to go to England without a visa. Lucas and me have stayed for a while in this hotel, throwing coins each night to decide who would sleep in the bed or the couch in the room we shared. We then left, because at Bon Marché we were not allowed to have a shower after 8 pm, and we went to Hotel Mazarin in Mazarine street, with rooms for 20 francs a night, including breakfast, in the hottest block in Paris. During this period, revolution was heating up, and there we were, three greeks who could barely speak french, with feeble finance, getting more and more worn with each passing day, in the middle of the "May of 68."

Vangelis and Lucas spent hours and hours in waiting at the post-office, trying to get in touch by phone with Athens, so that their parents would send more money. And it was thanks to these two or three remittances that we were able to manage, waiting for better days. Because it was no longer possible to quit Paris even if we wanted to, we had to get organized fast so that we could make a recording. Vangelis was at the time already under Phonogram Greece, and we were told that in the beginning of May there would be a Phonogram international conference. All three of us joined hands, and we went to see the label's big bosses at the Hotel de la Trémoille, where the meeting would take place. We explained our situation, and they proposed a draconian deal of exclusive recordings for six years, including songs we would write, for 2% for all of us (not even 0.7% for each) and an advance payment of 200 dollars (a thousand francs) which should allow us to survive until sales revenues would start (payments were due every six months). A true promise! It was one of the worst contracts in the history of the recording industry. We were furious, but we were in need, and we signed. At least, we would be able to record something. To Phonogram, these three poor greeks had no chance of succeeding in France where it is already quite tough on the french themselves, and where the sole foreigners that make a career are of anglo-saxon origin and sing in english.

The situation of musicians and pop stars is not that favourable has many imagine it to be. When we start, the only interesting thing is to get a contract with a label to be able to make a recording, and an advance payment in royalties to buy material. Obviously, the businessmen take advantage of the absolute dependence the artist has to impose a deal which, if he has success, most of the revenues are directly attributed to them, for a duration which prevents the contract to be revised and to sign for other labels that would eventually offer more attractive conditions. It's the rules of the game, and it is because they're so hard that plenty of artists lose their motivations. Sure, once the success is accomplished, there usually is a way to discuss such that everybody is pleased. But the paradox is that, while labels and musicians are on the same side of the fence, since their common interest is to sell records, they find themselves most of the time as enemies, one trying to profit out of the other, and the war for the largest slice of the cake ends up harming the career and success of both parties. Assuredly, when we start we are unaware of the rules of the game. Meanwhile, our material arrived from Greece and we settled in a 4 sq. meter cave to rehearse, near the Porte d'Italie. There, "Rain and Tears" came to life. Vangelis composed the melody and the words were written by a young writer presented by the label: Boris Bergman. At last, we went to record the 45 rpm at the Blanqui studio, which had a 4-track tape machine lent for the afternoon. Phonogram provided us with one of their secretaries to sing the backing vocals, and Vangelis had the diarrhea, which was not surprising given what we were eating: sausages, hot-dogs, sandwiches and packs of fries in the bistros of the Quartier Latin. It was time. The day after, the studio would close the doors, it was the general strike, people weren't supposed to be working. But a few weeks later, "Rain and Tears" by "Aphrodite's Child" was number one in the hit parade. When Phonogram told us we had a "hit," we didn't even know what that meant. But we weren't richer because of that. The two hundred dollars were quickly spent, but the requests for concerts started to flow, and we were caught in a whirlpool of success and madness. Starting in May, we played in Paris at the Psychédélic, the then trendy club of the Rue de Ponthieu, where we met Jean Bouquin, owner of a clothing shop that dressed the whole of Paris in hippie clothing, and where we got dressed from head to toe: flounce shirts with wide sleeves, mocking costumes, embroidered satins, indian scarves, feathered felt hats, etc. Our first gig in the countryside was at Biarritz. We were not organized; we shipped the material in a truck borrowed from Claude François, and we hit the road in the open turmoil of May, driven by Jean. A little before Bordeaux, we were stopped by a road blockade of the C.R.S., machine guns in hand; we barely spoke french, we had not our papers, only our foreigner mouths, and Jean, who of course hadn't both a driving license nor insurance and ownership certificate, tears the label from his coat showing his brand, waving it to the police officers, stating "Jean Bouquin, tailor of Brigitte Bardot". I haven't quite followed the talking, and I don't know how we came out clean.

SUMMER HIT

In June, we went by the Olympia for a week, as a first act for Sylvie Vartan and we made a big success. It is strange how fate does things: the events of May 68 had scared us, but is perhaps because of them that our success came so fast. At that time, everyone listened to the radio twenty-four hours a day, which broadcasted only news reports with music between. I believe we had made the last recording of the season, no one else was able to go for the "summer hit" and that's what we have managed to get.

Anyway, we were asked to play during summer at the clubhouses of the south. We went thus to the Valbonne club, and despite being number one in the hit parade, we got only one hundred francs per session. It was far from perfect, but at least it allowed us to eat at fine restaurants. And since I love the Provençal cuisine, naturally, little by little, the success helping, I grew stout.

Eating behaviour varies with people. For me, happiness is like a celebration: when I'm happy, I want to eat, and anxiety takes my appetite; and after these ordeals, sudden success and the southern air opened my stomach.

We signed a contract to play on a greek boat anchored at Port-Barcarès. And, I don't know what sign the heavens had wished to send me, I was facing the "Lydia," the boat that took us in 1961 from Alexandria to Piraeus, transformed in nightclub-casino. I took it as a good omen. After, we went to the Byblos at Saint-Tropez, where we stayed in a half-built villa, but where we really started to make the connections and to gain the acceptance and appreciation of the public that launches the trends.

During the next two years that Aphrodite's Child lasted, we have recorded five singles ("Rain and Tears," "End of the World," "It's Five o'Clock," "I Want to Live" and "Spring Summer Winter and Fall") and two albums, and we got a number one hit each time, while, unique occurrence, we were the only english-singing european band to be accepted throughout the continent. In the world of pop music, there exists a certain snobbism: only an english or american origin allows the musicians to be serious and authentic. We have preferred, especially in the beginning, not to get widely known as individuals, since while greeks we would have been victims of unfavourable prejudice.

It is now unreasonable to think about what should we have done and how were we treated, because we were the first european band number one in Germany, Holland, Belgium, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Switzerland. But success came too quickly for us to gain a real experience in the business, especially in a foreign country, and we were at the mercy of swindlers.

During the summer of 1969, we went on tour on Italy and we should have played in the biggest club in Naples in August 15th. We left Paris by car in August 14th in the turmoil and heat, and after twenty hours of driving non-stop, we arrived at an nonexistent address: the place didn't exist anymore. Two days later we were engaged by a holiday resort of great reputation. We arrived at a family vacation village that was quite dirty, in a Fellini-like scenario. We asked to see the concert hall, and we are shown a concrete slab right in the middle of the bay; outrageous, and when we refused to play in such conditions, a bunch of mafiosos with sinister looks appeared and threatened to throw all our equipment in the water: we were forced to perform.

A GROWING SUCCESS

In the beginning of "Aphrodite's Child," celebrating the success, I gained five kilos. Then Vangelis tried to convince me to get thinner as I was the singer, the one that is at the front and that represents the image of the band, I should look sexy. I went to practice gymnastics. I enrolled in a gym on the Place Clichy and, as always, went beyond the limits. It became obsessive, I went nowhere without my sports bag, I woke up in the morning to practice some exercises and then I would return to bed, I almost neglected the music, to such a point that Vangelis was getting angry.

I went to see a doctor that gave me some thyroid extracts and again some Cafilon. Needless to say how I was. Even more so because I got acquainted with a girl that got me into hashish. I didn't know where I was anymore. I wanted to buy the Eiffel Tower. It was perhaps a sign that showed my delusions of grandeur. Well, with this treatment, I weighed 74 kg, which was the time I was thinner in my whole life. I was married with Monique, with whom I had my daughter Emilie. We lived a very simple life on a small apartment, we bought some furniture, nothing out of the ordinary. It was also a question of age, I was very young and it was the rather new success that I enjoyed, we had a lot of fun, we had all the girls we wanted, we met lots of people, we discovered Paris and its people, it was all I wanted. During two years, we had hit after hit, but Vangelis was not satisfied. We made a few songs but he wanted to make music of a more serious kind, more continuous, like the one he had always made alone and with which he thought he could conquer the english and american markets. Musically, we had really no disagreements. I had always complete confidence in Vangelis in this subject, and I always liked and admired his work, but he wished to stop the tours and spend more time recording, while financially I couldn't support the change. It was the money we got on tours that paid my daily life, since our wonderful contract only gave us little by little the fruit of our work, and during the recording sessions the label paid for all expenses in the studio but not these poor musicians that we still were, despite the success. We asked then for more upfront royalties, but Phonogram, fearing a change in the orientation of the band, did not easy the task on ourselves. It is not sensible to change image once we have one well established. The public expects and demands what it knows, it is not willing to find beer in a bottle of Coke, by taking such a turn we risk losing the audience and we are unsure of finding a new one; it is, by the way, the risk I am taking now, I don't know if my public will like me thin the same way they liked me fat. But Vangelis is very stubborn and always knows what he wants. The recording of "666," an ambitious double-album based on the Apocalypse of St. John, was a critical moment in our careers and great risk to undertake. He could allow himself more risks financially than I could, because he wrote all of our music and was entitled to copyright royalties from the Authors Society. But once Phonogram listened to the magnetic tapes recorded during those three months in the studio that had cost a fortune, they really panicked and there has been a great scandal, a terrible argument erupted between Lucas and Vangelis. It was he that dealt with all affairs with the record label, personally I have never had any interest in the "business" side of things then. But ultimately, a band is like a married couple, but worse, since there are more interested parties; once we have many disagreements in mentality and objectives, we always end by breaking up. And each of our careers have shown that we had not the same goals. If both of us have an international career, it was with different methods: Vangelis has enclosed himself in the studio while I traveled the world; he is a performer-composer and I am a singer, it is not the same thing.

Well, Vangelis completed all alone this Apocalypse with plenty of problems, surpassed budget, censorship over the famous fragment with Irene Papas, orgasm while pronouncing the words of Christ "I am, I was, I will be" and the record wasn't released but a year later. Acclaimed as a masterpiece by most critics, it became a classic that keeps selling with great regularity, keeping the reputation of "Aphrodite's Child."

Lucas and myself departed on tour to earn the money that we needed, and because we kept using the name "Aphrodite's Child," the disputes continued.

Fortunately, Phonogram has immediately supported me for a solo career. I was nevertheless at quite an unrest. I had a good time as a singer of the first european band, it wasn't sure I would succeed as Demis Roussos. In the meantime, I stopped taking amphetamines and soon, driven by anxiety, I got fatter and weighed 80 kg. I went on tour in Italy and it was an immediate success. It is, besides, a characteristic fact about my career, I conquered my public on stage, country after country, without being preceeded by a discographic hit. Next, I toured Spain, France and everytime I was number one. My first hit was "We Shall Dance."

The pastas of the italian tour didn't spare me. A clairvoyant once told me that I lived a former life in the south of Italy, and if I consider my passion for spaghetti, I have for sure italian antecedents!

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