Exclusive Interview with UNDERHILL WEST

Underhill West is a Greek indie pop duothat reminds us of the significance of maintaining contact with our inner child. In an increasingly hectic and adult-focused environment, it can be easy to forget the sense of awe and curiosity that many of us possessed as children. Thus, Underhill West comes into play. By drawing on the musical styles of The Weeknd, Daft Punk, and Twenty One Pilots, the pair creates a soundtrack that transports listeners back to those carefree days.

Underhill West is also dedicated about social change, and they use their music to promote awareness and funding for numerous humanitarian causes. The duo is constantly touring, performing at various live events and spreading their positive energy and message to audiences around the globe. In all that they do, Underhill West hopes to inspire its supporters to remain optimistic and to never give up on their aspirations.

“Mission” is an energizing pop-rock album with catchy and anthemic melodies that, when listened to in its entirety, offers a dramatic plot. Rock, dance, electronic, rap, and experimental thematic songs from the 1980s, 1990s, and even the 1950s produce a musical experience in the genres of ‘Twenty One Pilots’ and ‘The Weeknd’ that will entertain and draw you into the band’s current releases. Chek out the album and the exclusive interview below:

1. Can you tell us a bit about where you come from and how it all got started?

UNDERHILL WEST: We come from a small town in northern Greece called ‘Xanthi’, been knowing each other from students and participated in our school’s ceremonies as musicians. We had a lot in common and started jamming which led to found our band and record our first demos in a local studio. That’s where and how it all started.

2. Did you have any formal training or are you self-taught?

UNDERHILL WEST: We both have participated in music theory classes and formal training in many different instruments as kids (Mike did piano lessons and solfège and Tasos had piano and bouzouki lessons). When we formed the band as teenagers we were self-taught in our instruments, but since then he had tons of lessons, seminars and routines with coaches to evolve our playing and sound into what we imagined while taking care of our muscles.

3. Who were your first and strongest musical influences and why the name ‘UNDERHILL WEST’?

UNDERHILL WEST: Underhill comes from ‘The Lord of The Rings’. It was the main character’s nickname when his journey begun, so we borrowed it for our mission as well. Our first big common influence were ‘Bon Jovi’ back then. They launched ‘It’s my Life’ in our teenage years that taught us how powerful music can be. Then we discovered that Max Martin was behind all that and became a big fan of his that led us to influences like The Weeknd, Daft Punk and Twenty One Pilots today.

4. What do you feel are the key elements in your music that should resonate with listeners, and how would you personally describe your sound?

UNDERHILL WEST: The groove and the pop vocal melodies combined with experimentation. We love to combine noisy synths and samples with drums and guitars to create radio friendly two minute songs. Our sound is like your favorite childhood VHS movie from a today’s point of view. Beautiful, pure and nostalgic yet saturated.

5. For most artists, originality is first preceded by a phase of learning and, often, emulating others. What was this like for you? How would you describe your own development as an artist and music maker, and the transition towards your own style, which is known as INDIE?

UNDERHILL WEST:

Mark Ronson once said “everything is sampling”. We truly believe that. Let’s take speech as an example. You don’t come to this world finding your own words to communicate. You sample words from others to express your thoughts. That’s what we did as well musically. We studied and emulated artists and bands of different styles to cover perfectly their songs for live gigs. Rock ‘n’ roll, folk, disco, 90’s electro, hip hop and more. This is when musical elements that suit you stick to your subconscious and survive in you. Creating a kaleidoscope of all of those elements form your current sound. A unique combination of all this flavors. When we create an album we don’t think about emulating someone, but those spices in our subconscious come out whether we like it or not, and it’s a marvelous thing. To us, indie means this unique combination.

6. What’s your view on the role and function of music as political, cultural, spiritual, and/or social vehicles – and do you try and affront any of these themes in your work, or are you purely interested in music as an expression of technical artistry, personal narrative, and entertainment?

UNDERHILL WEST:

We believe in the power of art and specially music. It reaches your subconscious and can affect your mood, your choices, even your biggest decisions in life. That being said, music can start a movement, a revolution or bring peace. There are times we feel inspired to be more artistic or times we want to be personal narrative but all in all we love to express ourselves with stories. Stories that hide messages for everyone. We are worried about many today’s social issues and of course we inherit all those in our music. Our new concept album ‘Mission’ has a whole allegorical storyline that addresses how the new generation is attached into social media. And besides all this, even our worries are bitter and those issues are heavy, our way to fight them back is bright and entertaining. This is how we deal with our problems and this is what our music sounds like. A companion you can trust, a vehicle to inspire you and unwind your troubles.

7. Do you feel that your music is giving you back just as much fulfillment as the amount of work you are putting into it or are you expecting something more, or different in the future?

UNDERHILL WEST:

Truth is that we don’t feel we have gotten back the amount of work we already have put into this organization yet, in term of maintaining it for the rest of our lives, but we aren’t sure this is how it works. When you are inspired to create, you don’t think about getting back. All you care about is to put all your love and passion in your vision to make it real, and this force is like a lighthouse that attaches what your work deserves to get back. We believe that everybody takes what he deserves in this universe so we are faithful to go on in our mission.

8. Could you describe your creative processes? How do usually start, and go about shaping ideas into a completed song? Do you usually start with a tune, a beat, or a narrative in your head? And do you collaborate with others in this process?

UNDERHILL WEST:

We enjoy the fact that we try everything. Every song has it’s own way to be born. We like jamming in the studio with drums, guitar, bass or just discussing ideas. Sometimes Mike works on a sample at home or Tasos comes up with a beat and then we add melody to form a demo song. Sometimes Mike brings a demo song and Tasos adds his ideas in it. When we make a batch of songs to create an album we might feel that an element is missing from that batch like groove or an interlude, and then write a song for that particular reason. Lyrics are usually been written during the composition of the melody. We consider that voice is an instrument as well, words can play the role of a violin or a percussion instrument.

9. What has been the most difficult thing you’ve had to endure in your life or music career so far?

UNDERHILL WEST: There were periods of time we struggled to maintain working as musicians that make their original music while didn’t have any financial inputs from it. There were many years that everybody thought we were just a rock ‘n’ roll cover band here. Society accepting our original art is a large barrier here because we live in a country that speaks a different language from our lyrics.

10. On the contrary, what would you consider a successful, proud or significant point in your life or music career so far?

UNDERHILL WEST: There were significant moments that we instantly felt our organization went to another level. Successfully touring our whole country in the summer of 2017 for the first time was one of those moments, taking the 5^th place in the ‘Global Battle Of The Bands’ competition in 2016 was another, or spreading our message to the other side of the planet with interviews like this one.

What is more, there are moments we realize our music touches people very deeply that are important to us as well. Sometimes we see people getting emotional in our gigs or we get messages from people saying they got inspired from us to fight depression and change for the better. We couldn’t be prouder for our art when things like those happen.

11. With social media having a heavy impact on our lives and the music business in general, how do you handle criticism, haters, and/or naysayers in general? Is it something you pay attention to, or simply ignore?

UNDERHILL WEST: We haven’t come across any very toxic criticism or haters yet, but if we ever will, we will ignore it. Time is so precious, we prefer spending it for the band.

12. Creative work in a studio or home environment, or interaction with a live audience? Which of these two options excites you most, and why?

UNDERHILL WEST: Interaction with the live audience is by default more exciting because we are social beings but being creative in a studio/home environment is what leads you to be there. All the confidence and the fun in our live gigs comes from our loneliness during the process of making an album, finding something interesting to say when on stage. We could say Tasos is more excited about playing live and Michalis is more of a studio guy.

13. Do you think is it important for fans of your music to understand the real story and message driving each of your songs, or do you think everyone should be free to interpret your songs in their own personal way?

UNDERHILL WEST: As long as it releases a positive force in his life, everybody is welcome to appreciate the way he wants our music and lyrics. We create the concepts in the process putting all the messages we once think, but after launching they are not only our songs anymore, they are everybody’s songs, and everyone has a different point of view with limitless dimensions. We are very interested when we come across people’s other points of view of our songs.