EUDOXIS INTERVIEW 2007 - "THE FALLOUT MAGAZINE"(Australia)



1. First of all, what does the name Eudoxis mean?

Sotiri (a.k.a. Terry): Eudoxis means "one who is bound for glory".

2. When and how did the band come together?

Mars: Rick and Stephane started it. They met Leiv in Lake Placid, New York and the rest is history.

3. You were previously in a band called Axewraith, tell us about what you did in that band Mars?

Mars: Some demos, never released. Basically it was with a friend who started playing guitar at the same time I did and a drummer who went to play with "Banshee Horde", "The Wanted" and later formed "Skrullgeon". I worked with the last two bands for while as well. I was in a lot of other original outfits that never really got going.


4. Eudoxis formed in the 1980s, so I must ask, what was Canada's metal scene like at the time?

Mars: A lot of hair bands and Van Halen wanna bees. Very few bands were into doing the real heavy stuff with the costumes and the stage show. I think that's why Eudoxis did so well in the bars. There was hardly anything like them in the province at the time. Everyone else was doing pop metal from the states, you know real fluffy and mind numbingly dumbed down. This was before Slayer and Metallica were heard of this side of the border.


5. Tell us about Eudoxis' sound.... who were the bands' influences? Would I be right in saying I can hear some "prog" influences in Eudoxis' sound?

Mars: Early on I venture Venom, Judas Priest and Slayer, later on add Metallica into the mix. Yes, you are certainly right with the "prog". Montreal had a great radio station, CHOM 97.7 FM that played lots of ELP, Supertramp, Genesis, Yes, Rush, you name it. So growing up you couldn't help but absorb all those influences. At the time of Open Fire I was heavily into early Genesis, JP was studying classical music and Rick's favourite band was Pink Floyd. Add Terry's mythical/psycho-analitycal lyrics and you have something a little different to offer.

Sotiri: The heaviest bands that I listened to back then were Raven and Venom. But I also listened to Pink Floyd and King Crimson.


6. From what I heard, Eudoxis received quite a bit of recognition rather quickly from their beginnings, after the release of an independent film clip? Tell us about that!

Mars: Yeah, I see people still talk about it on the Internet. They recorded and filmed "Metal Fix" in the same recording studio. The recording room wasn't that big, so everyone had to stand near the huge, stainless steel bass drums which made them look even bigger and the guys wore the armor that they performed on stage with. At the time Much Music (our Canadian version of MTV) had a metal show called "The Power Hour" and were keen on featuring Canadian bands. In the end the timing was great for the band and the station. After that, everyone into metal in Quebec and Ontario knew of them. Much Music still gets requests for that video after all these years.

7. You guys (Mars and Sotiri), weren't in the band until after the release of the 1986 "Attack from Above" EP. Is there anything that you can tell us about the "Attack from Above" EP? (recording, fan's reaction to the release, etc)

Mars: I think it sold pretty well when it was released. I've read postings on the Internet by some fans that find the song "Attack From Above" to be the ultimate metal song. I guess people that like it, like it a lot.

Sotiri: The sound on the opening of "Attack From Above" was actually the recording of a tractor. Paired with the air raid sirens, you would think it was a plane.


8. Tell us about the time you guys were recruited into Eudoxis? Why did original singer Leiv Arnesen leave the band? (or was he kicked out?)

Mars: I don't know the reasons why Leiv left the band, I've never met him. The guys probably told me, but that was a long ago and I don't remember (must be age). Maybe he was homesick and went back to the States. There was another singer between Leiv and Terry. His name was Marco Mezzoni. He did a lot of shows but never recorded with the band. Him I met. All I remember is that he had a nervous tick and was the only Italian I know that didn't like garlic, or was it tomatoes (darn, the age thing again). I hooked up with Eudoxis through a guy called Steve, he was the singer they were trying out at the time. We knew each other from the rehearsal studios we had next to the Molson brewery. The band was reforming after taking a couple of years off. Ronnie and Marco weren't interested in starting up again. I went, plugged in, played and got offered the job on the spot. Basically they wanted to do a full-length album before playing live. They wanted to hear stuff I could come up with. I had lots of riffs to show them because since I started playing at thirteen I had been writing and except for a rock and roll band I had in high school I was always in groups that played originals. By the time Terry joined, the music for the whole album was written. Rick and I liked Terry's voice right away. We all freaked out when he came back with his first set of lyrics for Progressive Mental Deterioration, it was like a novel. The guy is prolific.

Sotiri: I got in the band after a short hiatus where original bassist Rick Raczko and drummer Stephane Rioux were left without a singer and guitar player. Mars B. Alexander was the "new guy" when I auditioned. We jammed on "Attack from Above" and an early version of "Dementia (Progressive Mental Deterioration)" and I got the gig! I was only nineteen years old at the time and I was familiar with the band's earlier work. I had seen their "Metal Fix" video on the Much Music video channel back in 1985 and had read a review in a local Rock magazine about one of their shows at "The Moustache" in 1986.


9. Tell us about Eudoxis' shows.

Mars: It was like running a marathon. You had to be in shape. Everybody worked hard as hell. Rick was a madman. He'd really get you going. Rick didn't want to do the whole armor thing, just focus on the music, the energy of the band and a great light show. We had an ace for a lightman. Pierre Gendron. He lived and breathed every note.

Sotiri: People always got a kick out of our six foot long stainless steel bass drums when we played live. There were a couple of gigs where the bass drums could not fit on the stage and we had to use regular bass drums. We rehearsed religiously and put everything we had into our live shows. Having energetic musicians in the band and a great light show guy in the background were key elements in getting the crowds excited. We could judge a show by how much blood was in "the pit" and in the bathrooms after the show. The stage diving was intense and there was once a guy who was cutting himself on the forehead with a broken beer bottle to show us his appreciation. I had this wonderful idea of using diving boards for the stage diving but Mars talked me out of it!

10. Did you guys get to tour much outside your native Canada?

Mars: We would have loved to but when we were in the group we just stuck to Quebec. If we had the financial backing to get to Holland or Germany, where we sold quite a lot of albums, I am sure we would have been well received. With Leiv they played in the US as well.


Sotiri: Although we had gone to the U.S. and Germany for promotion and to set the stage for our upcoming shows, we never got to play there.

11. What are some highlights of the bands you can elaborate with us?

Mars: What do you mean? Between the band's first incarnation and the second? The first had Stephane's in your face, powerhouse drumming, Leiv's soaring vocals and Ronnie's speedy and stacatto style of guitar. The second had JP's technical drumming, Terry's dark, introspective singing, and even Rick was doing things on the bass that he had never done before, like the beautiful melodic passages on some of the tunes. I think that the second incarnation was headed into newer territory. It's too bad that we couldn't hold it together for another album or two. I think that we were on the verge of breaking new ground.

Sotiri: A highlight for me is that Eudoxis has left its mark on heavy metal and people are still influenced by our music in 2007. I've run into several bands on the internet who state Eudoxis as a major influence. This is always a thrill to me and I think that Canadian musicians take great pride that Eudoxis helped pave the way for the next wave of Canadian Heavy metal. It is twenty three years after the band originally formed and it's great to see new fans who were not even born enjoying the music.

12. Any crazy band stories you wish to tell?!

Mars: I got a wife, two kids and a mortgage, so I plead the Fifth.

Sotiri: As far as crazy band stories are concerned, every day was an adventure. We never got in trouble with the law for things that should have gotten us in trouble but I can speak on behalf of the band that the night we got stopped by the cops in a case of mistaken identity was loads of fun.

13. One of Eudoxis' main features were drummer Stephane Rioux's gigantic stainless steel bass drums... tell us about that!

Mars: They were made by a guy that built containers for milk trucks. They were 6 feet in length and 24 inches in diameter. They weighed more than a drunk biker. They had 3/4 inch plywood cases that weighed more than the drums themselves. It would take four people to carry one drum when it was in the case. One time when they went to do a show in the States, US Customs wanted to look inside them to make sure they were not sneaking illegal aliens into the country.

Sotiri: I slept in them one night with my girlfriend. They woke us up by kicking the bass drum.

14. Why did drummer Stephane Rioux leave the band? When J.P. Perrault took up the drum throne, did you guys still have the "giant bass drum" feature?

Mars: He left the band over a girl. We bought the drums off of him.

15. In 1991, you guys released the long-awaited LP "Open Fire". Tell us about your time recording it.

Mars: It was the first time any of us did a full length album. I think it was a good experience. We did a lot of preproduction before we went in.

Sotiri: We practiced the songs thoroughly so we knew them in and out. It was good to hear our ideas come together on vinyl. I remember doing most of my vocal tracks in one take. The vocal booth reminded me of an aquarium. I remember swimming around, knocking on the glass and asking for a beach ball so that I could do tricks with my nose.


16. How was it received in the end?

Mars: Like I mentioned earlier, there was a lot of interest in Holland and Germany. Here in Canada it was lukewarm, mind you the people that were into it were really into it. People seem to "get it" now more than they did back then.

Sotiri: Grunge seemed to be luring metal fans away from bands like us. The opposite is true now.The launch of the "Open Fire" album was also filmed for the "Reach The Sun" video. So that got airplay on Much Music as well. College radio stations were very supportive of us.


17. The whole time Eudoxis were together, you guys were selling records independently. How did that work out for you, and why didn't Eudoxis ever end up getting a record deal?

Sotiri: We weren't grunge. Through mail order we sold to many countries. We didn't have the luxury of the Internet.

18. Why did Eudoxis disband?

Sotiri: People say we are now defunct but we were never really funky in the first place.


19. You guys had a second album in the works at the time of breaking up as well, didn't you?

Sotiri: Yes, we had six new songs and a cover of Babe Ruth's "The Mexican" done mosh style. The lyrics for the unreleased songs can be found on Mars' site, www.marsprojectgroup.com. There might be bootleg versions recorded from live shows. The writing was more of a collaboration where we all threw in our ideas.

Mars: We were developing a more progressive style. The songs were getting longer and more melodic. The ideas were getting more focused and planned out.

20. If Eudoxis had remained together, where do you think you would have gone?

Mars: I would have loved to play in Europe.

Sotiri: We would have ended up in jail.

21. I read on Wikipedia that Eudoxis recently reformed for a one-off reunion show... how did that go?

Sotiri: There was no reunion. We were asked to play a large Toronto festival along with Canadian band Sacrifice. The project couldn't happen because we don't know where Rick is. Besides, I was busy with my own Black Sabbath tribute project "Back Sabbath" and Mars was writing for his own project.

Mars: A reunion, which version of Eudoxis?

22. Have you ever considered re-releasing the "Metal Fix" demo, "Attack from Above" EP, or the "Open Fire" album?

Mars: That's Rick's call where ever he is.

Sotiri: We wish him well.

23. What are the former members of Eudoxis doing at the moment?

Mars: JP is in a band called "El Ombre" in Montreal, I don't know about anyone else.

24. What are some other pieces of information you can provide about Eudoxis?

Sotiri: It was fun while it lasted and it's fun reliving it through the Internet. To all our fans, "Cheers with beers for many more years".

Mars: I would have never thought I'd be doing an interview with someone from Australia about a sixteen year old, independent, limited release from a band halfway across the world. It goes to show, if you've got an idea to do something creative just go for it. It's bound to hit a nerve somewhere.

That about wraps it, guys! Thanks very much for your time.

- Liam McKernan
THE FALLOUT MAGAZINE/Australia, 2007


"M.E.A.T. MAGAZINE" 1991 (Canada)