The performer and composer Ilias Liugos talks about his new album, his faith in the new and his love for the old, as well as his respect for contemporary songwriters.
THE Ilias Liugos is a great chapter in artistic Greek song. The performer most identified with Hadzidaki’s work – to be precise, the most “warm” voice of Manos Hadzidaki – is also an excellent composer with seven personal records (from 1984 to 2024), which featured legendary singers such as Fleury Dantonaki and Dimitris Mitropanos. His latest album, “I am a northern tree”, has just been released digitally and contains ten new songs with lyrics by Panos Dimitropoulos and music – performed by Liougos himself. And because Liugos does not often speak in public and does not concern the media, the following interview acquires special importance.
Are you tired of being asked to talk about Manos Hadjidaki for so many years?
Hadjidakis was and will be a big chapter of my life, but it saddens me that they only associate me with him and they don’t know what I’ve done afterwards. Couldn’t I be the singer of Hadjidaki without Hadjidaki? That has changed since the day he left. I have been a songwriter for years and you will meet Hadjidaki in my songs. Of course I sing his songs in my concerts, but now I have my own axis. After all, Hadzidakis encouraged me by conducting my first records. And I am not referring to the bans of Giorgos Hadjidakis, the bans, even though I disagree (if you exclude the financial one), hit me and strengthened my decision even more.
I have the impression that you have never been a career singer.
Yes, since I have my own quests. What I always did next to Manos was observe how a song is made. I was mainly interested in that and not waiting for him to give me his songs to sing. At one point he was excited about what I was writing and said to me: “I’ll give you composition lessons.” We started but only did one lesson after he ended up saying to me: “I don’t really know how to make a song”. But an invaluable lesson was the valuable comments he gave me every time he listened to one of my songs. I remember everything.
Listening to your latest album, I have to notice that while in your first three albums you had many influences from Hadjidakis, afterwards you revealed a composer self in accordance with your “continental origin”, as Hadjidakis had noted.
The continental element is strongly present in many of my songs. If we changed the instrumentation a bit and listened to them played with traditional instruments, we would notice this more. Now in “I am a northern tree” my intention was to make folk songs. In other words, I would be very happy to make a song as if Tsitsanis had written it, but of course this is not possible and fortunately because if it were, it would be an imitation. I am neither Tsitsanis nor do I live in his era and thus a special folk song is born that brings my own characteristics, influences, experiences.
In addition to Epirus, in “I am a northern tree” there are also influences from your contemporaries, such as Thanasis Papakonstantinou and Sokratis Malamas.
Perhaps; they are rightfully the exponents of our time, I watch them and admire them and I allow what I admire to inspire and influence me. Also, the sound of Dimitris Lappa plays a big role – he plays almost all the instruments on the record and we did the orchestration together –, who was for years and remains a partner with Sokratis and Thanasis, so he inevitably brings something from the sound of this album. school. I must say that his contribution is invaluable. We had a wonderful collaboration that determined the outcome of the record and I thank him from the bottom of my heart.
“A singer, regardless of his performance skills, is a carrier. In other words, he must serve the ideas of other composers and then go out into the streets and convey them to the world.”
You worked steadily for years with lyricists like Agathi Dimitrouka and Zoi Panagiotopoulou. How did you meet the poet Panos Dimitropoulos?
Panos owns Apanemia and that’s where we met. I kept getting his admiration for my songs. He came up with the idea of making a cycle of folk songs for a female voice. We approached some female singers leaving the issue open so we can start and see. We started writing and as I composed and recorded them for the demo I started to identify and bond with them. In the end, Panos revealed to me that he wrote everything with me in mind. So we decided to tell everything myself.
However, they are difficult songs for any performer, not in terms of their form.
It is difficult only for me, because as a singer I have only been trained in Manos’ songs and not in my own. I write freely, thinking of an ideal voice rather than my own. So when it comes time to sing them I struggle, but this time I sang them at home and had enough time to play them more.
Right, if we think about how your songs have been sung by Fleury Dantonakis to George Dalaras and Dimitris Mitropanos.
I was thinking the same thing these days: Why did I keep calling other singers? One reason was probably that I admired them and wanted to meet with them, as well as for my melodies to connect with their psyche. Another reason might have been insecurity, because I felt more like a composer and didn’t like to carry the weight of a whole album by myself. I wanted a… reinforcement.
Just like now when Nikos Zoudiaris subtly participates in a piece.
I did not know Zoudiaris personally, I met him through Dimitropoulos. Of course I knew his songs and I really liked them. I was excited about our meeting, I think he was too, and after learning about our collaboration with Dimitropoulos, he expressed the desire to participate even with one phrase on the album. I thought it was very honorable and without thinking I agreed and sent him the song. It was his idea to whisper over the melody. Then the idea came to me to make a scream over his whisper and we got a very nice moment on the record, which I look forward to every time. The concept of screaming is a big issue that concerns me. What is the cry? We listen, for example, to Vassilis Lekkas, who can no longer avoid screaming in every song. That means something. An explosion, a need for people to scream with all this maybe happening around us. It is not enough for us to just sing a song well.
Something that goes completely against the “aligned” Hadzidak interpretation.
Of course, if there is also the inner cry. The perfect balance is found when both exist, the shout with the whisper; all around us this is happening, everything is double. Night and day, cold and heat, joy and sorrow, verse and chorus. The striking scream of Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters is the antithesis of an interiority that precedes it. Nowhere can only one stand, these things are known, even if one was only happy, it would strike.
You lived through the golden age of discography.
Yes, we used to live off records, now we’re in decline unfortunately. However, because I was not in the favor of record companies in general, I have to remember a lot of unpleasant things from that time. Because of them I had a lot of delays and if things weren’t like that, I would have made at least twice as many records.
Do you know what it sounded like? That all you performers of Hadjidaki may have also ridden a rod, from which you fell abruptly with his death.
It didn’t happen with me, I was never naturally “mounted”. I am a humble person, I believe, but I received something else: after the death of Hadjidaki, I encountered an unreasonably hostile climate. As if some people in the space hated him and had me as easier prey.
Have you had suggestions to sing songs by other composers?
Many, among them by Theodorakis. But I’m not a singer in the current sense. A singer, regardless of his performance skills, is a carrier. That is, he must serve the ideas of other composers and then go out into the streets and convey them to the world; this is a responsibility and requires an attitude of life. I am not that and moreover I have chosen to serve my own ideas. Maybe I haven’t supported my own songs as much as I should and many have gone unsung, but what does it matter? People who search in the hidden (because that’s where I belong) find the way and discover me.
I have to say that your current material is ruled by extroversion.
Yes, I wanted to make a kind of simple but inventive song; flowing effortlessly, without obstacles and gimmicks, away from the artifice, with greater dynamics, with a strong presence of the bouzouki that I was not used to in the past and keeping the familiar sound among the familiar roads and rhythms I used. However, they are still new songs and in order to reach the ears of the world, they must be well received by the radio stations. Unfortunately, most radio stations don’t like new songs, or at least they don’t seem to take the risk of supporting them, they leave that effort to the other stations and if they see something starting to move, then they take it ready and they include it in their program. Fortunately, not all stations are like this.
Do you listen to new Greek songs, are you updated?
I think when something good happens it will somehow come to my attention. I can mention a few that I listened to recently and saved, such as the album by Kraunakis with Zouganelis, Delivorias with Nefeli Fasoulis, Siota’s collaborations with Thodoris Gonis, Kagialikos with Gisdakis, yesterday I was stuck with “Glaros fugas » by Babis Stokas. There are also several that I follow incessantly and wait for their new material, like Angelakas – he has never let me down.
Let’s close with this: It’s much appreciated that you always support the new song.
The new song is sacred, it is what drives us forward, it is our continuation. I’m always looking to discover a cool new song. I have the same anxiety as a composer. And the world needs the same, I think, that’s why he leaves his house, so that something new happens to him and he doesn’t know to ask for it. He asks us for old songs thinking that he will connect with the memories and relive the good times that have passed; he has difficulty with the new, it is foreign to him, nothing connects him and if we don’t protect him and play him what he asks for, he will come back with a empty in his house and with a “the same and the same” feeling, while if we try to sing him a new song, he will come back satisfied and next year this song will not be foreign to him, it will remind him of this particular evening.
INFO
The album entitled “I am a northern tree” has just been released digitally and contains ten new songs with lyrics by Panos Dimitropoulos and music – performed by Ilias Liougou himself
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