Getting To Know Imam Baildi

Imam Baildi 697 Imam Baildi is a Turkish dish made of Mediterranean vegetables baked in the oven. Though delicious, the Greek band of the same name is just as tasty, if not tastier. Spearheaded by brothers Lysander and Orestes Falireas, Imam Baildi takes classic Greek oldies from the 40s, 50s and 60s, and mashes them up with modern beats and live accompaniment, breathing new life into their father's 78rpm gramophone records. Of course, the fact that their father and uncle were founders of Falireas productions gives the Imam Baildi project that special flavour; far from deviating from Greek musical traditions, the boys are paying homage to them. With a second album in the works and a live act that comprises of talented Greek musicians, Imam Baildi boasts musical tastes that span genres and continents, making this group - and its most charming members - a band to watch. Catching up with the brothers before band practice, they explain why. Imam Baildi on Imam Baildi: How did the concept of Imam Baildi begin? O: Originally it was just an experiment. Nobody had ever tried to mix Greek music with modern beats before. The first tune I did was a rembetiko song called ‘Dimeni San Archontissa’, which means dressed like a Lady. At the time I was still living abroad in Spain and when I came back I started working with my brother. L: The first tune we did together was ‘I Zoi Mas Einai Ligi’ (Our Life is Short). O: ...Then we started searching for music to work with and it developed as a side project. After presenting three experimental demos to EMI in 2005, you were immediately commissioned an entire album, how did that feel? L: I was in the Netherlands studying music. I was planning on leaving, but I wasn’t sure at the time. Then Orestes told me that we’d been commissioned and I was like..I’m going! O: We really had to fight to get the album out. The six months before its release was really hectic, when it was finished, we were like, great, time to have fun with it. Was there any particular reason you chose the songs? O: Well, though I didn’t really like Greek songs until I was twenty, I liked rembetiko a bit earlier because it’s underground, dealing with all the things that appeal to a teenager. But we didn’t choose the songs on the basis of liking them. By hearing one song by chance, you realise if it’s a good tune to play around with. L: Sometimes we choose the whole tune, and mix the whole thing, or we use small samples from the intro or another part and use that to make an entirely new song. Considering you have used some classic rembetika samples in your work, were you worried about the album’s reception in Greece? O: We were expecting something, but we did not know how much controversy there would be. We were expecting a lot worse. L: Well, yes. Especially with the people who are deeply involved in Rembetiko. They are very traditional. For instance, people who are really into pure rembetiko don’t even like Manolis Chiotis (the song writer for Den Thelo Pia and Pasatempos) because he was mixing rembetiko with mambo and other styles. They were very sceptical about him. O: Pasatempos was one of the first tunes Chiotis wrote, in the early forties. He was around twenty. Later he became really huge. Your DJ sets and live performances are very different. Do you hope to do more live performances in the future? O: At the start, we didn’t have a band. When the album came out we didn’t even have a live set. So now we want to try and do more live sets and make something out of it. We work on the live sets constantly and they are developing all the time. I think if we keep on doing it, it will get better. With the new album, we have tunes that are more suited to the band and we’re going to use the musicians a lot more. How did the band come together? L: When the album came out, we were thinking about adding at least two more players for the live set, and we wanted a Balkan brass section. So we found these two guys. Yiannis Diskos plays Sax, Clarinet and Bagpipe player; he is from Haridaios on the borders with Macedonia and really into Balkan tradition… O: …His whole family are musicians – his brother Dimitris plays percussion in the band. We met them through his father, who made an album with our dad ten years ago. His father plays every instrument, bazouki, trumpet, trombone… L: The trumpet player was his friend, Perikles Aliopis. He has only been playing for four or five years. He’s twenty-two years old, and has a scholarship with the national observatory, really up and coming. Then we added Alexandros Arapatsakis, the bouzouki player who knows every rembetiko tune there is. Then we found Spyros Brionis, a friend of Alexis, who plays guitar and Cello. Do you experiment during your jam sessions? L: We don’t really jam, ever. Two of the guys are 600 miles away. O: The only jam sessions are the unplugged sessions after the live sets when we play mostly rembetiko tunes. We mainly jam during the DJ sets. Like, if the guys have a new idea, they just go with it - especially the tunes we play at the end, like Samba Clarina, when each player gets a solo. Most times one player will do something different and the rest will follow. So there is definite improvisation going on during live gigs? O: Well, take that first gig in Thessaloniki… L: I was in the army, and had to take leave for that day and go straight back to the camp afterwards…so I met the brass section there for the first time! O: We had a couple of rehearsals, but that night was mostly improvisation. We knew more or less what we were going to do and after three hours, this guy came up to us and said, come on guys play some more! L: But we had no tunes… O: …and he was like…come on, improvise! We were like, that’s what we’ve been doing! How did the other members of the band feel about the lack of rehearsal? L: At the beginning, Yiannis the clarinet player was ok, but Perikles was like, what are you guys doing? He kept getting lost. It took him two or three months to really feel at ease with that, because he didn’t know what it was like to be in this kind of band. Then he got it. Where do you see the project going in the future? L: Well, for the new album, which will hopefully be out by Christmas 2009, we’re still using samples, but we’re going to use non-Greek tunes, too. Naturally we are Greeks, so Greek flavour will remain at the core, but we plan on diversifying. For example, a big part of what we do is take samples from tracks while keeping the original voice. If we don’t use the samples and use a singer, it’s just like making covers. But now we see that the album is one thing and the live is completely different. For the live set, it’s nice to have a person singing. When you see a band live, you really need to see a singer because it’s strange to see a band, and hear a voice coming from somewhere. Now we want to add a voice. O: The next time we play, our guitar player is going to start singing a couple of tracks. And we plan on using more MCs as well. L: Also, in the beginning we had no idea about bookings or events. We just did the album and suddenly everyone was like, so where are you going to play next? What are you going to do with that? And we were like, I don’t know! This time, we are going to plan it a bit better. We didn’t expect things to happen so quickly. Three weeks after the album was out, we had a booking for the Thessaloniki film festival. We were like...what? But we had to do it, ready or not, we had no choice. Actually, it’s the album that makes everything happen. Now we know that. <a href=" http://www.myspace.com/imambaild" target="-new" Imam Baildi's Myspace.</a> 42

2009-02-07T00:32:07Z

Cultural/Heritage Rock/Indie/Alt 696 Athens, Greece

2009-02-07T00:32:07Z

getting-to-know-imam-baildi published Getting To Know Imam Baildi

2009-04-15T19:41:38Z

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