Week in Pop: Daddy, Hellrazor, JEEN., The Lentils

Post Author: Sjimon Gompers

VVELLS

Getting to know Athens, Greece’s VVELLS; press photo courtesy the band.

Greek DIY pop stars on the rise VVELLS just announced their upcoming Island of Me EP available October 13 through Very Jazzed / Frenchkiss Label Group with a listen to the smooth & elusive “Green Lights” that leads you deep into a slow-dubbed ether. Comprised of Keep Shelly In Athens’ guitarist Alex, singer/guitarist of Sillyboy—Babis, Yannis of Whereswilder; VVELLS arrives on the international pop music scene with some of the most anticipated & head-bopping rhythms & rock the world has waited for all year.
VVELLS’ flashy cool single “Green Lights” is the jam that is meant for year round festival vibes with the feelings of limitless liberation & the exhiliration of catching all the go-lights that illuminate perceptions of expansive horizons. And as we all move into the seasonal transitions of summer to fall, VVELLS completely dilates & oscillates all senses of conventional & chronological time where all sunset gazing holidays feel extended deep into the arms of the incoming autumn. VVELLS emphasizes an ethereal endless dream kinda aesthetic where the listener slips into a subconscious stream of stirring sentiments that stream forward into those latent sections of recollection of unfolded memories.

Describe what events lead up to the formation of VVELLS, and the story behind the name.
We are all friends for a long time now. Me and Alex had some ideas that we needed to see them through. We worked for a while in the studio, most of the times trying to figure out what these songs will sound like. The only missing part was that we wanted to hear a voice different than the ones we got used to. We were fans of Yannis and Whereswilder so we asked him to give it a try. His vocal approach turned out to be just what VVELLS needed.
Adding a lot of different reverbs on the production and especially on vocals, we started to sound like coming out of a well. We just had to add that double V at the beginning and there you have it.
Tell us about the traffic light flashes that might have inspired the glow of “Green Lights”.
Everyone is waiting for that moment or moments to catch that green light and move on. It’s so great to have that feeling of luck and opportunity at the same time. Still it’s getting very rare and difficult to realize that moments in our mostly “red lights” time.
Describe further the processes & perceptions that went into the making of the upcoming Island of Me EP.
More or less the answer on your first question. The difficult part, as always, is to find people that like your music and want to give it a chance on releasing it. We are not that good in reaching out to the music industry, in fact I personally think we suck in this kind of work. Necessary though. We were lucky that our friends from Very Jazzed records liked our songs. I guess this is some how a “green light moment” for VVELLS.
What else is inspiring you all in Greece right now?
I think what inspires most of the people. Love, hate, hope, wars, freedom, traveling, reading, probably everything we see and feel. It’s been a really rough time for a small country like Greece the last years, expressing ourselves is necessary.
Fall & winter post-release wishes & dreams?
I guess reaching out to the world and make some people feel good. We surely hope that we can manage to travel and play our music, see many places that we haven’t visited before, make new friends and fill our heads with good memories to talk about.