FIREWIND Guitarist On Lineup Changes: 'Along The Way, People Want Different Things And Change'

January 23, 2013

Mike Wilkerson of Blastzone Online recently conducted an interview with FIREWIND/OZZY OSBOURNE guitarist Gus G. (real name: Kostas Karamitroudis). A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Blastzone Online: Why has there been so many lineup changes in FIREWIND?

Gus: Being in a band is not easy. You need to compromise a lot in order to be in a serious touring band. It's not a glamorous lifestyle (despite what many think) and it requires lots of sacrifices. We're not a band that started out like five buddies from the same town. I had to build a band with members from different places around the world. Along the way, people want different things and change. So, I think that's the primary reason why we've had so many members in FIREWIND.

Blastzone Online: Tell me about your new lead singer Kelly Sundown Carpenter?

Gus: Kelly is an amazing singer and will be singing for us on our upcoming U.S. tour with TURISAS, as Apollo [Papathanasio] decided to quit recently. We jammed with Kelly recently and he did a great job on our songs. Looking forward to playing some gigs with him and we'll see what happens.

Blastzone Online: How have the FIREWIND fans reacted to the new lead singer Kelly Sundown Carpenter?

Gus: I expected it to be a lot worse. Apparently, there are lots of fans out there who are looking forward to the change for various reasons. There's some that took it really bad, which was expected, but to be honest, even with Apollo in the band, we had to recruit replacement singers for our tours. In 2007, Apollo missed the whole second leg of the "Allegiance" tour and that was a whole around-the-world run! Also, in 2011, he missed our European headline tour, which was also important, 'cause it was FIREWIND's first tour since 2009 when I joined Ozzy. So, changing singers is not a new thing for us! But it's amazing, 'cause I can't think of any other band that would be able to get away with shit like this. I think we do, because our fans come to the shows to listen to the songs, they connect with the music first and foremost and that's a very strong thing. And that means a lot to the rest of us in the band.

Read the entire interview from Blastzone Online.

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