Tales of Mike: “We are working on the first album, which is due to be released in 2025”

The first single, “Human Masquerade”, will be released on October 4th, 2024.

Welcome to Polismagazino.gr. Introduce the band in a few words. Hi everyone, my musical project is called Tales of Mike and was born out of the motivation to make a tribute song for my late brother and is a mixture of epic doom/heavy metal. I would say it is most influenced by 90’s metal.

When did you start as a band? I started at the end of 2022 with a few demo songs. They were all instrumental. Henrik Schaller, who I have known for a long time, also played his extraordinary solos on two songs there. When I contacted Gonzalo Civita and he agreed to sing RIP (Landscape of Sorrow) I had the feeling that I had found the right people for Tales of Mike.

What is your first musical memory? The most memorable thing was when I heard the song “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll” by Joan Jett and The Blackhearts on the radio when I was 10 years old in the orphanage. I asked an orphanage worker what kind of instrument it was, and she said an electric guitar. I was blown away by this aggressive sound. And nothing has changed since.

Who are the band members? I record the music at home and singer Gonzalo Civita (HelėH, Tribal) works on the vocals in Argentina. The great solos come from the exceptional guitarist Henrik Schaller from Germany.

Describe your career in music so far. Have there been any decisive positive or negative influences? So far I’ve experienced mostly positive things. For someone who is completely unknown, we were welcomed with open arms almost everywhere. Whether it was reviews, mentions or interviews. There was more than I could have imagined and that showed me that there is support for small bands in the underground and that they are made with passion.

Are you “scared” by success or failure? No, why should I? At the beginning I only wanted to do the RIP (Landscape of Sorrow) song. But because the collaboration was so great, we decided to do an EP. That’s more than I thought. We’re even working on the first album now and I know that it’s going to be great for me personally. And if other people like the album too, it’s even better.

Tell us a few words about your latest release. The current release is the Tales of Mike – Landscape of Sorrow EP. It is a tribute to my brother Markus. He died of bone cancer in 2010 at the age of 35. The song RIP (Landscape of Sorrow) is about that and about our time together in a Catholic Orphanage under violence by Franciscan nuns in the late 70s. It is based on facts, while LSD Butterfly deals with the idea of a possible processing of this trauma. Under the pale Moonlight is about the suicide of the children who were with us in this house and took their own lives in their teens. 

Who edits the lyrics and the music? My daughter Shannon writes the lyrics. She writes a lot and enjoys it, and that’s how the song RIP (Landscape of Sorrow) came about. I liked the idea that we could leave my brother something together so that he can be remembered forever. She wrote all the lyrics for the EP and will do the same for the album. I’m glad she’s involved. She listens to the songs while she writes, and I think that music and lyrics form a unity. There’s something magical about it. I write the music.

What are your future music plans? We are working on the first album, which is due to be released in 2025. The first single, “Human Masquerade”, will be released on October 4th, 2024. I hope you are ready, because we are! Thank you very much for the interview!