[Band Visit] Birthday Kicks

Here's a brief bio of  Birthday Kicks, (Larissa, Greece) with some background info on how the band started and took the form it has today.

It was 2009 when Andreas Almpanis (guitar, vocals) met Jeroen Langstraat (former bassist) in a live appearance of The Last Drive in Larisa, Greece. From February 2010 They start to jam and rehearse together at home and they keep searching for a drummer to form a band. Their first attempts and appearances were made with the name TAZ (Temporary Autonomous Zone) managing to open the gig of Wooden Shjips in Larisa.

They continue their search for a drummer and one day in November 2010 while jamming with their friend Ntinos ('the Australian') in the studio of Nikos Ntoulas they are receiving a proposition from Kostas Stavrianos (Stage Club) to play on the 3rd birthday celebration of the club and boom! This is the first time they play with the name "Birthday Kicks".

Since that day a lot changed... Ntinos got back to Melbourne, and Andreas with Jeroen kept searching for a drummer. They collaborate with Stefanos Pallas for a few months and soon they find themselves working with Kanelos (former Deus Ex Machina guitarist) who started playing drums for their sake :) but it wasn't a permanent 'solution';  Pavlos Soultoukis also helped them make a several live appearances. During all this time they managed to play alongside Planet of Zeus, 1000Mods, BLML, This Is Nowhere and others, but withouth finiding a permanent member for the position of drummer.

That was meant to change in Januar 2013 when they met Soco (aka 'John Paul Ziller') in the live appearance of METZ in Larissa and they actually gave Birthday Kicks a more 'permanent' form, in which they did three vinyl releases (two 7'' and a full album) and making over 50 live appearances. 

In 2016 their bassist Jeroen decides to leave Greece and move to northern Europe leaving a gap that Manos Tselepis (who also did the recording & mixing of the last two releases) came to fill in for a few months before he also left the country.

Somehwere in the end of 2017 and the beginning of 2018 the band recruits Dimitris Vallas in the bass and starts to be active again and doing live appearances. Taking in consideration their persistent nature we are positive that new material will be coming out soon, hopefully a full album as well.

releases:

2014 - Gotta Believe (7'')

2016 - Black Echo Trap (full album) - review (in Greek)

2016 - Tonight at Vault Relics (split with Screaming Dead Balloons)

 bandcamp | facebook

band interview (in Greek)

Photo by Giannis Chatziantoniou