Nicholas Georgakopoulos sees a dream come true after he took a leap of faith and sent his self-written song to the Grammy Award-winning band Dream Theater.
Rusted-on prog rock fans know Dream Theater, who emerged in Boston in 1985. The metal-prog-rockers have sold over 12 million records worldwide and have three Grammy Award nominations and one win up their belts.
Georgakopoulos’s track Into Oblivion under the title Paris of Troy was recorded by the band’s lead singer James LaBrie.
The 46-year-old musician for has been playing the drums for 30 years.
In 2004 his prog-metal band WithoutEnding were signed with the release of their debut album and went to the U.S. on a promotional visit.
They disbanded in 2006 and had a few lackluster comeback attempts.
Since then, in 2016 he started writing his own songs in studio – via the piano and had been playing in Greek Wedding bands until the COVID-19 pandemic.
It was during COVID-19 he started the ProgRock Digital Podcast.
“This gave me an opportunity to chat with prog rock/metal bands/musicians that I grew up listening to from around the world,” Georgakopoulos tells Neos Kosmos.
To name a few, he has interviewed:
- Mike Mangini (Extreme, Vai)
- Mark Zonder (Fates Warning)
- Nick D’Virgilio (Tears for Fears/Genesis)
- Mick Box (Uriah Heep)
- Ioannis (Yiannis Vassilopoulos) the album cover designer for Deep Purple, Blue Oyster Cult, Sepultura, Quiet Riot, Dream Theater, and Fates Warning.
His most significant interview is James LaBrie from Dream Theater.
“These chats gave me the inspiration to continue writing my own material,” he says.
“In February I submitted a song, unsolicited to James LaBrie – via his son Chance – whom I have been friends with since 2021.
“James loved the song and agreed to sing on the track.
“Dream Theater have been my favourite band for over 30 years and to be given the opportunity to work alongside James, words cannot describe.”
LaBrie has been recording his parts at home in Montreal while on break from recording the band’s 16th album.
Bob Katsionis is producing the track, mixing, and mastering, and laying down all the guitars.
Katsionis the lead keyboardist and guitarist for metal and power bands Stray Gods, Warrior Path, Outloud, and Serious Black is also married to Greek-Cypriot singer Evridiki.
Building these connections is key says Georgakopoulos. He credits his Northcote High School teachers for instilling in him the capacity to progress in his music field.
Teachers, he says like, “Spiros Falieros and Martin Webster showed me the importance of analysing songs and breaking them down as well as relationship building within the industry.”
“The key to everything in this industry is relationships and those two teachers were able to really make that known to me from a very early age.
“I’ve been able to put that into practise now in my mid-40s.”
Georgakopoulos is enthusiastic about his new venture, after some tumultuous times he spent in local Greek bands.
“A lot of crap occurred in in the 2000s, and now Greek bands can’t get weddings, can’t play out there because DJ’s are undercutting, or it’s just DJ’s with a bouzouki player that that have taken the limelight and there’s no room anymore financially for Greek bands to fit in,” he says.
“I used to be a roadie for Omega Band who were playing double headers in the late 90s, early 00s.
“I’ve seen it from that perspective and seen it how the scene sort of died down for bands here in in Melbourne especially for Greek wedding bands.”
He’s happy to continue doing what he loves in the progressive rock scene, one that is a huge for the Greek music fan.
“Greeks love progressive-metal rock, and I think we love it because most of our songs are odd timing. They’re in 9/8, 7/8, 5/8 a lot of odd times.”
“I think the Greek listener can somewhat climatise to Dream Theater, or Rush, and a lot of progressive rock and progressive metal.”
The heavy metal scene in Greece, is flourishing, with its biggest names, being in a constant state of progression, and new bands emerging in the underground every now and then.
After Finland, Sweden, Germany, and Norway, Greece stands out with 238.3 metal bands per million people, making it one of the highest rates of metal bands in Europe.
