In 2016 Prog enjoyed a rare interview with Vangelis at his Paris home. Never fond of speaking to the press – or indeed embracing the concept of fame – the late keyboard genius spoke passionately of many things, including 666, the masterpiece 1971 album by Aphrodite’s Child, which was locked in his record label’s vault for a year because execs failed to understand its greatness – until Salvador Dali did.
Vangelis famously once stated that when creating music, he acts as a channel through which music is “a bridge from the noise of chaos.” He explains: “I believe that music is implanted in us all and that we have a collective memory.
“If you agree with this theory – which for me is a fact – and if you accept that we have been in some way created by music and we are all part of a collective memory, everything else follows. I do have to make myself clear: I am not talking about the sort of music we hear on the radio, which is only a little branch, but I’m talking about the scientific side of music, which is a tree, a forest and more.”
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In a career spanning five decades, initially as a member of the group Aphrodite’s Child and later as a solo artist, Vangelis’ body of work is immense, pushing the limits of available technology to attain levels of creative brilliance that many have tried to emulate, but few have achieved.
“I’ve never felt comfortable with the term ‘career,’” he muses. “I make music every day because it’s been like this all my life and I continue to do so the same way. I have never felt comfortable to be part of the music ‘business.’ For me it has been a means for me to create music on my own terms as much as possible.”
This desire dates back to the time when he first came to public attention as a member of Aphrodite’s Child. The band – also featuring vocalist and bassist Demis Roussos, drummer Loukas Sideras and guitarist Anargyros ‘Silver’ Koulouris – had recorded their first single in 1967 for Philips Records under the name The Papathanassiou Set.
“The first record contract I ever signed was born out of necessity,” Vangelis recalls. Because of all the problems in France at that time [one of the biggest general strikes in history], we were stranded and had no money to survive. I couldn’t even call home to Greece to ask for assistance and so I decided to call Mercury Records in France, who offered us a deal. We really didn’t have much choice in the matter and had to sign a contract to survive. As a result, the contract wasn’t at all good, but we became commercially successful.”
They recorded the single Rain And Tears in May 1968. It would become their biggest worldwide hit. The album End Of The World was released by Mercury Records throughout Europe in October 1968, adorned in a psychedelic sleeve and demonstrating the contrasting commercial and experimental sides of the band. Between 1968 and 1970, Aphrodite’s Child were one of the biggest-selling acts in Europe – but Vangelis was becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the fame and celebrity that went with this success.
“I never understood the phenomenon of celebrity,” he says, waving a hand contemptuously. “I wasn’t interested in being photographed or reading about myself in the newspapers.”
In 1970 Vangelis decided to take the band in a more progressive and experimental direction. They spent most of the year writing and recording the iconic double-album based on the Apocalypse of St John in the New Testament, with references to the counterculture of the late 1960s and early 1970s. The music on 666 would be groundbreaking and stunning in equal measure – but would ultimately lead to the break-up of Aphrodite’s Child before the record’s release.
Vangelis still bristles with indignation at Mercury’s initial refusal to release the work. “The company incorrectly perceived the concept to be blasphemous in nature,” he snorts. “They took exception to the piece Infinity, on which the Greek actress Irene Papas provided a vocal that, although rapturous and indicative of the times, was not pornographic, as the record company had deemed. I explained that she was a famous and serious Greek actress and her involvement was also serious.
“It was my first experience of coming across the gulf that exists between the way a record company thinks and the way an artist thinks. The record company said that 666 was not at all commercial and they couldn’t understand what I was trying to achieve.” As a result, it sat in Mercury’s vaults for a year while both label and Vangelis refused to budge.
“When it came to the first anniversary of the completion, I decided to throw a birthday party for the album,” he laughs. “I booked the studio in which we had made the album, bought a big chocolate cake and a candle and invited all of the members of the band, our friends and some journalists to a party where we listened to the album in full. It made a statement!”
The party was graced by the notable presence of Salvador Dali, who declared the album to be a work of greatness. Finally, due to overwhelming artistic and critical pressure, 666 secured a release in France on the progressive Vertigo label at the end of 1971, where it was hailed as a masterpiece.
The release was staggered across Europe, finally appearing in the UK in June 1972 – by which time Aphrodite’s Child were no more. Vangelis had begun to collaborate with acclaimed French documentary maker Frédéric Rossif on his natural history TV series L’Apocalypse Des Animaux, leading to decades of innovative collaboration and composition with a huge range of other creatives.
