Days of Rona: Labros G. from 1000mods
The statistics of COVID-19 change with every news cycle, and with growing numbers, stay-at-home isolation and a near-universal disruption to society on a global scale, it is ever more important to consider the human aspect of this coronavirus. Amid the sad surrealism of living through social distancing, quarantines and bans on gatherings of groups of any size, creative professionals — artists, musicians, promoters, club owners, techs, producers, and more — are seeing an effect like nothing witnessed in the last century, and as humanity as a whole deals with this calamity, some perspective on who, what, where, when and how we’re all getting through is a needed reminder of why we’re doing so in the first place.
Thus, Days of Rona, in some attempt to help document the state of things as they are now, both so help can be asked for and given where needed, and so that when this is over it can be remembered.
Thanks to all who participate. To read all the Days of Rona coverage, click here. — JJ Koczan
Days of Rona: Labros G. from 1000mods (Chiliomodi, Greece)
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How are you dealing with this crisis as a band? Have you had to rework plans at all? How is everyone’s health so far?
First of all, thanks for doing this and thanks a lot for caring! The band is healthy and everyone is safe at home! The plan was to release our new album on the 24th of April and on the 1st of May embark on our headline European tour in order to promote the new album. The spring tour has been postponed and we are still waiting for the rest of summer dates, as we have already booked a lot of festivals and club shows for the whole summer.
The album release date was not affected.
What are the quarantine/isolation rules where you are?
We are in lockdown. The majority of business have been shut down and most of employees either work from home or have been seriously affected by losing their job or are unsure about their future when this is over.
People are only allowed to get outside for getting supplies, exercise (max two persons) or to walk their dogs and they have to send an SMS to the government in order to declare personal information, time and reason of transfer.
How have you seen the virus affecting the community around you and in music?
Since mid-March, all the gigs in Greece have been canceled, all the venues, bars, studios, merch printing companies etc. have been closed. A lot of bands from our scene are being forced to cancel/postpone their European and Greek tours. The music community is united and there have already been some online live sessions, or cover/jam challenges on social media. People try to deal with the quarantine with artistic expression, online socializing and humor.
What is the one thing you want people to know about your situation, either as a band, or personally, or anything?
? think the whole Covid-19 crisis is a chance to reconsider the structure of our society, the economical system and our future as a human species in general. It’s time for people to prioritize our needs and wants and realize that we are guided by irrational leaders, who reacted really slow on taking the situation seriously, chose to mislead the public with wrong information and prefer thousands of people dying — although we have the science and the technology to prevent this — just in order to continue supporting the rotten capitalistic system and favor the chosen few.
In every crisis there is opportunity for bigger gains and this is exactly what’s happening right now. The only positive outcome is that humanity finally gave nature some time to recover from an unstoppable destroy that takes place the last century. It’s real odd to see in real-time how much, our way of living affects the planet and how nature recovers with just a little bit of human absence. Of course this is not going to bring the solution to big nature problems, like climate change and planet’s overheating, but it clearly shows that if we want to change our planet’s future, we still can.
It’s 2020, we have moved a lot forward with scientific breakthroughs, amazing technology and we have reached a point where knowledge is shared instantly across the world. So I think there are no excuses. It’s in peoples’ hands to decide if we are going to continue the same way, or gonna change our perspective to a more humanistic society powered by solidarity and respect for each other, using all our knowledge and wisdom in order to make people’s lives better.
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