The smallest Creature is the brainchild of Stefanos Marnerides, with the name starting off as an alias around 2007. At the time, Stefanos was composing and performing small gigs in New York, while also putting together demo recordings with the help of Stefan Held in Brooklyn, NY.
In this interview spotlight, we chat with The smallest Creature about influences, the new project, navigating the digital world as an indie musician and more.
Full Q&A along with links and the video for Vanity Vote below.
Where are you from and what style of music do you create? (In your own words, not necessarily in marketing terms or by popular genre classifications.)
We are from Larnaca, Cyprus – an island in the Mediterranean. Our style of music definitely falls under ‘Alternative Rock’ , although we are not sure what other label suits us from the plethora of the ones currently used in the music world – that can get a bit confusing. It’s a more minimal style of rock, without excessive guitar solos, big riffs or ambitious rhythmic maneuvers. The focus is more on the lyrical melody, yet wrapped in the hard rock sound.
What led you down this path of music and what motivates you to stay the course?
It is surely our influences that led us down this path, mostly what came out of the 90’s and before, from R.E.M to Alice in Chains and Radiohead. I think once you get strongly attached to a type of music from early on, and in particular if you start playing and creating in that style, then that becomes your motivation and drive to stay in that course. Just the fact that you are into it a lot.
How is your new release different than previous ones? Did you set out to accomplish anything specific?
Our album Million is our first release, with Vanity Vote the latest video from it. With Million I think we accomplished what we set off to do, which was to come up with a good set of songs, diverse even if within a particular style and sound, that paints well the portrait of what we are about at the time.
Do you face any challenges as an indie musician in a digital age? On the flip side, how has technology helped you (if it has)?
Good question, and it rather points at its own answer . It’s “yes” for both parts. The technology gives you the opportunity first to create without the huge budget and then to easily expose your music to the world (internet). But then this is the case for everyone with whom in the end you compete for attention. And this is not only for musicians, your “competition” is the entire world of media and art that seeks that attention. I am referring of course mostly to the internet. We are bombarded with so much, it might be hard to engage deeply with something in the end. This has changed not only the character of the music industry, but maybe of music itself. A song now can be just another piece of media that drops in your timeline; you click on it, and then off to the cat-video that’s coming up next. Surely I like to hope that there can still be some sort of stronger connection with music – and it’s definitely the case for a lot of people, myself included – but in this changing world, that might become debatable. Beneath the obvious ways with which the digital age can be a challenge, this might be the biggest; the music can get lost in the noise.
Where can we follow you online and hear more music?
One can easily follow us through our website and mailing list, facebook, spotify and pretty much any other social media.
Anything else before we sign off?
A big thank you for listening and inviting us for an interview
