started in 1991 and used to be what is nowadays called a death-rock band. It happened at a place marked on Greek maps as “Karditsa”, although it actually is “the Bog”. A lot of swamp things got recruited to play the usual instruments rock bands played half a century ago, and a lot of them sunk back to their swamp.
The idea was to come up with a hybrid of Greek folk music and American Heavy Metal. In a way, it still is the same to this day... but for the nausea Starcry feel at the sound of the words “Greek” and “American”.
To begin with, the debut gig the band played (1992), where the name was officially pronounced for the first time, occured at a school party, in front of thousands of swamp teachers, swamp pupils, swamp moms and dads; the repertoir included a cover of Lynott/Moore’s “Parisienne Walkways” and Twisted Sister’s “We’re not gonna take it” (!); and the whole event was so unsuccessfully wonderful that the band thought they should give it a second chance and try again...
The swamp teens that played in the band then - and are now considered the swamp parents of Starcry - were Nikos Dachris (vocals, guitar) and Nikos Doukas (bass-guitar), and Dimitris Zambogas (drums), and Apostolis Tzafalias (guitar).
Soon, the goth/punk approach to hard-rock songs leaded into a pit of bits of Black Sabbath, Alice Cooper and Motorhead glued together with Ultravox! and Yazoo! that might have sounded like Joan Jett meets Red Lorry Yellow Lorry, had the members of the band not been swamp things in the Bog. As such, the band wanted to head for a heavy-metal sound in-between early Paradise Lost and early Crimson Glory, that somehow resulted in a Nephilimish landscape the elders of the Bog classified as something along the Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple lines (!).

It is only now this obvious that Starcry where going nowhere at all back then, and side-projects like the Rockshire, name under which the band played commercial covers in country-side bars, could only clarify that.
Dachris did his first experimental recording on tape as Rockshire, using borrowed palaeolithic electronics and mixers, and it came out so depressing and darkwave that only dedicated swamp fans of the band could bare listening to it, the band itself couldn’t. (Ah...! Those were the days!...)
Still, Starcry were very young and full of life-energy and puerile ambitions...
Teens over, Dachris and Doukas found themselves on the verge of destiny that wanted them to part destinations. Their last get-togethers saw them surrounded by a crue that the Bog could wash ashore as its ambassadors, for the band then sounded as foul as the great Bog itself.

The kids in the 1993 photo (Sefis Triantafillou –drums, Nikos Doukas –bass, Nikos Dachris –Vox&Guits, Kostas Zaharis –Keyboard) sounded as boy-ish as they look, almost like My Dying Bride and Anathema. Shortly after this photo was taken, Nikos Pavlis (guitar) was added to them (or maybe they were added to him), and shortly after that, they sort of split up.
It was time for the Grand Quest, the heroes set off to seek the Holy Grail...
And guess what:
In 1994, Starcry left the Bog.
And never returned.

Or so they thought.
In 1997, Nikos Dachris had become Nick Dachris, because he was in England and the English pronunciation of “Nikos” is very close to “knickers” and it had to change. He was surprised to find out that the Bog was a universal phaenomenon, and that the place he was studying in then, was almost as bad as where he was before. The spot in Great Britain’s map is marked as “Swindon”.
Naturally, Starcry was born-a-fresh.
A swamp Mac and a swamp Korg (all second hand) substituted the swamp band and Nick started trying to get the original swamp feeling back, which, of course, was impossible. The de-Bog experiment was set in motion. The swamp days were over. Here the elders could at least tell that Starcry sounded Goth, and due to the electronic sound, even Industrial, a bit like KMFDM in slow motion, but far from anything that could be registered as music one could listen to pleasantly.
This was never proven live though. A tape titled Starcry demo ’97 was circulated for a little while. The feedback wasn’t negative, but it wasn’t positive either, and Nick felt the glory of that first grand shite school gig creeping back into his self-esteem. He drew back to make sure he could justify his creations, just as he was required to in the art college.

There -in the art college-, Nick had the experience of participating indirectly but directly experiencing the effort of dance students and teachers, in jazz, classical and modern ballet classes where his major project had cast him to.
Later, when the British mentality was established in Nick’s attitude, the effort of the dancers was his mightiest outfit against his natural Greek indolence and algophobia...
And as if that was not a lesson enough to him, Nick found there was an even boggier place in the world that had to accommodate him. A legendary place. Not marked on every map...
“ Banbury”.
In 1999, Nick wrote “Made of Pain” in Banbury, a few miles north of Oxford. He even made a video-clip for this song.

Starcry was seemingly transcending the curse of the Bog. And sounded more like KMFDM. And a new tape was recorded, and was sent out to record companies. And then Nick came across the music of KMFDM for the first time. And knew that he was missing something out, that he had to try harder, or, as the Waterboys put it, “dream harder”.

As it were at this point, Starcry had lost its swamp links and was a one-man-band. Nick Dachris went back to Greece and like a good honourable Greek man that he was, served the Greek Army for 18 months. His disappointment was immense when he realised that he was destined to face the Bog everywhere.

He could let go at that point, give up Starcry and the dancer’s effort outfit and the grand shite gig’s first applause that had long since gone dumb, and let the Bog swallow him.
Or he could run from himself forever. And strive for what he believed is worth living for, when you are a poor middle-class fuck that wants to make a difference.

Yeah.
He chose to hold on to the old swampy dream and resist the Bog.

In Athens, where he was born, Nick Dachris would stay and fight the Bog, for this was his destiny (what a sad wanker!).

And somehow, destiny brings Nikos Pavlis to Athens and back into the Starcry force.
And Zoe Dachris, Nick’s sister joins in too.
And a new professional home-studio springs up from the genie-bottle and lo! The Cockroach Studio is the new Starcry home!
And in 2002, the first Starcry album, “Ideal Husband”, is recorded!

The debut Starcry album is comprised of 10 tracks that deal with the relationship between the I, the Self, and the Ego, and can be followed throughout as one piece of bizarre meditation, a passage from Kether to Malkuth and back.

And critics outside Greece like it!
And it sounds unique in style and quality...
And it’s great, and Starcry are proud, and Nick feels he’s made a trully grand effort!
And the record companies don’t care!
Hypothetically, Greek labels need effortless music for effortless ears, no place for something original in the Greek market, sorry, try imitating an already established band.
And also hypothetically, labels abroad need music that can be justified in their market by the band itself, no place for a correspondence band from Greece that sounds like an alien parody to darkwave/EBM- we listen to all demos but most bands release their debuts on their own and if they are successful we sign them-.
Well, guess what:
Nick had to try harder!
Because noone else was going to, and it’s HIS fucking thing, isn’t it?

But Nick gets in trouble with the dark energies of the Bog. Logic proves a difficulty frequently encountered as a welcome difficulty in modern art, still one is seldom prepared to face it, since it’s always taken for granted. And sometimes it vanishes altogether. And the oblivion of its absence is so enchanting...

Back to the past tense again, after Ideal Husband and a nice financial and a nicer psychiatric crisis, Nick wrote five new songs and a new version of a 1992 Starcry song, (Sanctum), and packed them under the name “Answer Me”, as a release of his desperation, that coincided with the 2003 American wanky-do’s in old Persia.

To end this long gospel on the passion of the Starcry, by the end of 2004, Nick had collected a sum of 20 new Starcry tracks, 14 of which are being released in 2005 in their second album titled “One Night Stand”.

This is a Science-fiction colored audio torment that speaks of very simple everyday joys and agonies. Unlike the first album, it cannot be taken as a solid piece throughout. There has been no esoteric or other kind of sequence to the songs. It is rather hard to hear throughout in one go. Still it is definitely far more sinister and devastating than its predecessor, and somehow easier to listen to (in parts).

In relation to pigeonholes, Starcry are nowadays difficult to compare with other well-known bands, but it is proven that if one likes the old Skinny Puppy staff might like the Starcry as well. Feedback from critics and non-critics (mis)places the Starcry between Nitzer Ebb and the Future Sound of London with the majesty of Fading Colors and a touch of Das Ich. Playlists that include Starcry, usually also include Ministry, White (& Rob) Zombie, Kreator(!), Suicide Commando, :Wumpscut:, Christian Death, Sunshine Blind, Dead Can Dance, Concrete Blonde, Joy Division, Eurythmics, Madonna, and Boytronic. And the Sisters of Mercy, the Mission, the Fields of the Nepfilim, the Nine Inch Nails, and the Siouxsie and her Banshees. And a lot more, but -surprisingly- no KMFDM (very seldom). Under the influence of this bit of enlightenment, Starcry can be characterised as dark alternative rock.

The Starcry’s great plans for the future are moving abroad and Nick wishes to follow them. His musical tastes haven’t strayed much from the paths of darkness in the last 15 years, and since the motivation for Starcry is “music that we need to hear and can’t get anywhere else”, it seems that there is going to be a long sequel to this...

This is all the information about Starcry Nick Dachris considers necessary to publish, so that anyone concerned can draw his/her own conclusions and allow the Starcry to echo within this world, as it stands in January 2005.

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