Can you tell our community what’s your name? Where are you from and what do you do? 

Yeah, so I am D3LTA. My real name is Rob. I’m half English half Greek. I was born and raised in Athens. I’ve been always, you know, loving music and performing and writing songs. And I started my career in Greece, which is funny because in the beginning, I was consistently told by Greek record labels that I need to switch the Greek language, which I was refusing to do. So I got professionally with Sony where I started releasing songs and moved to London 2 years ago. 

Can you tell us a little bit about your process as an artist? How did it all start for you? 

First of all, I’ve always been playing piano since the age of five and the guitar. The case of me was not being super keen on learning classical songs or learning other people’s songs, I preferred to write my own songs instead. And I’ve always had this need to express myself. I was just finding myself. I started writing songs from very early age. I picked up the guitar or sat on the piano. And if I was lucky, sometimes these words that stuck formed themselves into a song.

So what helps you and what inspires your craft? 

I write most of my songs from personal experiences. And if not, sometimes a friend will tell me a story, and it will trigger something, like I will feel it very deeply and I’ll write something about it. It’s about living life in a way, and and I try to write about things that I’ve been through or what I’ve learned from these things even if it’s a song about someone you ended up letting go. The process of that feeling and what’s happened, or this is how I feel about it in retrospect. It’s a very big part of it. For instance, there’s a song on the album, that’s gonna be released in June, which is called Midnight Passenger. And in my flat in London, I can see the overground train. And because it gets dark very early in the winter, as this train goes by, it’s lit. It has a light inside and it’s all you can see is this train going by. So I was watching the train passing by and I I was thinking how interesting it is that, you know, in life, you go through different periods where you’re, like, super close with some people, can be friends with them or lovers. It can be anything, and then you stop having a relationship with them, and then you start meeting someone new and it resembles when you get at the train to go somewhere, and you hop on with some people, and then you have to leave, to hop on another train, because you’re going somewhere else. And it’s this idea that we have people in our lives for a brief moment, even though they’re with you forever, because, you know, they stay with just a memory. This is the song called Midnight Passenger. And it’s about me watching someone on the train, and although I watch him for a second, I feel like I’m talking to a friend or someone who I know, but I don’t. It’s about cherishing this time that we have together.

People compare your sound to Twenty One Pilots or they mention some similarities to Bowie. How do you personally define your music identity? 

That’s a good question. I think overall I love the 70s as an era and maybe that’s why people get a bit of Bowie… It’s interesting because we live in a world now where a lot of the music, especially in the pop world, is very well crafted and perfect. I love anything that’s not perfect and I love things that are real and humane and have mistakes in them. So, all of my songs are played with real instruments, just because very often, even in the studio, the best moments are the ones that take place when a mistake happens, they’re like “Oh, wow, like what is that?”. And there is something beautiful about them. Back to the question, I love David Bowie as an artist, but it’s not like he’s my biggest influence. When I started releasing music, different people, especially in the more acoustic guitar songs, have made the sort of connection, which is very, very flattering. Because they’re all, you know, very good artists.

So what other artists inspire you? 

One of the biggest, I think, is Green Day because they are the reason I started paying the guitar. So, after that, I went through Red Hot Chilli Peppers phase and then Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins and I started going backwards to music until I landed on artists like Pink Floyd, Queen, David Bowie, the Beatles, Lou Reed. I have studied them. I have watched everything they’ve done, even the B sides. I believe that my music is a synthesis of everything I’ve listened to, but that being said, I also love a good pop melody. You know, I listen to Britney Spears song. I love also new things that are coming out – Sombr, Olivia Dean. You know, although, they’re not as crucial as influences, but it’s funny because I think I’m taking something from every artist that I’m listening to. 

I also wanted to talk about your new single, “Mad About It”. What was the emotional starting point for it? Was it the feeling? The person? Tell us. 

I was going to this friend to write some music with and he lives in Lisbon. And I was in Athens at the time, my brother had a friend who was getting married in Athens, and he invited me to the wedding. I went to the wedding, and I slept really late. And I was supposed to wake up really early to catch a flight to go to Lisbon. I slept for two or three hours. I pass the flight, I go to Lisbon. I arrived at my friend’s place, and I was telling him  “We need to write something that’s a bit, a bit different, you know?” So I pressed a note and I was flicking a toggle to make this effect at the beginning of the song. So, we started playing with that. And it’s about this feeling of being sort of completely mad about someone. This feeling that drives you crazy in many ways. You’re slowly realising that you’re falling for someone, and there is no turning back. 

I wanted to ask about it because this title suggests a very strong feeling. So would you say that it is a frustration? Or what does it mean personally to you? 

Yes, I think, it is, it is everything together, and… I love the title because it can mean so many things. I think I’m mad about it, can mean, you know, it’s anger, it’s being in love, it’s being crazy. All of these things are in that element of madness. 

So if that single had a colour palette or a visual language, what would it look like? 

Um, I think in terms of a colour, I haven’t thought about this before. In my head, it seems like as I call it, brings to my mind something like orange and black. But also, because of the intro, since I applied for Eurovision to represent Greece, I knew that I needed like flashing lights. Something that’s a bit, you know, visually very, very powerful to resemble the song as well. 

You mentioned Eurovision, I wanted to ask you about how this experience shaped you. 

It was a fantastic experience. The thing is because of the type of music that I do, it’s not the typical music that usually goes to Eurovision. Which is why I thought it’s super interesting to apply, because you don’t see these type of songs. And it’s interesting because also it’s the 1st time I feel I have a, more of a cult following in a way. And although, to me, like I think it’s a pop rock song, but it’s not a pop song as Sabrina Carpenter in the sense it’s not like everyone will love it. I felt that it would be polarising. But what’s interesting is that so many comments on YouTube were so, so positive. And my song started climbing up more than the others. I came out 3rd in the public vote and the others were Greek songs. And my song was in English. It blew my mind because out of the 28 artists, many were major super famous artists in Greece. I wasn’t expecting it at all. And about Eurovision, I’ll say that I love the aspects of the performance side. 

Yeah, Eurovision seems like a very performance heavy type of contest, right? If you were to create a live performance of “Mad About It” how would it look like? 

I’m a rock artist, so I perform with a band always. It would have to be a similar vibe (to Maneskin). I think the choreography and the lighting on the stage would be very elaborate because it has to be very grand for Eurovision, etc. But for the viewers, if they wanna watch it live performance is is up on YouTube. It’s a smaller scale version of what we would do for Eurovision, but that’s pretty much the same energy more or less. 

Do you like performing? 

I think it’s my favourite thing in the world. 

Okay, so what are the next steps in your career? Can we count on any new music or maybe a tour? 

Yes, so, actually, we have an album coming out mid-June. Every single is coming out in May. We have a couple of good songs and especially some of them we’ve been performing live. We haven’t been putting them out for over a year and fans are like “Where’s this song?” They know the lyrics by heart. And we’re just gonna put it out for you guys. Keep releasing. And sort of interacting with culture in a way. And Eurovision hype has given me so much new energy and I’ve been writing so much new music. Hoping that the second album will also not be too late!

words by Julia Mastalerz