Giorgos Arsenakos gave an interview to "DownTown" magazine and journalist Tasos Bibisidis.
The CEO and co-founder of Panik Records spoke, among other things, about his career in the record industry, the leading role that music plays in his life, as well as the difficult moment when he suddenly found himself without a job.
"I grew up in a decade when Greek music was at its best, it was everywhere. From Haroula Alexiou and Alkisti Protopsaltis to Anna Vissi and Katie Garbi, it was all there, it was all played, you could hear it all. Everyone was recording, everyone was making hits. I kept buying records and tapes and I immediately fell in love with Greek music and Greek artists," he said, talking about his relationship with music. But you find difficulties in the daytime too, and often worse vulgarity than at night. Because the night has the wildness I'm talking about, but it also has a straightforwardness, a spontaneity, an honesty. In the daytime we often pretend, we have second thoughts. After a few years, of course, I decided that I didn't want to spend all my years living from 12 at night to 7 in the morning, that I didn't want to pull cloves out of my head. So I started working at Universal Music. I stayed there for five years. I became in charge of Greek repertoire - we had artists who really "reaped": Michalis Hatzigiannis, Eleftheria Arvanitaki, Nikos Vertis" and added:
"All this until 2011, when suddenly one morning I was fired. From being a "king" at 30, I was literally left in the air. I was a victim of the change of management and the general crisis that existed in Greece at the time. It was a great shock. I went to work one morning and they just fired me, took my car, took my cell phone - they took everything in the company - I lost my salary. All of a sudden, without any warning. I only remember leaving the office, going down Mesogeion Avenue and sitting alone at a bus stop. I didn't know where to turn! I watched the cars go by and started crying. A living dead man looking at the chaos. After a while I called my mother to come pick me up. We went home, she cooked me dinner, comforted me and the very next day I decided to get my act together."
Of course, this abrupt change led him to create Panik Records, opening a great chapter in his professional journey.
"It just so happened that Erietta Kourkoulou-Latsi was a good friend of mine through the friends I made at that time. In 2010 I met her brother, Parry Kasidokostas, and we all hung out together. I'm generally a very open person, I say what I have, I'm not afraid to expose myself. So at that time I was talking to everyone about my "drama": Not having a job, not having money, not even having to pay for my cell phone. So Paris tells me: "You're a hard worker. Let's make a company on our own." I turned him down immediately! I said, "Paris, won't you leave us? All the companies are closing and we're going to open a new one?" Of course, it was indeed our love of music that united us with Parry from the beginning. But for me at that time it was necessary to find a job immediately, I couldn't afford to wait. Fortunately, after just a few days I started working with Heaven Music and I calmed down. But my friend Paris insisted!"
Source: protothema.gr
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