Villagers Of Ioannina City fill arenas in Greece: Now they’re ready for the rest of the world

Villagers Of Ioannina City have grown from local shows in north-west Greece to filling arenas at home, and are now looking towards a wider international audience. Their music blends hard rock, stoner heft and progressive metal with traditional Hellenic sounds, giving the band a distinctive way to express ideas about struggle and society.

The band began in 2007, drawing on frontman Alex Karametis’s childhood exposure to village festival music and his later interest in metal. In 2014, audiences at their Athens and Thessaloniki shows grew from around 400 to 1,500; they now play to arena-sized crowds in Greece. Their new album, *Venceremos* (“We will win”), takes its name from a familiar phrase in Greece, which Karametis interprets as refusing to be broken.