Sunlight Band Members
Dimitris Giannakopoulos – Vocals
Makis Kaponis – Guitar/Backing Vocals
Panos Anastopoulos – Keyboards
Panos Mourtzinos – Bass/Backing Vocals
Dimitris Kapoukakis – Drums
Sunlight Biography
Short description
Sunlight is a Melodic Heavy Metal/Hard Rock/Power band from Athens, Greece. In their early times Sunlight introduced themselves as a purely hard rock band. After some short period of successive line-up changes, the band shifted to a more heavy metal style, often incorporating elements of typical power metal. At present, the line-up consists of Dimitris Giannakopoulos (vocals), Makis Kaponis (guitars and backing vocals), Panos Anastopoulos (keyboards), Dimitris Kapoukakis (drums) and Panos Mourtzinos (bass guitar and backing vocals). The band’s activity has been rich over the last years, including live performances in well-known rock clubs of Greece and open-air annual festivals. So far, Sunlight have released one full-length album, one EP and two official music videos.
Detailed Description
Formation and early years (2009-2011)
The band was founded by Panos Anastopoulos (keyboards) and Antreas Panagoulias (drums) in a suburb of Athens, called Ilioupoli, during the summer of 2009. At that time the formation was completed by Makis Kaponis (guitar and backing vocals), Nikolas Argyridis (bass guitar and backing vocals) and Giorgos Georgiou (vocals). Originally Sunlight played more Greek folk rock rather than the heavy/power metal style with which they are known today. With all the members being residents of Ilioupoli (which in Greek means “the city of sun”), the name Sunlight was proposed by Nikolas to remind the origins of the band. One year later Giorgos (vocals) was replaced by Dimitris Giannakopoulos and Antreas (drums) by Joni Moas. Finally, in spring of 2011, Sakis Kotsiras entered the band replacing Joni.
“Rockin’ All Around” (2011)
The band self-released their first EP, named “Rockin’ All Around”, on the 9th of December 2011. In fact, “Rockin’ All Around” was just a foretaste of what was coming next, unveiling three tracks of the band’s upcoming full-length album. This work was a promising start for Sunlight: “You can clearly spot that the band has worked a lot on their songs (…) Their debut album is coming up soon (…) I believe it is going to surprise many 80s hard rock fans…” (burst.gr). “Rockin’ All Around” was warmly welcomed by the Greek audience. A limited number of copies were distributed also in Japan by Rock Stakk records.
Supporting Dark Quarterer in Athens (2012)
The 18th of November 2012 was one of the most important moments in the band’s career. Sunlight were selected to support the Italian Epic/Progressive metallers Dark Quarterer in Athens. The beginning of the recordings for the first full-length album of the band was announced after the concert. In the meantime, Nikolas (bass guitar and backing vocals) was replaced by Panos Mourtzinos.
“My Own Truth” release and tour (2015)
After a successful collaboration with the well-known Greek producer Dion Christodoulatos, the debut album of Sunlight, entitled “My Own Truth”, was waiting to be released. Eventually, the band signed a contract with the biggest Ukrainian independent metal music label, Metal Scrap Records, and the release-date was set for the 30th of April 2015. Moreover, the music video of the titular song “My Own Truth” was presented a few weeks before the release. Numerous live performances were organized for the promotion of “My Own Truth” and a tour, including concerts in Greece and Ukraine, was announced. The album received excellent reviews: “The first song, “Back To Life” had amazing guitar intro by Makis who shows are strong Power Metal influences with European Hard Rock bands like KROKUS with simple but fantastic guitar arrangements” (SamiiMittelstaedt – Metal Temple). Before the release Sakis (drums) left the band and was replaced by Dimitris Kapoukakis.
(2016-Present)
In a very short period “My Own Truth” was completely sold out in most of the countries that was distributed. On the 5th of March 2016 the second official music video of the band was released for the song “Struggle for deliverance”. On the 9th of October the band played in Athens after a long period and some days later on the 15th of the same month participated in the biggest metal festival (United Metal Festival) in Novi Sad, Serbia! Next month from 11th to 21th of November Sunlight toured in many different european countries (Bulgary, Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, Blegium) and recieved great reviews. Sunlight are currently working on their second full-length album.
