Rotting Christ‘s Sakis Tolis says he would never do a paid meet-and-greet, calling himself a fan at heart.
Sakis Tolis has ruled out ever charging Rotting Christ fans for the chance to meet him, and said that if money has ever changed hands for one at his shows, it happened without his knowledge. The Greek band’s vocalist and guitarist set out his position in a new interview with Metalgigs.us.
Tolis framed the question as one of values carried over from an earlier era of the scene.
“I’m generally against paid meet-and-greets. If I’ve ever made the mistake of taking money for one, I certainly wasn’t aware of it, because it would have been the promoter who arranged it without me knowing.”
He continued: “I’m a fan at heart. I like to believe I’m still a romantic in that sense. I try to hold on to something from our era, which has changed so quickly and so dramatically, and hopefully pass at least a few of those values on to the younger generation.
Tolis allowed that he might not hold himself to the same standard as a paying customer.
“So no, I would never do a paid meet-and-greet,” he added. “And I probably wouldn’t pay for one either. Although I’m not completely sure about that, because there are certain bands I love so much that I might actually do it myself.
He closed on the principle behind it: “In the end, I believe that both music and life in general are about what you give and what you receive in return. The way you see life philosophically ultimately determines the way you act.”
Paid meet-and-greets have become a fixture of touring in the last decade, and opinion among artists is divided. Those who sell them point to the collapse of recorded music income and argue that VIP packages are one of the few remaining ways a mid-level band can make a tour balance.
The objections tend to fall into two camps. Some musicians take issue on grounds of fairness, arguing the format hands access to fans with money and shuts out those without it. Others raise the question of young fans in particular, who may be willing to pay well beyond their means, or their parents’, for a few minutes with a band they follow closely. Tolis places himself with the objectors, though he stops short of criticising bands that take the money.
Tolis formed the band in Athens in 1987 with his brother, drummer Themis Tolis. The current lineup is completed by bassist Kostas “Spades” Heliotis and guitarist Kostis Fouk. Fourteen studio albums and more than 1,300 concerts on, the group remain one of the most durable acts to come out of the Greek underground, having moved from grindcore-adjacent beginnings into the Hellenic black metal sound they are credited with defining, and taken in gothic textures along the way.
Rotting Christ‘s most recent album, Pro Xristou, arrived in May 2024 through Season Of Mist and reached number nine in Austria and number 15 in Switzerland. Last December the band issued the Blu-ray edition of 35 Years Of Evil Existence – Live In Lycabettus, filmed at their first performance at the Lycabettus Hill Theatre in Athens in front of a sold-out crowd of 7,000, with a two-hour set drawing across their whole catalogue. A re-recorded version of 2010’s Aealo followed on 23 January this year.
The band spent the spring on “The Godless IV” tour of North America with Behemoth, Deicide and Immolation, a 24-date run that included their first appearance at Maryland Deathfest, where they played a set drawn entirely from their 1989 to 1995 material.
