When a teenager Kostas Turnas told his father that he wanted to be a musician, he replied that “musicians live off the funds, where are you going?”. He still remembers that conversation, but also his own reply that he would do his best to avoid it. A few years later, success came.

At the age of 73, the songwriter is excited about his new album called “Innocent” (Minos – EMI), which includes 11 new songs, as well as a live recording of his old favorite songs, such as: “The Best Singer” , “I Don’t Regret It”, “Don’t Tell Her”, “My Sunshine”, “Man in Love” and more, featuring Eleonoras Zouganelis, Giannis Kotsiras, Dimitris Tsopanellis and Robert Williams, who is no longer alive.

His new songs talk about his own anxieties about life, fears, love, relationships. “Human needs for survival or a good peaceful life are common to humans,” he says from the other end of the phone line. “Because we lived in more carefree times, situations that torment or worry us are gray, if not darker.” says “K”.

“I was and remain innocent.” Does he feel what he writes in his poems? “You feel pleasure only in moments of innocence, otherwise I don’t think. There is also a human flaw in this word, naivety.

Naive, well-intentioned or optimistic, I collect it all in innocence. Although since the 80s and 90s we have become completely evil, we live with information and along with disinformation, a large part of people have naivety. That’s why we often find ourselves misled or deceived by nearby minutiae or the wider society.” And when was he involved in politics for some time? “Then I was in my innocence.”

He was born in Tripoli, took guitar lessons as a child, when he was 13 years old, the whole family moved to Athens, he created his first band and has been playing in clubs since 1967. Then came the era of polls.

We lived in more carefree times, and the situations that torment or worry us are gray, if not darker.

More than fifty years in the field of Greek pop music, he overtook the best days of his discography. “That has stopped since 2000, and today the question for existing labels is whether they will release five products a year. Thus, you are forced to move into an unknown, new environment in which you are alone. It was hard for me to adapt.”

We now live in the era of one song, which is also streaming on the Internet. “Writing a song means nothing to me. I don’t claim suks to have a living wage for the season, I’ve never lived like that. Writing a song at home with computers, playing some guitar and posting it on the Internet remains a process for me that doesn’t make sense.”

What made him turn to pop music in a country where the local song was very strong? “I used to be asked in interviews about the left side and the right side of life. Earlier I said that I was interested in walking along the central lane of the road. It was a bit sketchy, trying to explain that I was more exposed there than on either side. I started with the guitar when I wrote “Man Love” from Stuart Hagman’s anti-war film “Strawberries and Blood”. And after I found a way to express myself and stopped getting involved in folk singing, everything went almost by itself.

Among the songs that have stood the test of time was “Achilles from Cairo”. “Today we can talk and declare more and more about gender issues, but back then it was taboo.”

The song was written for George Marinos, who has been through a lot because of his romantic personality. “We worked together at the time. One night his mother was downstairs listening to him sing his favorite ballad, which said, “Let me have my love too.” She was expressionless, motionless, tears streaming down her face. I did not want to defend homosexuality, but what the mother, father, brother of a person who chose this path does. I got a lot of pressure not to record it.” What characterizes Greek song today? “In battle. While the souls are charging, nothing worthy is written. The confusion, the fear caused by the economic crisis and the health crisis does not allow one to write well. And part of the trap’s anger comes from confusion. From rap, I lack a melodic line, which is a balm on the human psyche. You understand that I also can not agree with rap, hip-hop, trap, because only angry madness can not make my heart beat faster.

He also had difficulties in the area. And then he wrote songs about Rita Sacellariu and the duchess under a pseudonym. “During the era of political song, 1974-1980, the genre I worked in was in a very decline. So I also wrote folk songs that brought success and money.”

He also says that “a song today is like a text message”. So has an era ended that signaled something more? “It’s not over yet, that’s why I made this record. I believe that these bad things we live in will reach their climax. The song, to return to its level, must pass the climax.