It s a nickname… At my home –land, Anogeia we all have nicknames. I have the same nickname as my grandfather had. He belonged to a company of 5-6 individuals who were stealing the Turks. He was the fastest. And the story says that when they met Turks he was running as fireball, seizing them “as fishes”, from the first to the last. So the nickname Psaroturkos (Fishing-Turks) was given to him, and then Psar-Antonis. Afterwards all my family members have been called this way: Psaro-Nikos (Nikos Xylouris), Psarogiorgis and so on...

How old are you?

Say that I am 100 years old! (laughs)

Have you gone to school?

Yes, in the elementary school. I was taught there on how to read and count.

When did you start playing the music?

Since I was a kid. When I was 10 years old, I played the Lyra and when I reached 12-13 I was composing my own music.

That young ? How did you manage?

It comes in its own way. As you are walking, it comes in your head, and then you grab the instrument and you play the music.

It comes to you at once or slowly?

Slowly you make it better… Listen, I do not play the same song with the same way twice. When I re-play it, it is never going to be the same. You embellish it in a different way each time. You embroider the song, you make it go far away ahead. Music, my child, are kilometers. Do not listen to the people that put dots and marks on the paper, or the other ones that the read those...

So, this is not music?

No it isn’t! You can not write on the paper an artist’s sentiment. It can not be sold, neither it can be bide. Music is character. If you put together all the papers and the dots, another Nikos (his brother Nikos Xylouris) can not be formed. Let them take his songs and try to teach other people in order to sing it… They are going to transformed them from manful music to... gay one! (laughs)

So, do you know the notes?

Yes I do. So what? I do not need them. Notes are the thing that Karagkiozis (*) says: "Nto Re Mi Fa-solada" (laughs)… I saw it when I was little boy and I laughed a lot!

What is your opinion about musicologists?

They are frustrated. All they have are empty words, theories … They do not desire the good!

Why they do not want it?

Because they can not handle it. They envy it, because they can not accomplish it by themselves.

Do you make any preparations before you come on the stage and start playing?

I just tune my instruments. Then we all come out on the stage and "What the river sweeps get swiped". I never say: "Kids, we are going to play that song". They watch me, what I am starting to play, and they get into the rhythm.