From Two Continents To One Voice: The Journey of Dimitri Delakovias
Dimitri Delakovias is a Greek-born creative professional whose life and career have spanned multiple countries and cultural influences. Born in Greece, he moved to Australia as a toddler and was raised in Sydney, where he later lived and worked for many years. In 1974, he returned to Greece for a period that helped reconnect him with his roots and heritage, before relocating to England in 1982.
Drawing on his diverse international experiences, Delakovias has developed a perspective shaped by both European and Australian influences, which is reflected in his work and outlook. His journey across continents has contributed to a broad cultural awareness and adaptability that define his personal and professional identity.
Impressed by his debut single “Shaking Off the Lies,” which we reviewed a few weeks ago, we invited him to sit down with us and answer a few questions—not only about the song, but also about his journey through life. To our delight, he said yes.
You were born in Greece but moved to Australia as a toddler. After growing up, living, and working in Sydney, you returned to Greece in 1974 for a few years before moving to England in 1982.
Can you tell us about your experience navigating these different cultures? How do they compare?
Blimey ... Where do I start? Well I suppose at the beginning ...
I was born in 1950 in a small village about 150 km south of Sparta. Like many Europeans after WW2, my father left for Australia one year after my birth to join an elder brother who had been there for several years. When I was two and old enough to travel, he arranged for my mother and I to follow. We were lucky enough to fly with B.O.A.C. (the British state-owned national airline created in 1939) on a Lockheed Super Constellation, though this did take over one week!
In those days there were at least two stop overs for refuelling with stays of several days! This was even a more monumental undertaking by my mother who had never left the village before! She had the good fortune though to make friends with a wonderful Greek lady in Cairo, who was well-travelled and looked after us.
Dad had travelled of sorts as he had served in the Navy during the war, mostly on a anti-aircraft gun crew trying to shoot down Stukas as the allied forces were evacuating from Piraeus harbour.
My earliest memories are from growing up in Sydney, with my younger sister and brother, in a very comfortable suburban lifestyle. Then my first school years and my first fight standing up for a very pretty Lebanese girl who was being picked on by the usual bully boys.
Unfortunately in those days, Europeans bore the brunt of racial prejudice and ignorant resentment. I had no concept of that sort of thing so I felt I should help her but was pushed back by the head bully calling me the usual derogatory names.
He was quite bigger than me so I don't know where I got the nerve, but as I was a big fan of all the cowboy TV shows with all those fist fights, I lashed out and punched him in the nose which led to quite a nose bleed. I guess that was my first act of rebellion and girlfriend.
Generally though, growing up in the Sydney suburbs in that era was very enjoyable but after six years my parents got homesick and, having made a few dollars, dad decided that we would move back to Greece.
This time we went by ocean liner which took over a month stopping at all manner of exotic ports. And to an eight year old, they really were amazingly exotic and so different. This was before high rise buildings and neon signs made them all rather similar. One of the most memorable events was going through the calm Suez canal after surviving mountainous sea waves in the Indian Ocean! That captain and crew really were heroes!
Going back to my village with no roads, electricity or running water after the comforts of Sydney suburbia was initially quite a shock. But this was soon replaced by a sense of fascination and admiration of the traditional, rural life. It also felt quite magical helping my grandfather water the vegetable gardens, walking through golden wheat fields and being told stories by lamp light. What I remember most is the wonderful feeling of belonging after meeting my grandparents, uncles and aunts, at least two dozen first cousins and seeing the house and room where I was born.
We only stayed two years though as rural life in Greece was quite hard and my father felt we would do better by returning to Australia. I was only 10 years old when we left but made a promise to myself that I would return no matter what happened.
Did you?
Yes, in 1974 when I decided to leave Australia, after several years working in advertising. What started as a creative job in the late 60s where we were asked to come up with ideas on how to inform people of new products and services in that massive post war boom, started to change when the marketing and accounts 'suits' began taking over and we were asked to come up with clever ideas on how to convince people to buy stuff wether they needed it or not.
The TV series "Madmen" recaptured that period brilliantly! And yes, drinking whiskey and smoking was all the rage. But at the age of 24 I became very disillusioned. Needing a drink by 11am to stop my hands shaking didn't help.
I had been hugely influenced by all the post-war social and cultural revolution of the sixties, greatly inspired by the raw musical energy and the likes of John Lennon, Bob Dylan and Jim Morrison! The sheer idealism and optimism of it all, so eloquently articulated and epitomized by John and Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Cassius Clay, Che Guevara and being blown away by films like Lawrence Of Arabia and 2001, a Space Odyssey.
Alas, by 1973, all those previous experiences and idealism made my then "successful career in advertising" and a very comfortable suburban lifestyle in Sydney seem rather dull by comparison. Having nearly married twice, I had now become very restless and sceptical, especially after all the assassinations, Vietnam, and the first rather suspect "global oil crisis"! All this culminated in an urgent need to return to my roots, to hopefully find myself again. So by mid 1974, I quit my job, sold the Jag and everything else, left Australia and was never to return.
A gutsy move. Respect.
Now I wouldn't expect others to make such drastic choices, but if the many had made some effort to choose better alternatives than those imposed by the few, things might not be so absurd these days. Even today, little every day choices on what to buy or not buy, how we relate to each other and our environment would go a long way.
Basically I dropped out as we used to say. Once back in Greece, I took the ancient advice of 'Know Thy Self' very seriously, leading a free and footloose, Zorba-like existence for four years. That is to say totally responsible for the consequences of my thoughts and actions - the only true sense of freedom there is really.
Also, by working only briefly in the winter in Athens, I was able to cover my travels and summers down in the village, making the most of and thoroughly enjoying the bare necessities. This included sleeping out under the stars, living off the land by helping friends and relatives pick fruit, onions and olives plus the most enjoyable of all, catching my own fish by spear fishing, and often just floating along the surface and observing the aquatic life below for hours on end. I also kept getting some criticism by my father and some uncles about "wasting my time" and the quaint "if you don't have a family soon, your dick will fall off." I soon silenced them with a simple reply: that work, money, family can happen any time, your youth only happens once!
Those four years really did help me refocus and since then, I've felt I had the ability to think things through fairly well and to recover much of the idealism that had faded by 1974. By also putting certain W.A.S.P. influences "taught" in school into historical perspective, I was able to clarify certain conflicts of identity, of who I really was - which many people in Australia seemed to have — and subsequently took greater pride in being Greek and my heritage. Ironically, this made me far more tolerant and eliminated some nasty little racist elements which, in Australia, had also crept into my perception of other nationalities and countries.
Then in 1978 I met my wife who was visiting from England. A year later we got married down in my village and arranged for a lot of her family to travel all the way down for our "big fat Greek wedding". After several very enjoyable years, we decided we were ready to have children and decided to do so in England, moving there in 1982 as the work prospects were also better for us there to start a family.
I have recently moved back to Greece to retire. This decision was made permanent having witnessed the decline of the "United" Kingdom since the "choice" to go down the "Atlantic" route and so-called "special relationship" under the guise of "Thatcherism". To me, this eventually became so obviously detrimental, especially after the Brexit fiasco. To witness such deception and decline and yet so much deluded denial in England has been one of my biggest disillusions.
Do you speak Greek?
Enough to get me into trouble. I'm almost ashamed to say that when I returned to Greece the second time in 1974, I could hardly speak the language. My excuse was that we lived in the North West suburbs of Sydney where there were no Greek schools and very little Greek community life. So apart from the basic childhood family conversations there was little use as we were speaking English at school and with the Australian kids we grew up with.
My Greek almost disappeared once I left home and moved to the city centre for work. As they say, if you don't use it, you lose it! But I have made an effort in recent decades to make up for the past and to try avoiding getting into trouble.
How did you get started in advertising?
The main reason was I got expelled from high school in my fourth year. Much, of course, to my father's frustration and anger as, like most migrant parents, he wanted me to be a doctor or lawyer etc., as I was actually a good student and top of my class in most subjects — especially art, science, geography and technical drawing which I really loved. I was also okay in maths but really loved the pure logic of geometry, especially as I got to know about all those ancient Greek mathematicians and philosophers such as Pythagoras, Euclid, Archimedes and Aristotle.
At the time, I couldn’t fully articulate my frustrations, but looking back, what had happened was that I had been swept up in the spirit of the 1960s. All that social change and questioning, all that idealism and especially the music! So after all my travels and experiences as a youngster, I found I couldn't accept all that imposition of old fashioned and conservative rules, requiring you to submit and conform. It was very difficult at times as they tried to make you feel that there was something wrong with you, which I strongly resented. Consequently, the reason they gave my parents was that I was "rebellious, disobedient, disruptive and a bad influence on other children".
Years later, it all began to make sense, particularly as I watched events unfold and absorbed the influence of extraordinary artists, films, and music like Pink Floyd's The Wall. Fortunately my art teacher who was sympathetic and impressed by my drawing ability, also said I was wasting my talent and an idiot for getting expelled. He urged me to at least try advertising and maybe make some money from my artistic talent.
So, at sixteen, armed with a folder of my best drawings, I made a list of the ten top advertising agencies and requested appointments. The sixth agency offered me a job — not as an artist, but as a messenger and delivery boy, given my lack of qualifications. Still, they were impressed by my portfolio and promised to give me assignments to prove myself. If I did well, they said, I would be promoted to the art studio.
What did your role as an Art Director involve?
An Art Director is responsible for all the visual supervision of ads, various print media and commercials in collaboration with a copywriter. This involved initial design, layouts and storyboards to final supervision of all art work, photography and collaborating with commercial production teams.
As I was mostly self-taught, it took a few years working as a studio assistant, graphic designer and illustrator. Despite my lack of qualifications, I set myself a target to become an Art Director by the age of 25 and earn $10,000. So I was very ambitious and put in a lot of dedicated, hard work. For example after work when most would go home or to the pub, I would stay behind and try and copy the best designers and illustrators from the US and UK.
This did lead to some assignments which were actually used, though I didn't get paid extra for the work. I didn't mind as I was gaining practical experience and promises of being promoted to the art studio. But, after they kept giving me the run around for over six months, I went on strike refusing to do their messaging and deliveries. Needless to say I got fired. Fortunately, the head of the studio, a wonderful Chinese Australian gentleman, intervened. He, too, told me I was an idiot for getting myself fired, but he was impressed enough by my work ethic and drawing ability to offer me a three-month trial.
I ended up working for Mr Alan Gee for two years and owe him a lot as he was a real artist and exceptional technician. You have to remember that this was long before computers. Everything was done by hand. Layouts were drawn, type was set and hand pasted, visuals were rendered with ink, gouache, and precision. Under his guidance, I learned discipline, craft, and respect for detail. It was a real apprenticeship.
After several jobs as a freelance designer and illustrator, I was offered the job as an Art Director for a small 'boutique' agency. I was 22 years old and celebrated with my girlfriend at the time by buying a 3.4 Jaguar Mk 2. That role eventually led to a position as an Art Director with one of the top international agencies and, when I left Australia in 1974, was earning $10,000 by the age of 24.
You moved to London in 1982 and began working for the BBC. Could you tell us about that experience?
After my disillusion and often disgust with advertising, I thought I would try television, influenced by some great programs being made then in Britain and becoming aware of the inevitable digital revolution on the horizon. This career change happened in 1983, joining the BBC as a Set Design Assistant. My fascination with what was happening in cinema with such films as Bladerunner and my experience as an illustrator led me towards visual effects.
I soon had the opportunity to be one of the first people in the world to work on the new digital Quantel Paintbox and transferred to the Matte Painting and Visual FX Dept. Work included studio and location supervision for Dr Who, The Tripods and The Prisoner of Zenda TV film remake, where I helped develop new post production matte painting techniques and did the first digital matte paintings — albeit for TV — in the world, using the Quantel Paintbox.
You were part of an Oscar-winning team for the film Inception. How did that opportunity come about?
When the next global financial crisis hit by the end of the 80s and with the undermining of the BBC to make way for hundreds of channels of American style "reality" crap — oops sorry — I became disillusioned again, and we moved back to Greece with our two young children. Initially I helped rebuild our family home in the village but was later offered the job of Head of Graphics for the first independent TV channel in Greece. This was an exciting new start for Greek television but given the changing political and economic circumstances, it soon become just another American-influenced means of misinformation, in which I refused to participate.
So, disillusioned once more, we returned to the UK in 1995 and after several freelance TV jobs, switched to film Matte Painting work as digital post production was making headway in film as well. Joined the Magic Camera Co. at Shepperton Studios working on Seven Years In Tibet and the big remake of Lost In Space.
That led to a senior Matte Painter role with the leading VFX company, Double Negative, in 2000 to work on Enemy At The Gates. I was there for twelve years working on many major UK and US films, including Inception as a member of the VFX Oscar and BAFTA winning team.
When did you begin writing lyrics?
Yesterday. Just kidding. Actually “Shaking Off The Lies” is my first attempt at song lyrics which was adapted from a poem I had written many years before titled "Enough is Enough!". It'd been written during one of my disillusioned phases. Over the years, I have made various attempts at jotting down my thoughts and various ideas which include a short story, a couple of scripts I'm still struggling with and maybe even an autobiography.
What is “Shaking Off The Lies” about?
Deja poo ... that is the awful feeling. I've seen this crap we are living through in recent years so many times before! Having written the lyrics some time ago as a poem, I was intrigued and impressed by what AI can achieve with the right prompts and motives, so I updated the lyrics and used AI to provide the song's sonic production.
I still get outraged at how some criminally insane creeps with their arrogant ignorance and delusions of adequacy have such a capacity and ability to do so much harm to their fellow humans. As we used to say "If you are not totally outraged, you are not paying attention!" And like George Carlin, I am even more outraged at how easy it seems to religiously mislead the masses to the point of blind belief and pathetic fatalism, as if that's the fucking way things are supposed to be! Well guess what? No it is fucking not!
And it shouldn't be! If only people would listen, use and believe in their better instincts in relation to the universal laws of Mother Nature! And before that is written off as some utopian idealistic fantasy, let's remember that there have been many "heroic" examples throughout human history, so yes, it can be done. And yes, I was an angry young man and now I'm a cranky old man I suppose.
Having grown up in the 50s and 60s, all that wonderful explosion of new music was and still is a constant influence and inspiration. I really was swept up by the era of questioning, idealism and search for a better way of life. But then the parasitic few started brutally murdering the exponents of hope and idealism, hi-jacking the political and economic systems, dumbing down the many and doping up most of the younger generation to end up going from The Door's "Five to One!" to Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb". Unfortunately this has also increasingly resulted in the plethora of mind numbing crap and almost pornographic videos that pass for "music and art" these days.
What was your experience like creating music for “Shaking Off the Lies” using AI?
Despite long-standing relationship with evolving technology, dating back to pioneering work in digital visual effects, I am tempted to say that it was exciting. When AI, or any technology, is not used as a gimmick or a replacement for artistic talent and expression, it can become a very useful tool. As I do not have a scholarly musical background, it helped with making the lyrics and musical idea take sonic form without compromising authorship. To quote Dekard in Bladerunner: "Replicants are like any other machine, they can either be a benefit or a hazard. If it's a benefit, then it's not my problem".
This was your debut release. Can we expect more songs in the future?
Yes, there are some more ideas I would like to further develop and hopefully release in the near future.
Although you are now retired, you continue to freelance in digital design. Could you tell us more about that?
I have retired since 2018 but continued to contribute some freelance Digital Matte Painting, Concept art and VFX Art Direction and reference Photography for major film and TV productions in Greece, assisting young colleagues where I can. Now I'm taking it easy with the occasional contribution to local cultural events and exhibitions. Have also started writing and revisiting a lot of my jottings down and would now like to devote more time to writing with the aim of perhaps being able to get published.
There's a saying; "I may not have managed to travel to all the places I wanted to visit, but I have managed to end up where I needed to be!" I think that sums up my Odyssey rather well.
What's your most traumatising memory?
I was only 13 years old when we heard President Kennedy had died and I still recall vividly how I cried uncontrollably with a horrible sense of loss. I didn't even cry like that with the loss of my parents and grandparents, they had lived to a ripe old age, What I mourned most though wasn't so much the man, it was the sense that we had lost something we may never regain. It all started to feel so wrong. I also recall that same horrible feeling when John Lennon was shot and telling my brother, now we're really fucked.
Lastly, what’s your philosophy on life?
As the ancients would say: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
And to paraphrase George Bernard Shaw: "Take great care to get what you like and need or you will need to like what you get!"
At the end of the day, for me the greatest joy of all is seeing our children grow into better people than the generation before them and the ultimate happiness is watching our two beautiful and clever grandchildren growing up.
I still get misty eyed when ol' Satchmo sings:
I hear babies cry, I watch them grow.
They'll learn much more than I'll ever know.
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world.
Well it should be and it still can be, if we really want it to be.
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Interview by staff at MBTM
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