Roman Candle Magazine

For over ten years now, Chris Kontos has been making Kennedy Magazine.

A true labour of love—Kennedy is a rare magazine that favours in-depth conversations rather than endless advertorial spiel. Put simply, it feels like it’s made by someone who actually has an interest in things—and whilst Chris’s taste is maybe a bit more high brow than mine—I really like the simple, honest nature of his mag.

here’s an interview with him. Read it if you want…

I interviewed you maybe six or seven years ago for Oi Polloi, when you’d just finished the fifth issue. Eight issues later, how has making Kennedy changed?

Oh man, that feels like another life. That issue stands as one of the best for me. I met Pierre Le Tan for it, he made a cover for us. I met my teenage hero Lawrence from Felt, we had Tina Barney on it. So many things have changed since. I remember being at Pierre’s funeral in Paris, drinking rum from paper cups in his apartment. Now it doesn’t exist anymore. What is left from reality sometimes? Just the subjective memory of an event? 

At least I have some photos from back then. I have the magazine—I’m still making it—now it comes out almost every two years. We went through a pandemic, I went through depression, a break up with my wife. Now that I got out of it, I feel like it makes sense. I feel there is so much ugliness around us and so much hate that I just want to show beauty. 

If I made a new magazine now I would make Vanity Fair like Gaydon Carter did. I would want to live in lavish apartments with padded walls and fitted bunk beds for the kids. I know it sounds irrelevant to the question but it’s not. The way I was making Kennedy changed completely. It became me. So much that it’s overwhelming. Our last issue, Family, is the most personal to date. I feel I want to go back to the old way I was making Kennedy, which was more about other people—about their lives, their homes, their morning routines and vices—the things they love. 

I like Kennedy because it seems like the product of your interests, rather than an attempt to jump on the coattails of whatever we’re meant to think is cool. How do you formulate an issue? Is it just a case of hunting down the stuff you’re into?

That was always the case, but when I switched to making themed issues since the Greek one that kind of changed. Particularly during Covid and its aftermath I felt the magazine should have more significance and more weight. Now I’m back to where I was ten years ago, closing a circle. I want the Journal of Curiosities back—the list of weekly obsessions—and more people. I want to do interviews again.

A strange phenomenon I’ve noticed is that a lot of people start projects like magazines or zines or whatever almost as a way to get a job, and then once they’ve got hired by a brand or something, they pack it in—but you’ve kept Kennedy going for years now, even whilst doing some pretty high profile photography stuff. What keeps you making it?

Woody Allen once said that we are like sharks—you have to keep swimming, because when a shark stops swimming they die. I just do it. It’s part of me now. And trust me it’s so much work these days, it’s so expensive to make that I would gladly stop. But still something makes me keep on. 

And to be honest Kennedy never got where I wanted in terms of work. Still I feel I’m an odd case of a Greek guy making pictures and a magazine that only a handful of people really know. Yet making Kennedy is an honest thing. I keep my integrity, my human side. I strip my self in front of my readers. Some appreciate it and for those I have to keep on doing. 

Apart from a few very select adverts, Kennedy is refreshingly free of marketing. How do you keep it pure like this? Do you turn down stuff that’s not right for the magazine? 

All the ads in the magazine are from friends with small brands most of the time and independent. I don’t have offers from others to be honest so keeping it tidy and true is easy.

Is lack of funding almost a positive with something like Kennedy? I suppose it means you can make it exactly how you want, and when you want. I can’t imagine you could make something so personal and unique if you had some investor breathing down your neck.

I would never sell Kennedy. And I would turn down any investors. I’ve been indie from day one. Kennedy is me, my personal effort, my release valve. In life you choose either the hard way or the easy one. The easy always sucks, trust me. It might look appealing but in the long run it’s going nowhere.

I do a lot of interviews, and I think whilst this might sound a little strange, I think part of it is because I want to somehow be a part of these people’s lives for a while. Is that the same for you? Do you get a buzz out of capturing these people and documenting them?

Hmm not always—not everyone’s life is as good as it looks and most of the time I would not want to live like them. But with many I felt that I befriended them for a while, and with many I kept a routine of meeting them through the years. 

I would always meet Whit Stillman in Paris for a coffee, and I had an ongoing correspondence with Michael Lindsay Hogge. I remember when we watched the Get Back documentary with a friend I told him at the point that Michael appeared with a cigar, ‘’He is my friend!” I emailed him and told him I saw him on the screen with that cigar and he replied, ”I was a big cigar smoker then, Christos. Nobody seemed to mind in 1969 or 1979…or 1989.’’ I could put that on a T-shirt. 

When I look back at some of the interviews I feel like for an hour or so I got close to these people and much of what we discussed still resonates.

Do you have a favourite interview you’ve done? Are there ones you look back at and think, “How did I pull that off?”

There are few, like Lawrence from Felt. I ran into him in the street in Covent Garden and I talked to him. He liked my bag and agreed to meet me a week after. We had a meeting at the Barbican but he did not show up. I kept waiting and he came just to tell me he could not make it today and to rearrange for tomorrow. I was like “Why didn’t you just text me?” but he had one of those burner phones that don’t even text.

The first interview I ever did was with Whit Stillman. Then there was Andrew Weatherall, and definitely up there with my favourites is Griffin Dunne.

You’ve done interviews with quite a few people who’ve since passed away—and in some cases your interviews and articles might be the most concise telling of their story available. I’m not exactly sure how to word this question, but is documenting people and places before they go something you think about?

A lot of people we have interviewed in Kennedy have passed, it’s true. Pierre Le Tan, Lawerence Weiner, Philip Perlstein, Ted Bafaloukos. I never thought about it. What I think is at least I got to know them. Their words documented. I feel there is a cultural gap now. All these people go but no one to replace them. The future is cancelled as Mark Fisher said.

What about the interviews that haven’t happened? I’ve got a long list of people I’ve tried and failed to get interviews with. Who has slipped through the Kennedy net?

There were a few I had tried, and although there was progress they never happened—most notably Keith Mcnally from Balthazar. I still have the questions somewhere—I think they are some of the best questions I have put down on paper. William Eggleston too. But the person I still want to feature and have not is Elein Fleiss, the founder of Purple. For me the first issues of Purple are as close to perfection as anything can be. A group of people and their friends doing what they like and became the staples of a whole industry. Tahashi Homma, Mark Bortwick, Camille Waddington. I always go back to these issues for inspiration. I would love my next issue to be like that.

What makes a good interview? How do you make something that stands out from the landfill of unreadable ‘content’.

I don’t know. I guess being at ease with the person you talk to is the key. And be spontaneous. Also having some sense of humour? I remember watching an interview with Fran Leibowitz in Athens—I left before it even ended—it was horrid. The interviewer, who was kinda woke, was trying to make silly jokes with Fran, who is the opposite of woke, and that resulted in some uncomfortable silences. You have to respect your subject.

Haha that sounds terrible. I’ve been to some awkward Q-and-A’s in my time. We’ve talked a bit about this before briefly, but you seem a little… pessimistic for the future of humanity. Is there anything out there that gives you hope out there in the cultural wasteland? What new things do you like?

I’m generally a person who believes in people and I’m not pessimistic by nature, but right now I believe it’s dark—too dark. Everything seems bleak—not just what happens around us but mostly how people perceive them. Everyone is angry. I have never seen people that angry—people with moderately good lifestyles, decent jobs, money and freedom being so angry about everything. 

I guess reading old Vanity Fair issues or Graydon Carter’s Air Mail does help me decompress. My family. Michael Heiny’s articles in particular strike a chord always. My own small universe of high end sound systems and expensive power cables so I can listen to mono recordings of Chet Baker. Going to the gym. A good wine once in a while. Thinking about the new issue of Kennedy. And the audiophile wine bar I’m about to open.

I sort of gave up on modern music a bit maybe ten years ago, but I’ve been trying harder recently to find interesting new stuff and I’ve been enjoying it again. What new stuff—be it music or films or clothes or movements or whatever—do you like? How do you look for it?

No matter how much I preach about how bad social media is, I’m an Instagram addict—my saved posts are always a good mood board for living and creating, along with recommendations from friends, Popeye magazines or Brutus. I like Uniqlo’s online magazine too. 

With cinema I kinda gave up on western movies a while back. I’ve solely watched Asian cinema for many years now. I think my highlight was Kore Eda’s Broker last year. From the last few years I think Right Now Wrong Then from Hong Sang-Soo was my favourite. I love most of his films. They are candid and true. I miss that in life and movies. 

My favourite record of the last few years is Vulture Prince by Arooj Aftab. I don’t buy so much new music because I’m obsessed with jazz and oddities from the past most of the time. Pharaoh Sanders’ eponymous reissue by Luaka Bop was a good one. 

As for clothes, I’m mostly selling them. I try not to buy that much. Also the weather is constantly warm in Greece so there aren’t many chances to wear sweaters or jackets. Occasionally I like a nice pair of shoes, I recently got the Salomon Alpage collaboration with Broken Arm. I always like Drake’s and their blazers, a nice pair of denim. Keeping it simple and minimal as possible.

Going back to your thoughts on today, why do you think people are so angry? 

I think being angry is existential right now. Yes, we live in challenging times for sure, but people have had it worse in the past. Even 20 years ago, just count how many warzones there were. People find comfort in being upset right now. It gives them reason to define themselves—I live therefore I’m angry. Also there is an obsession people have with the end of history—that we are in those days—it’s an infatuation with disaster. I guess in a Freudian explanation it has to do a lot with mortality and the fear of it—just see how much people like horror movies. 

I WAS TALKING WITH A FRIEND FROM MOSCOW RECENTLY DISCUSSING HOW LEFTISTS IN THE WEST SUPPORT PUTIN. WHICH IS ABSURD. I ASKED HIM WHAT HE THINKS THAT IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE. HE SAID “They don’t know what to do and the feeling they can’t change anything is tough. So all they have is that possible sense of being a better human than the rest.” Which is a very wrong feeling in its core (and actually connects them with their so called political enemies. on a level they still can’t understand) In the end I think it’s just virtue signalling. What saddens me most is the fact that there is no dialogue anymore.

You have people who live in the west who are privileged, educated and can consume almost everything that modern culture has to offer, but they are not content. They will find meaning in supporting theocracy in a country in the Middle East, but they are not fond of religion themselves. The plot is lost. I know many people hate Morrissey now, but I saw an interview with him recently and he said being inclusive is the biggest form of conformity. Think about that.

You mentioned Mark Fisher before and his ‘future is cancelled’ quote. How do we un-cancel the future? How do we steer the ship around?

I think the system had to be reset. The only way is to try with any means we have to spread as much beauty as possible to people—to make people engaged—but looking at younger people now I’m losing hope. They have an attention span of seconds and they are not interested in what happened before them. From music to history, they are just not into it. It’s not relevant. I guess if Tik Tok is your only reference it’s hard to know history or even what was relevant 10 years ago.

A nationwide survey in 2020 among Generation Z and millennials showed a ‘worrying lack of basic Holocaust knowledge’ among adults under 40, including over one in ten respondents who did not recall ever having heard the word ‘Holocaust’ before. I mean these things are scary, they will not make me really hopeful. 

Mark Fisher has influenced me a lot when dealing with the idea of the cancellation of the future. And it has to do a lot with the fact that the system we live in—mainly a capitalist society—has hit a hard ceiling. It’s funny how the system is using millennials as its tool, social media was the biggest ally to the system ever created. Hipsters unknowingly but willingly serve as the zealots of the system. Fisher was pessimistic and ended up killing himself. He said that movements stopped happening, especially counterculture. For instance he thought Jungle was the last one. In a way it’s true. I would go as far as saying dubstep was the last. Now what? Name me a music movement that means anything to anyone. 

Funny story: a young guy who used to come to my gigs and loves Kennedy once invited me to a reggaeton party. I found out it’s huge in young people. I didn’t even know what it was. If they are having fun it’s fine by me, but it won’t change history. Still I want to keep my optimism alive. So many young kids read Kennedy and relate to many things I’m saying or suggesting. Even if only I could influence one person I would still be happy knowing I changed somebody’s view of the world.

Does this search for beauty extend to your photos too? Are there certain things you try to avoid in your pictures? Walking around Athens with your camera do you find yourself drawn to certain places or areas more than others?

It surely does. I don’t take many pics—I’m not one of those people that takes pics on a daily basis. I guess having a phone handy and film being so expensive is an excuse for that but generally I need to be really inspired to take a picture. I won’t go out to take pics if I’m not motivated. I think the best way is to always have a camera handy—the best pictures are always unexpected. I have thanked myself many times that I carried a camera with me. 

What do I avoid? I don’t know—I try not to take the same pics twice. Eggleston once said that and I’ve followed his advice since. I try not to take picturesque pics. Getting drawn to things because of beauty sometimes is tricky. In Athens I try the opposite—and not get forced into taking a pic because everything looks so much out of place. I like taking pics around Omonoia, on the way to my new home across Acharnon street. The underbelly of the city.

What’s the situation with the wine bar? It sounds like you’re already pretty busy, what made you want to get involved with wine?

You are the only one I have talked to about the wine bar so far in public. It’s moving—quite slowly—but it’s moving. I’m terrified really—I have been losing my sleep from stress! There are so many things to take care of—I’m just a helpless romantic, not a businessman, but I hope magically it will all work out in the end. Like with Kennedy in 2013 it’s another big risk ten years later. 

The reason I wanted to make the bar is to make an audiophile place where I can enjoy wines I can’t find in Athens. My main inspiration was my trip to Tokyo in 2019 and its wine bars—like Wine Stand Waltz and Ahiru, and the listening bars like Eagle, Big Boy—along with a certain wine bar in London called 40 Maltby Street which is a firm favourite. 

I like ‘natural’ wines and wanted to make a place where you can enjoy a glass or two. I used quotation marks on natural because most of the time these wines are atrocious—it’s not easy to get the good ones. In the past I wrote some heated articles on wines without sulfites. In my case I hand pick all the producers and I import everything from France. I try to have producers that I know and have visited. All with love. There’ll be listening nights with certain records like a nice event, where people can really enjoy music.

Sounds very nice. Wine bars… magazines… films… are they all kind of the same? This might sound a bit fancy, but are they all about creating a world—sort of building an alternative universe?

We have to create a shelter from the storm. The world is so bad out there we have to save ourselves with wine and beauty—Be intoxicated constantly with love, art music. 

Find out more about Kennedy here.