Hi, first of all thank you for the interview. How is the works going on in Purgatory?
Cheers mate! We're fucking fine! We just came back from two phenomenal tours! First of all we had the chance to hit South America together with ENTHRONED and NERVOCHAOS which was a premiere and an unbelievable experience for us! And short time later we went on a short trip across Germany together with our friends of LIE IN RUINS from Finland in celebration of our 25-year-anniversary. Now we're writing new material again for an upcoming album.
It has been 3 years after the last album "Ωmega Void Tribvnal". Are you satisfied all the things had been since now? Do you believe that you had performed enough concerts and album promotions?
Absolutely! We think, we achieved everything that was in our possibility. The feedback for the album by press and fans has been positive through and through and as far as we know, our label is pleased as well. As we had the chance to even promote it in South America, we couldn't be happier.
Purgatory is very noisy extremely Satanic Death Metal band altough there are lots of melodies in songs so that Purgatory is not a melodic band. Is this situation a main reason for that the death metal maniacs to love Purgatory? Am I right?
We perceive ourselves as a blasphemic Death Metal bands and our roots lay with bands like INCANTATION, IMMOLATION, ASPHYX, ANGELCORPSE… Along the years we probably picked up some musical elements that one might connect with black metal, but we wouldn't call ourselves a typical Black Metal band. We just play the kind of Death Metal that we love and do it by heart.
Purgatory claims to be a band from East Germany, which is a cardinal point blessed by Lucifer. What is your biggest spiritual inspiration for creating music today? I want to ask the importance of the Satanic Occult things in the band's musical aspect?
We're less inspired by occultism and spiritualism, but we're drawn to blasphemy, darkness, hatred, nihilism, anti-religion and freedom of thought which you can find in our lyrics. For example, the works of German negative philosophers like Nietzsche or the works of Dante have had their fair share in our creative process. Furthermore we're interested in anything obscure, obscene and anti-human we can find.
I evaluate Purgatory before and after "Cultus Luciferi – The Splendour of Chaos" thus if we consider the shifting of the band members I think this is true. If you consider in that way which of the album is the milestone , in the meaning of the band's carrier and why?
We find it hard to give any album the title of a “milestone”. Each record stands on its own and represents the band's evolution at the corresponding time. Of course there have been certain steps that had a bigger influence on the evolution of the band itself, like working with an additional producer on “Luciferianism”, having a stable line-up since “Cultus Luciferi…” or cooperating with Patrick W. Engel as a producer and sound engineer since our 2011 record “Necromantaeon”. Having a stable line-up for more then ten years does of course affect the course of a band, as we just know the musical preferences of each other and the way how each of us is approaching songwriting for example.
Purgatory had been established by the band members of Musical Massacre and Procession and you know that Musical Massacre had gathered years after. What would you like to tell us about your former band, André, Hase and Uwe? Is your friendship going on?
André and Uwe have been active again with MUSICAL MASSACRE for several years and even released another two albums. They're aiming for an old school Death Metal style in the vein of BOLT THROWER. We've always been friends with them over the years, also when they have not been actively making music. It's cool to see that they enjoy to play Death Metal again and we support each other on several levels. We even recorded our latest releases “Omega Void Tribvnal” and “The Legion of Desolation” as well as some pre-productions in André´s studio which is also the rehearsal room of MUSICAL MASSACRE.
The split that you had performed with Darkened Nocturn Slaughtercult in 2011 was a special work. When we ask this question to Onielar and Velnias , in our DNS interview, question went away 🙂 Now I'd like to ask to you; Whose opinion was this split so that you had performed Lie in Ruins in 2018 as a continuation of the old one?"The Legion of Desolation" Let's talk about these special splits. Will it be go on?
There is a special and deep bond between Darkend Nocturn Slaughtercult and us and the idea of cooperating and sharing a release together has developed along many years. This split really is something special to us and we share some great memories with it. The idea to release another split in this direction sprung from ANIMATE RECORDS, who've also released the “The Legion of Chaos” split LP. As we've been in contact with LIE IN RUINS for many years, it was natural to ask them for a cooperation. Thus, the release can be seen as a continuation of what we've started together with DNS in 2011. At the moment, there are no plans on releasing another split in that style.
You have passed 25 years. As I know you hadn't been on a long term of tour, why? Is there any plan about this ?
As we've said, we've just been on tour with NERVOCHAOS and ENTHRONED thanks to Edu of NERVOCHAOS who was asking us to join the maniacs on a tour throughout South America. Apart from that, we all have jobs and it's difficult to organize a tour with everyone being able to do it. And things like pay-to-play are not a topic for us. If we tour, we want to be on tour with people that are actually interested in PURGATORY as a band.
You love the vinyl records and you are an archivist. And you know that we are in digital era. Remembering the 90s, considering nowadays digital platforms or 90s analog metal platforms, which of these is more attractive ?
The old school platforms and physical copies are our favorites, therefore, vinyl takes the crown! We just like to delve into the music and to learn about the lyrics, the musicians and the artwork. Vinyl demands that you take your time to enjoy the music and not just “consume” it. Nevertheless, the digital era has its advantages, especially when it comes to discovering new bands. Social media or platforms like Youtube or Spotify give you new suggestions and hints on bands you might like and that you've sometimes never heard of. So we try to keep an open mind.
"Glorification of the Lightbearer", "In Fervant Eyes", "Chaos! Death! Perdition!", "Codex Anti" It would be amazing listening to these songs from you alive! What do you think about a concert in Turkiye?
We are of course interested in playing a few shows in Turkey and we also have a few contacts there like Mezar Organisation & Bookings! We hope to hit your country with a new album at hand as soon as possible!
We'd like to thank you again for the interview. For last what would you like to tell for the magazine readers and the fans of you in Turkiye?
Thanks for the opportunity of being a part of your magazine! This has hopefully become an interesting read. We'd like to greet all our sick fans in Turkiye and we raise the grail of blood to you! We hope to make it to your country in the near future! Hail Death!
