NEW INTERVIEW: Lutfi from PURGATORY talks to Busuk Chronicles, 21/10/16 (English version)

Purgatory Interview Bahasa Indonesian:
http://busukchronicles.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/new-interview-al-from-purgatoryjakarta.html

Purgatory Interview English Version:

Kieran James (Busuk Chronicles)1: Could you tell me the history of the band?

Answer: Purgatory’s timeline:

Purgatory was established in 1991 - 1993 when Lutfi and Al were still in school. Having been changed several times, in 1994, we used Purgatory as our name.

In 1995, with the squad still changing, we created an EP debut “Abyss Call”, which consisted of 6 songs. We recorded it in a cassette format using our own Double Tape Recorded, Hahaha. We produced just 100 copies.

In 1999, we released an album titled “Ambang Kepunahan - The Brink of Extinction” (RotorCorp/Musica) with our squad consisting of Arie Tulanx - Grwl, Lutfi - Guitar, Die - Guitar, Bobby - Bass, Al - Drum.

In 2000 - 2002 the band was idle because of the internal problems.

In the beginning of 2002, Lutfi was running the band again by recruiting new personnel, creating a new style of music. The squad was Mad - Mor Vocal, Sand Man - Vocal Scratch, LTF - Guitar, Die - Guitar, Ntie - Bass, and Al - Drum.

The band released a single “Pathetic” (ZR Production) and collaborated with Anggy Umbara a.k.a. D’Jackal and Bonty Umbara a.k.a. Bone. They both act as filmmakers for the video. Later in 2005, both of them joined Purgatory.

In 2003 we released a full album titled “7:172” (ZR Production/PRS/Sony Music Indonesia). This album also included our single “Pathetic”.

In 2005, Ntie (bassist) was out from the band and replaced by Bonty a.k.a. Bone. In this year also we welcomed new personnel: Anggy a.k.a. D’Jackal (Scratch and Synth). When Anggy joined the band, Sand Man was just focusing on vocal. Purgatory was officially running with 7 personnel.

In 2005, we released a single “Inside You” (Dragdown Record). This single successfully became the original soundtrack of a film titled “Gerbang 13”.

In 2006, we released a single “Beauty Lies Beneath” (Dragdown Record).

In 2008, Die (guitarist) resigned from the band.

In 2009, we met Bad Art (Stupid Nation, Jet Liar). Bad Art replaced Die on guitar.

In 2012, Mad Mor (vocalist) quit the music industry.

In 2012 - 2015 Purgatory was idle. We joined some gigs, and Mad Mor was replaced by D’Jackal. The problem was our squad was shrinking in number. It occurred because each of us had another activity outside the band.

In 2015 Purgatory was active again with new personnel Mad Pit (End of The Journey.)

Currently, we are preparing our next full album, which is projected to be released in mid-2017.

KJ2: How are the people responding to your mini album/album/demo of your band?

Answer: Pretty enthusiastic. Some of them were driving us crazy because they keep asking and they terrorise us to produce a new album. LOL.

KJ3: Which bands influenced you the most?

Answer: Woaaah, there’s too many starting from death metal bands such as Obituary, Hypocrisy. We also had the era of thrash metal such as Metallica and Sepultura, which are apparent in our riffs. We also loved the groovy riffs that we could find in the bands like RATM, Pantera, Korn, Slipknot, Mudvayne. Meshuggah with their absurd beats also inspired us. For melody, we were influenced by pop bands such as Sting and Bjork ….. And Al is the die-hard fan of Bjork. This one is off the record: Al was dying crying when he attended Bjork live concert in Jakarta. Lolll

KJ4: What’s your plan with the band?

Answer: We’re concentrating on the making of a new album, for sure.

KJ5: Do your songs use both English and Bahasa?

Answer: Yup. Some of them are full of Bahasa but some of them use the mixture of English and Bahasa.

KJ6: What were you trying to tell us in your lyrics?

Answer: Most of them were social critiques and about the positive sides of our religious life.

KJ7: Why do you like playing thrash/death metal?

Answer: Errr, let me think. If we’re trying to rewind, in the early 90’s we were starting to play music. At that time, metal was booming in Jakarta’s youth life. Most of the bands in the city were playing metal songs.

KJ8: When was the first time you became a fan of metal bands?

Answer: In 1988-1989 when my cousin filled me with rock songs from Guns and Roses until Iron Maiden. I thought I fell in love with rock music at that time and I started to collect and hunt for the hard rock music.

KJ9:  How can you answer the people that ask you why you do you playing “western style” music?

Answer: I just keep silent and keep playing that music. Lolll

KJ10: Do your wives and girlfriends support you?

Answer: Yes, indeed. That’s why we’re still in the band.

KJ11: What are the bad and good sides about your community in your city?

Answer: Sorry, I don’t understand your question.

KJ12: What’s your plan in the future?

Answer: Planning? Hmmm, there are a lot of plans. Besides the new album, we’re preparing new merchandise, tour, etc. We’re so much willing to create new things.

KJ13: What’s your most unforgettable gig?

Answer: For me, it’s obviously Soundrenalin in 2003. After we finished our set on stage, we were taken away by the security. We were wondering why they did that. It turns out that they accused us of distributing leaflets of another event with Purgatory as the guest star. We didn’t accept the accusation and protested to the security. We found out that the Event Organiser objected to our leaflets because the event was held by their competitor. We told them “Would you be able to penalise us for the things that we didn’t do? We don’t have to follow the ethics of you guys as the EO. After all, we didn’t bring those leaflets!” Finally, we were released by the security.

KJ14: Do you have any message to your friends?

Answer: Stay positive, keep being productive, stay away from drugs, pick the positive side of western culture, and don’t forget to buy our new album, hahaha.

KJ15: Why do you call your genre as “white metal”? ‘Haha, where did you hear about that?

Answer: We mentioned about “white metal” when we released the album “7:172”. It was just a joke. We teased the “black metal”. Sometimes we also called it by “straight metal” but currently we prefer to call it “simple metal”. Lol.

KJ16: Does one finger movement still exist and do you join this movement? (Question from Teguh Prasetyo from INTERFECTORMENT Band, Bandung).

Answer: We think that One Finger Movement (OFM) somewhat exists and somewhat not, maybe not, to be honest, we don’t know, haha. Purgatory had joined the movement when it was hype because we hadn’t met the other musicians that had similarity with our vision: doing metal music in the Islamic life. However, it turns out that there’s a gap between us and other musicians that are against OFM. Therefore we decided to no longer run an OFM campaign at our gigs. It doesn’t mean that Purgatory is anti-OFM, though. For us, OFM will still be in our hearts and we don’t like to see a rupture.

KJ17: OK, thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr James! 

[KJ Note: A special thanks to Ms Okky Irmanita of University of Glasgow, Scotland for translation of this interview from Bahasa Indonesian into English.]

Purgatory Interview Bahasa Indonesian:
http://busukchronicles.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/new-interview-al-from-purgatoryjakarta.html