1. Ok, to start with what is still making you bang the drums of war? Why did you feel the need to return? Would you say the scene in Italy is in need of a purification, again?
Matteo: The main reason that we got back together is basically the lack of bands talking about things we think are important such as veganism and socio-political awareness of the world we live in. We see apathy in kids nowadays, they don't care about some very important issues and bringing back the band to say what we think might lit the sparkle in someone at the shows we play, or somebody that get in touch with us...at least it's what we hope for. I'm talking about a more worldwide opinion, I sincerely haven't lived in Italy for a long time and as a band we haven't been playing there in a long time.
Matteo: The main change is at the vocals where I sing instead of Maurizio, the original Purification singer. I basically switched from bass to vocals, Monster and Frusi are playing guitars, Tommy is playing bass and we have a friend helping us on drums to allow us to tour. Being old, having families and regular jobs makes it quite hard to be on the road, but we have a couple of tours in mind for next year to go to places we haven't been before to maybe promote a new record...let's see what we'll be able to do! Tour was a lot of fun, we had no idea what to expect from it having been away of the scene from 6 years...but we are very happy on how it came out, people from all over Europe (and Russia!) came all over to see us, which is incredible!
3. Speaking of tours, you’ve been in 4 continents…what was the weirdest place you’ve played and why. Any interesting memories from tours?
Monster: It’s not easy to answer this question since we saw and we actually have lot of interesting memories from all over the world, won’t be fair to place one on top of the others.
Japan is really interesting because of the mix of extreme technology and ancient culture, US and Brazil have some of the longest driving we ever made but the landscape is awesome in both place.
One of the weirdest thing of our career was for sure playing a show in front of the local library in Salt Lake City (Utah), that was hilarious J
4. I remember in the mid-90’s Rome having a huge scene, I remember many, many italians in Ieper in those days…what happened to most of these folks? Are many people from those days still involved with the scene? Or involved with social-political stuff? What are the main differences if any that you’ve noticed between the scene and the kids in these two different times?
Monster: That’s true, in the mid 90” Rome had one of the biggest vegan sxe scene in Europe and probably one of the biggest in the world, but as for every scene people come and go and the roman scene faced a huge demise around 2003 and basically from that year on it almost disappeared.
As far as I know none of the kids from those days are active musically or politically, for most of those people it was just a trend or a way to feel part of something bigger than them, but if you don’t have it in your heart that’s how it ends.
For sure in the 90” kids were more aware politically, because the bands from that era were more concerned in their lyrics than they were for their hair style J
5. You always had interesting shirt designs…I remember the arkangel one, the vegan hooligan one an now you have a very enigmatic one… “Veritas Numquam Perit”…could you please elaborate a bit on this, and what is that face on the printing?
Matteo: That design is the “Bocca della verita'” (that can be translate to “Mouth of the Truth”), it is a very famous sculpture in Rome that in the Middle Age it was believed to be cutting the hand off who was telling a lie while with the hand in the sculpture's mouth. The latin sentence means “The truth never perishes”, which is something that isn't very popular today, people are way more inclined to believe to lies, but at the end the truth shall come out.
6. We’ve seen in your blog a critic on Italy’s involvement with the Afghanistan war. We were not aware that there were Italians there. What is the general feeling in Italy regarding this war?
Matteo: I can tell you what I think, that it is absolute bullshit what the media in Italy say calling it a “peace mission”: soldiers are sent there to kill and be killed in the name of profit, governments never cared about the well-being of the local people or acted in a way to help/protect them, they simply move where the power is. Soldiers and people are led to believe they are doing something good in Afghanistan to eradicate the “evil” there, but there's just economical interests driving all of this, and people are dying because of that. I just wish people, especially the ones involved in HC, could be more aware and concerned about these issues.
7. I’ve noticed that in certain key shows as well as in certain specific photos you make sure to wear anti-fascist slogans. Is there in here an attempt to dispel the myth long held that purification in the past had certain strange “sympathies” and associations? Ideas like: “Ohhh…Maurizio believes that Romans have a special blood”…
Matteo: Since over the years we heard all sorts of bullshit about us, we wanted to give a very clear message that Purification NEVER had, have or will have anything to do with any xenophobe, racist or nationalists movement. Purification is a band concerned about Vegan Straight Edge, Human and Animal Liberation and that's it. Those few envy Italians so brave on the web to lie saying we're this and that NEVER asked us anything (despite for one person) at any of our shows, as we could have had a very educated discussion and cleared all these lies out...but anyway, it's useless to write more about this because it would give too much importance to something that's nothing more than a bunch of lies.
8. Going through your blogs and myspace stuff ,It seems that there is still a certain level of roman pride in the band like: Rome- eternal divine city, roman legion, photos with the colesseum on the back, where is the line you draw? Do we feel in here a bit of a glorification of an empire? Or is it just the love to the city you live in?
Matteo: I myself am not from Rome, I'm from the North of Italy eheh...Rome is a very beautiful city with a very old historical background, there's no way you couldn't be excited or carried away when you visit it, it's an extremely fascinating city like I haven't seen before. Since the band is originally from there, it is kinda natural to add elements of it to Purification, the two things are linked to each other. But there is no second meaning to it other than the love for the city itself, like many other bands have, take Agnostic Front and New York, or Have Heart and Boston, the list is huge!
9. Ok, thank you very much for the interview, any last words?
Matteo: Thank you for the chance you gave us in your blog, hope to see you and everybody who reads your blog to a Purification show next year. Peace.
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