Interview Interrogation: De Profundis (England)

For a band who has only released four albums as of 2015 and have only been going 11 years, De Profundis have been making more than just waves happen from the backyard streets of blackened London. Having stamped their mark on Bloodstock Open Air back in 2014 and taken their name from a song by the Swedish outfit Abruptum (although we suspect Oscar Wilde's letter entitled 'De Profundis' (from the depths) is more credible), De Profundis have established themselves as one of those involved in the new wave of British Black Metal.

For this interview, a candlelit room provided the perfect setting for which Shoi (Soikot Sengupta) entered and placed his guitar down on the table... this was going to be one interesting talk.

"Metal is a global music hence why I find the whole extreme right wing affiliations of certain bands even more disturbing for a genre that actually has no boundaries"

Recently times have been great for De Profundis, in 2014 you played Bloodstock and last year you released your fourth album "Kingdom Of The Blind". Now you're playing in September with Egyptian Death Metallers Scarab, surely this tour is going to be one of the best you've done?

"We always look forward to being on the road and playing with bands we haven't played with before so yes we are looking forward to it. Hopefully the turnouts will be great and therefore the tour will be great too."

 
Will you be playing a mix of songs, some from 'Kingdom Of The Blind' or the majority coming from the album?

"As co-headliners we will have a longer set which means we will mainly play tracks from "Kingdom Of The Blind" but also from "The Emptiness Within" and "A Bleak Reflection". We've been doing that lately on recent shows like at Incineration and it's been working great. The material from "Kingdom Of The Blind and the "Frequencies" EP is fast and brutal, so its cool to bring more mid paced atmospheric songs from our old catalogue to balance the set. That's when we realised that we are in a great position to have such a great back catalogue. A lot of people have actually commented on how nicely the old songs sit with the current set, it's like as if they have been given a second life."


British Black Metal is in a newfound form of renaissance, would you say it's stronger than ever and establishing a unique identity?

"I am going to be honest here I don't follow the British Black Metal scene at all. Our guitarist Paul is in a Black Metal band, so he probably follows it a lot more. In fairness I wasn't too keen on the whole nationalistic theme that some English Black Metal bands have started bringing in as it was often accompanied with dubious and extreme right wing ideologies which I obviously wouldn't be comfortable with."
 

Regarding Scarab, when you first heard about them, was you surprised about a metal scene existing in Egypt? What are your thoughts about metal's spread across the globe?

"I wasn't surprised at all about the presence of a metal scene in Egypt or anywhere else in the world. Hell I even know a couple of metal bands in Caribbean. Metal is a global music hence why I find the whole extreme right wing affiliations of certain bands even more disturbing for a genre that actually has no boundaries. As for Scarab I have followed them from a distance for some time. You know the funny thing for me is ever since I turned pro I have been listening less and less to music, just through the lack of time really. But from what I have heard of Scarab I do like."
 

Be there or be square.

On this five-date tour, will there be any new venues / locations you will be visiting? If no, when did you last play in these locations? Will there be a EU tour after the September UK run?

"We've never played in Selby which will be the Warhorns Festival and we are very much looking forward to that. Otherwise we've played all the other venues or cities at some point. Besides London, Plymouth is always a highlight with a highly energetic crowd. We're also playing the Hordes Of Belial festival in Dundee (not with Scarab), we played there last in 2013 so it will be a blast to get back there. The organiser Paul MacMillan does a great job for metal in Scotland. With regards to the EU we are doing a run of 3 shows next week in France and Luxembourg with our friends Nemost. We're hoping for a full EU tour at the end of the year."
  

What are the biggest challenges for bands in general these days in your opinion? What about challenges facing unsigned bands? Is it better to start your own label rather than seek a deal with an established label?

"Man there are so many challenges. You know if it was just the issue of downloading and all that we could work with that, but when politics gets in the way it's so frustrating. It's less and less about talent but about who you are drinking mates with. De Profundis generally doesn't hang around in the usual London haunts because we are all professional musicians with busy schedules and if we have time we'd rather write music or something. Setting up a label isn't a bad idea but to really make it viable you need to have a critical mass of fans otherwise you will struggle. An established label will always be better I think."


What plans have you got for the rest of the year?

"Well apart from playing shows, we are going to be recording album 5 in August, we've had some downtime lately which we used to write the follow up of "Kingdom Of The Blind". We are really looking forward to that because the new material is absolutely KILLER!"
 

Have you got any hello's and thank you's you wish to send out?

"I'd like to thank Global Metal Apocalypse for their support through the years. We also want to tell the UK metalheads to turn up in masses at the shows in September."

http://www.facebook.com/deprofundistheband