PlanetMosh Keeping it Metal
I recently reviewed Carpe Mortem, an excellent album by Istanbul based, melodic/death metal band Soul Sacrifice and they kindly took part in an email interview with me.
Read my review of ‘Carpe Mortem’ here
Who formed Soul Sacrifice and how were the remaining band members found?
“Well, actually the band started by Maksim & Feyzi in ’97, many member changes in early days… Me (Ozgur) & Onur also were playing in other projects. We knew each other from our high school days so we decided to go on with the band together, kind of a need, getting our forces together…”
How big is the metal scene in Turkey?
“Turkey is a crowded country, so there are so many metalheads in Turkey, hundreds of band members and thousands of listeners, but the culture in Turkey is a little different, not in an eastern style but has it own musical styles and cultural differences. So it’s always hard to be organize what is not from your culture, not a lot of clubs, recording studios … Most of the scene trying to made footprints in Istanbul, the biggest city of Turkey. We’re lucky by living in this part. But we got good bands in other cities like Ankara, Izmir… The biggest organizations are summer festivals, mostly happening in Istanbul. Past year The Sonisphere happened with names libe Big Four (Anthrax, Slayer, Metallica, Megadeth), Rammstein, Accept. We saw Tuborg Gold Fest this year with names like In Flames, Within Temptation, Guns N’ Roses, Ugly Kid Joe … Testament & Moonspell are also going to play this year in Istanbul. We say hundreds of great Metal & Rock bands. So much underground club concerts are happening too… Also i’m playing in a Cover Band called “Murder King” in a club called Dorock in Istanbul, and we’re covering nearly any type of metal every Saturday. The shows are crowded everyweek.”
Is it easy or hard to play gigs in Turkey?
“It’s always hard to work with clubs in Turkey. Not so much clubs, so they got the control over audience and bands (like prices, hours…) It’s easier to bring foreign bands to Turkey. The audience don’t support local bands enough because they think you’re always their second choice. There are few bands can broke this, another thing is writing lyrics in English, you know, we got our own language but we think the international language of metal is English, it costs us losing some Turkish audience, because they don’t understand our lyrics and ending like “What the f+++ is he talking about?” :)”
Who chose the band’s name and is their a meaning behind it?
“It came from early days, so i think Maksim is the father of our name, he told he was influenced by Santana’s song, also the name contains our vision to life. Our souls not satisfied by life, an everyday we see what’s happening to the world. It seems like we’re sacrificing our lives day by day, until we die.”
Have you written any new material for your next album?
“We got so much material but we didn’t came up to a song yet. I want it to be the most powerful Soul Sacrifice album. We’re now working with an European label, so we got plans for recording it outside Turkey. Our aim is to make ready in 2013. I found a concept for the next one… I want the lyrics, the music & the artwork seems working together.”
Who inspired you to play music?
“Personaly, my mom always told when i was a little child, i push them to wake up in nights and press them to plays LP’s loudly, likes of Boney M’s “Rasputin”. Then i discovered the rock & metal and all my life has changed. I always be a good listener then i told to myself why don’t you give yourself a try and play music? We’re the lucky ones by finding each other with similar likes and visions to music. We don’t like to mention names for these kind of questions because the list is very long.
Have you any plans to tour Europe?
We’re working on this right now… Our biggest aim is to play in different countries and going as as we can get. In couple of days we’re going to release our dates, please follow us through our website, twitter and facebook.
Have you a favourite live and studio album?
“All of us are listening so much music, so many genres. I’m trying to follow new ones also discovering the old trasures continuously. So it’s a hard question. Best is to check my last.fm site
http://www.last.fm/user/mortal_x”
