Sie sind endlich wieder da: Gut fünf Jahre nach ihrem letzten Album "Dissection" legt die U.S.-Deathmetalband Crimson Thorn einen würdigen Nachfolger ("Purification") nach. Fragen nach der langen Wartezeit und noch vieles mehr beantwortete mir Gitarrist Miles Sunde, danke auch an Olaf Becker, der mir hilfreich zur Seite stand.

Congratulations to your new great album!
Thank you very much!

1. First I like to ask you why there was so much time between the album "Dissection" and the new album "Purification"? What was the main reason for that?
We were writing tunes and playing a few shows here and there. Like I have said in other interviews we are a part time hobby band, heck this is the reason we are still around after almost 12 years. We have a no pressure kind of attitude with our music. We were debating if we wanted to save money and go to a studio, or should we invest in some recording equipment and do this ourselves. We decided to go the home recording route. We ran into a few walls recording ourselves and basically had to work out the kinks and take our time in making our third release better than the last release.

2. Can you tell me more about your new album, where do you see the differences between "Purification" and the previous releases?
Well mainly with "Purification" we were able to spend more time and not be pressured to get a product done at a certain time. Thus we were able to tweak our sound a bit more and do more experimentation with things such as clean vocals and keyboards. On some of our songs, we did five to six different mixes trying to optimize our sound. Back about two years ago, we did some experimenting with a recording software and did some pre production recording. We really liked what we were getting as far as a sound. I mean it wasn't like we were getting top notch studio quality sound, but we were liking the sound better than any other release we had done. So we put our monies together and built a make shift studio and started the process and learning a bunch about sound and mixing along the way. It was trying, but very worth it in the long run. We are so much happier with the overall sound quality.

3. Beside the music, the lyrics for CT always have played an important role! What can you tell me about the lyrics on "Purification" and about the album title?
Yeah you're right, the lyrics are the main part of what we do, we want God glorified more than anything else in our music. "Purification"'s lyrics are based on the daily Christian walk. Each and every day we have to make a decision to follow Christ and crucify our flesh. We picked a piece of art by Dore' for the cover. We wanted a simple picture depicting Christ cleansing the temple. The whole reason for this CD is meant to help people understand who Jesus is and walk closer to Him. In our own lives we have to purify our minds and hearts if we are to have a victorious life and effectively serve the Lord. As Christians "Purification" is a daily, sometimes minute by minute process that will help us to fight the battle for our minds and souls more effectively. Many of the songs are speaking of problems and sin that may entangle us as humans. But most importantly we offer a biblical solution to these problems because without the guidance and grace of God, we would be hopelessly lost. We just praise Jesus for his awesome gift to us all!!!!

4. Which bands have influenced you, which bands do you like?
Every interview asks us this question and I basically say we are musicians and we like just about any type of music as long as it is played well. As far as heavy music, we were influenced by bands such as Vengeance (er meint hier wohl Vengeance Rising und nicht die alten holländischen Hardrocker - Anm. rls), The Crucified, Believer, Deliverance, Slayer, Napalm Death, Carcass, etc, etc. I could write a list of hundreds of bands. Currently I have been listening to the Trans Siberian Orchestra, it is kind of like rock Christmas music, some of it is very good.

5. Have you already played concerts with non-Christian bands, how were the reactions and with which band would you like to play?
I know I would like to play with VADER, we saw them play recently and wow they put on a professional show. Very tight musically. We have played shows with secular artists and they are very cool with us. No one has really ever said anything to our faces that has been negative. We get a lot of these spineless people writing to our message board on our WebPages and they write really stupid things, but here's the catch, they never leave their e-mail address, hmmmmm makes me wonder what these people are all about. Well getting back to the bands we have played with, it is kind of sad, but I think other bands don't really talk to us because they may think we are going to persecute them or be some weird "shove it down their throats Christian freaks", but we just want to show them respect and love them like Christ would. When we used to play the Minneapolis metal scene more often, we had a core bunch of bands that were very respectful of where we were coming from and many of the other bands basically said, "that God stuff is cool for you but we are not interested in that." This makes us sad, because after this life, without Christ you have nothing. No one comes to the father except through me, Jesus said. We planted many seeds and who knows what God will do with these precious people.

5a. By the way, I saw some Christian bands in Morbid Angel's thanxlist, Discern and Death List were mentioned there.
Yeah Billy our new drummer is the man behind Discern and he knows all the guys in Morbid Angel, especially Pete. That is cool. As Christians we have to permeate the scene and get to know people before they may listen to what you say. We have played the metal scene for over 10 years and we haven't even scratched the surface in getting the word out. It is a hard ministry and you have to be happy with sowing a ton and reaping a little, years down the road. This has been our experience.

6. Have you already found a label? Are you interested in a deal or do you like to continue independently?
We like the independent thing, it allows us to freely be who we want to be, BUT if a big label was interested in us, we may do some work with them. It would have to be a big Metal label that would get our music into the secular scene. It really depends on the stipulations they place on us and what they expect us to do. We can't do any world tours, but we can play shows here and there and we won't water down the lyrics. We haven't really thought much about a label to be honest. We have been on two smaller labels and they treated us decent, but the whole label thing really didn't excite us that much.

7. Can you tell me more about the Christian (Death) Metal scene in the U.S.?
Let me put it this way, what scene! Mostly of the Christian scene is hardcore and punk. I like this style of music and many of the bands, but as far as metal based bands, there are hardly any. The secular scene is much more populated with metal bands, but think about it, overall it is a bigger music market than the Christian scene. My guess is that metal or better yet death metal, will stay in the underground, probably where it will be the best sounding and most pure like the punk of the 70's and 80's. Europe by far has a better metal scene, at least that is what I have heard. We would give our right feet to play Europe, hopefully we can some day.

8. Any last words?
Thanks for the interview, we are writing new material for a future CD and we will be playing a few shows here and there, check out our website www.crimsonthorn.com. Hopefully we can get out more often. The winter is the slow time of the year, but we just hibernate and work on our music. May the good Lord bless you all and remember, He is the reason we do music. As Paul wrote, I must decrease so that He may increase. If anyone has any questions on what it means to be a Christian and have a relationship with the Father, please write us/e-mail us. We would love to talk and encourage anyone. We also need prayer for our ministry and up and coming shows. We are planning a mini California tour this summer with the band Sylvan Fortress and we look forward to this outing. God bless you all.
In His service   Miles

Crimson Thorn
PO Box 32042
Minneapolis, MN. 55432
crimsonthornguys@hotmail.com

Thank you for answering my questions!

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