INTERVIEW BLACK MESSIAH

In the vastness of the internet I came across the Chileans of Black Messiah, who play great, atmospheric doom metal, which should really bring tears of joy to the eyes of anyone who can relate to Black Sabbath & Co. Rodrigo, guitarist of the formation from the capital Santiago, answered my questions.

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Tell us something about the formation of Black Messiah, when was that and where did you meet? Were you active in other bands before? What other bands do you play in at the same time? Your band has already had a line-up change, hasn´t it?

The first Black Messiah formation from 2017 consisted of Nancy and Rodrigo who are married, Cote Ruz (vocal), Catherine Maureira (guitar) and Matias Martinez (drums), we all meet in gigs in Santiago. After Cote and Matias left the band, Catherine takes the voices and Jorge Vargas partner of Catherine takes the drums and Felipe Troncoso is incorporated as a leading guitar.

Later, when Catherine and Jorge left the band, Andres Henriquez and Vanessa Igor entered on drums and vocals, as couple too. When they left, Rodrigo Perez enters in vocals and Ricardo Letelier on drums, both friends of many years. The current line up is: Nancy Gomez on bass guitar, Rodrigo Echeverría on rhythm guitar, who also plays in Massive Power, Maniac Revenge and Chaotic Bastard (many years ago), Felipe Troncoso on lead guitar, who also plays in Massive Power, Maniac Revenge and played in Unjustice, Rodrigo Perez, who also sings in Chaotic Bastard and played in Vengeance and Ricardo Letelier who plays drums in Maniac Revenge also and played in Chaotic Bastard in its beginning.

When searching the name of the band, were you aware that there is a German pagan / black Metal band called Black Messiah long before you? Did that ever lead to confusion between the bands?

We didn't know it came to choose a name, we checked Metal archives and were surprised that there were Black Messiah from Germany, but we liked the name so much that we decided to continue with it, since we chose it in honor of the theme of the band Nemesis and even so far we haven't had any problems with that.

You are mainly influenced by traditional doom and metal bands, Black Sabbath of course, Count Raven, Pentagram, Candlemass, Solitude Aeternus, Saint Vitus, Pagan Altar come to mind. Do you like all these bands? And what other influences are there? Which is your favourite Black Sabbath album, if you had to agree on one?

Absolutely yes, we love all of them !! Also in our influences we could add Iron Man, Witchfinder General, Internal Void, Sorcerer, Hour of 13, Trouble and the list continues, but mainly  80s and 90s bands. It's difficult to choose only one favorite Black Sabbath album, but it will be the self titled debut album.

You now have a male singer, after having different female singers on the two EPs. What is the reason for the frequent change of vocals? What do you prefer for your music, female or male vocals? For your demos and EPs you often took existing songs from previous releases or re-recorded them. The current album also contains only two really new songs "Church of pain" and "Laments". Were the singer changes the reason to re-record the songs?

The singer changes was for their personal reasons. For now we are very satisfied with a male voice, but in the future, who knows, we will have a female singer again, there is no priority in that, only that he or she is a real fan of doom metal, that matters.With each formation we tried to record our debut LP and it was not achieved, but with Rodrigo Perez we were able to make it happen to close that initial stage of the band.

Which concerts and festivals have you already played? You´ll be playing with Procession soon, but you´ve also shared the stage with Pentagram before. How was that? In which countries have youalready been on tour, have you already been to Europe or would you like to play here one day?

Our live debut was as a support band for Coven in Chile, we have also shared the stage with Omen, with Wiplash in Colombia and we opened the Pentagram show in Rio de Janeiro Brazil. Our first international trip was in Argentina with Massive Power and Evil Force in Paraguay. We also played two dates in Bogotá Colombia, and ast year we were in Paraguay with Lucifer's Children.

In 2020 we played with Capilla Ardiente in Chile and now it will be the turn of sharing the stage with the great Procession.

All the dates that we have played outside of Chile have been separated, we have not yet gone on tour to Europe but there are some possibilities in the future that are managed by our label Dies Irae Records from Brazil, which by the way we would love to be realized soon ...

How is your music received, both in Chile and internationally, what are the reactions from fans, fanzines and magazines?

Within the national and international underground our music has been very well received, we have had very good comments in general. The fans have acquired our material and the fanzine and magazines have done several reviews and very good reviews.

You live in Santiago, how would you describe this big city? Is there a good infrastructure for metal, where can you perform?

As you say, it's a big city and it has many very diverse places where you can play from bars to discos and important theaters like Caupolican and Cariola. also, there is a place called Arena Recoleta that has an outdoor stage with capacity for 1,500 people.

Let´s talk about the Chilean metal scene. Many in this country often think first of bands like Pentagram Chile or Atomic Aggressor, the two death metal figureheads of your country. Apart fromthat, I know the doomers from Processsion and Hetroertzen , who probably live in Sweden now. What can you tell us about the Chilean metal scene, which bands and styles are popular, what do you think about the bands mentioned and which bands can you recommend?

Chile has a great underground metal scene and all styles, from the 80s onwards, clearly Pentagram Chile and Atomic Aggresor are great exponents, but there are many more and of great quality, to name only some could be:

Coming to heavy metal we can call names such as Inquisition and Enigma. Concerning thrash metal we could name Massive Power, Chaotic Bastard, Maniac Revenge, Violent Death or Insecurity. In doom metal we have Capilla Ardiente, Heraldica de Mandrake, Mortajas, Marcha Funebre, in death metal we have Unaussprechlichen Kulten, Trimegisto and Llankazo.

And so we could continue infinitely, they are too many and all very good.

What are your next plans for the future? In general, the last words are yours!

The closest plans we have is the release of our LP together with Procession and some other live presentations during the year. Also, to compose new songs for the next LP, that's for now.

Finally, we want to thank you for this interview and for supporting our band…maybe in the not too distant future we'll meet up and share a few beers!! Also we wish to thank all the fans who support us and buy our material both physical and on bandcamp.

Doom metal forever, cheers!!!

all images with watermark: Copyright by Sergio Mella, used with kind permission, find more here