Interview: PURGE

The mystery behind the duo PURGE is intriguing as little is known about them, yet they have received much success in the short time since Eric and Doug formed the project in 2016. Since then, they debuted their EP “Feel Your Love” on Skrillex’s platform Nest HQ and received support from some of the top DJ/Producers in the world including San Holo, Krewella, and QUIX. PURGE has been able to set them apart from others in the industry and make their own sound by taking elements from other genres, blending them together to make a unique sound and labeling it “dark bass”. We recently had the chance to sit and chat with PURGE where they opened up about their careers, life, and making their festival debut in front of their hometown crowd of Orlando for Electric Daisy Carnival.

How did you guys go about forming PURGE?
PURGE was definitely a very deliberate project. We had a goal that we wanted to reach, we had an art style and a brand that we wanted to portray, and we had a sound that we wanted people to hear. We were shocked to find that a lot of reputable labels or release outlets were very interested in hearing our first songs that we had for the project considering we had a Soundcloud account with zero followers. A lot of people took interest in the art and sound direction very quickly and I think because we were such a new and fresh project it caught attention quickly.

Who are some of your influences?
This is always a very hard question to answer with us because we do pull a lot of influence from a lot of very different artists. We’ve always been very interested in the drum styles of Flume so a lot of our percussion sounds are very acoustic with a lot of acoustic drum fills or just random foley sounds. We have this song called “Hit Em”, where the beat was directly influenced by Flume. You would never tell, unless I told you that though. We also really love how Noisia works with basslines. The most insane bass sounds can be heard on a Noisia album. They also use a lot of acoustic style percussions. We obviously don’t sound like either but I think we pull influences from them and combine those ideas with mainstream dance ideas. Vocal chops, hardstyle screeches, etc… we use a lot of the ideas that people are using today, I think we just use them in different ways and it makes it sound completely different when just simple use something that already exists in different ways.

What three words describe your sound?
Dang that’s tough. A lot of other outlets have described us to have a very haunting sound cause we do catchy ideas with dark undertones. We somehow make pretty things sound dark. Let’s say eclectic, dark, and bass.

You will be performing in front of your hometown crowd of Orlando this weekend for Electric Daisy Carnival, what can people expect from your set this weekend?
A lot of unreleased music from ourselves and our friends. We play music from such a diverse catalog. We will play neuro bass, future bass, trap, dubstep, hip-hop, house, and progressive house. Literally everything. As long as it has the dark bass vibe. We also always challenge ourselves to not play music by anybody else on the lineup we are playing with. So that’s gonna be fun haha. Seriously though, even though we’re playing early, we plan to bring a lot of energy and wake people up from the day before.

What keeps you grinding and going at it everyday?
Truthfully, the followers. Our personal lives are tough. We both have a lot going on personally but when we go to Twitter or Instagram and see a follower talk about how excited or happy they are to see us or hear our music, it changes everything. That may be a little cliche, but it’s so true. We have such an intense following. They’re partly to blame for our signing the song “Running Away” to bitbird. It was literally a follower on twitter who hit up San Holo and said “you need to put PURGE on bitbird!” or something along those lines and San Holo DM’s us right after that asking about our song “Running Away”.

What do you guys like to do for fun outside of music?
We are all over the place. We spend so much time making music and working on PURGE, but we definitely like to have fun. We go to metal shows. We game. We’ll go to shows and hang out with DJ friends even if we’re not playing. Damn, anything with the right people. I (Doug) LOVE hanging out at this thing called “Techno Taco Tuesday” in Vegas. Such amazing vibes. So much fun every time.

What is something many people don’t know about you?
Actually had to think long and hard about this question to give you a cool story. I’m (Doug) actually from Hawaii. I used to play in a screamo band in Hawaii and I remember Christian (graves) put on this battle of the bands that my band won! Really funny memory with him since I haven’t really talked to him that much since I moved off the island. We were all so trashed that night, it was great. Christian still owes me a recording session hahaha. CALLING YOU OUT MAN. Let’s do some metalcore again! haha

Any upcoming projects or plans you have planned for 2018 you can tell us about?
Music. We are actually sitting on so much music right now. So many collabs but also so many originals. We’re really really honing in on a sound that’s going to be very present with us in 2018. That’s all we can speak about right now.

Do you have anything to say to your fans?
Shout out to YOU, man. We’ve always loved smashtheclub so much. We’ll never forget smashtheclub for supporting since day one.

We have so much love for our followers. They are super gung-hoe about our movement and they really push us to be better and reach for more. It’s super amazing and they’re really intense. This music thing is so personal to us and we work so hard on it so to see and hear our friends supporting us so heavy, it really makes us so happy and gives us so much motivation to keep working our hardest at it. To see that fanbase grow everyday makes us emotional, honestly. I get all teary eyed when I see some of the comments from our followers. So excited to make our debut festival appearance at EDC Orlando!

Look for PURGE’s latest track “Gangsta” with Felmax and make sure to see them live when they come to a city near you. You can also see them this Saturday at EDC Orlando performing on the circuitGROUNDS stage at 1PM.

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Twitter:  @purgeculture
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