Hi Armando,

Here is the interview. Thank you for the support.

A dark star may guide you

Birgit

Interview for DEATHTHRASHER MAGAZINE by ARMANDO MUTILATOR : 

DT: Hello BIRGIT, how are you?.
GOG: Hi Armando, I am fine, hope you too.

DT: When and why the band was formed?.
GOG: Gardens of Gehenna have been founded by Andreas Opel, Holger Fiedler, Michaela Marek, Thomas Drechsel and me end of 1995, but except of Andreas and me noone of the original staff is still playing with us.

DT: When and how do you know ANDREAS OPEL?.
GOG: Oops, I do not remember exactely anymore, we had some friends in common and so somewhen we met.

DT: Your influences?.
GOG: All that we like, and in the end also all we do not, because we do not want to write music of that kind. I like Death, Doom and Grind but also some bands of Black, Thrash, Gothik or Electro and also Punk, I listen to many stuff.

DT: Are you satisfied with your old Demo 1996 (January 1996)?.
GOG: Yes, of couse, it was our music at that time.

DT: You're fave food?.
GOG: Hard to say, it varies from time to time but I think Pizza and noodles are my all time faves.

DT: Tell me about your Promo 1996 (August 1996)?.
GOG: It is a long time ago that I have been asked for that. We did it to send it around to organizers to get some shows. It has been recorded at the rehearsal room and the sound is quite lousy, but Andreas who did the recording and mastering of our last CD all alone, started to learn with it, how to produce an album, you need try and error.

DT: Do you prefer THE GATHERING or LACUNA COIL?.
GOG: None of both, I prefer women in the kitchen and not at the micro, if they do not growl.

DT: What can you talk me about your "Tod und Teufel" (12" March 205578987 B.C.)?.
GOG: This release, a 12" Vinyl Maxi, was planned as a special offer to the members of the fan club "Black Warriors" of our former label "Last Episode". Because of the financial desease of them, the release had been put off many times and was finally cancelled at all. It would have contained 2 preproduction demos ("dark angel" and "Opus Noctis" in a german version called "Im Reich der Schatten") of the, at this time, forthcoming "mechanism masochism" album and an demo version of "Tod & Teufel" from 1996. `Cause nobody knew anything concretely, we in the band fixed the more utopically release date of March 205578987 B.C.

DT: Do you like ARCH ENEMY?.
GOG: Sorry, I am not familar with their stuff.

DT: What do you know about South American Metal Scene?.
GOG: Don´t know very much about the scene there, sorry. Concerning bands there isof course Sepultura and, I think, Krisiun. And if you watch to DVDs of bands who toured there, the people seem to be very enthusiastically (for excample Haggard in Mexico). Must be cool to play for. There are still many copied fanzines, am I right? I remember the Penumbral Zine. Does this exist anymore? It was quite cool and made with attitude.

DT: BIRGIT, please tell me about your Samplers.
GOG: I do not know all, because some of the fuckers did not even send one copy although they put a song of us on it. There are several tape samplers, then for "Mortem Saluta", "Beyond the Gates of Dusk" has been released on "Sometimes Death is better Vol 5-9" of our former Belgium label Shiver Records. For "Dead Body Music", "Tod und Teufel" was released on the mag-sampler of "Legacy", "The Return of the Black Warriors II" of our former label Last Episode (both labels do not exist anymore), the compilation of the distribution "Connected" for the "Popkom", a very big interantional music fair here in Germany and on a Sampler of www.doom.metal.pl, a very good doom sampler. From the album "mechnism masochism", the track "rabenNutte" was released on the mag-samplers of Zillo, Orkus and Legacy and will appear on the sampler for the festival "Dark Feeelings". For the Type-O-Negative sampler "Blood, Swaet and Tears" released by Zoomia we did a cover of "Prelude to Agony"

DT: Tell us about "Mortem Saluta" (February 1998).
GOG: "Mortem Saluta" has been recorded at "Danse Macabre" studio of "das ich" member Bruno Kramm, our first official and half-way good production, we payed it all by ourselfes and got the money back quite slowly with free cds of our former label. There are 4 takes for each guitar, the drums (except of the cymbals) have been recorded with triggers, and it should have been a better production for the money we spent, but that is the run of the mill, in the end you are always wiser.

DT: Do you prefer, THE SIMPSON's FAMILY, BEAVIES & BUTTHEAD or SOUTHPARK?.
GOG: I do not like comics at all, but BEAVIES & BUTTHEAD rule. It is not shown on TV here anymore and as I do not have a recorder. I can only remember the episode with the sugar baby, which the should take care about and the one where the kidnapped Winger or so...." we are kidnappers or something like that, please call us back". The real heavy stuff.

DT: What do you think about the Norwegian Black Metal Scene?.
GOG: I am not in Black Metal so much, I like some Bands as old Bethlehem, old Nocte Obducta (both Germnany), old Katatonia, Fester(but I think they are from Sweden) and the new Emperor stuff. the rest I listen to sometimes when I visit friends, but it is not really my cup of tea.
DT: What can you talk me about "Dead Body Music" (July 2000) ?.
GOG: For "Dead Body Music" Andreas did the first time the programming at home and for the mixdown and mastering we again went to the "Danse Macabre" of Bruno Kramm.
The sound was better but we decided to make the whole studio staff on our own in the future to achieve excactely the desired result. There the time of learning started for Andreas. Becoming an engineer and a producer in thirty
days or something like that...

DT: What do you know about Peru?.
GOG: That it is located in Southern America, that there are Lamas, that there have been Inkas, that it is very far away and that I hardly know anything of it, sorry.

DT: "Mechanism Masochism" (01.12.2003) is your best gem?.
GOG: "mechanism masochism" has been recorded and mastered completly by Andreas in our studio "anthrazit". Of course I think it is our best one up to now, otherwise we would not have released it.

DT: Your future plans?.
GOG: We are working on our fourth album, I think it will be a little bit faster and more in the veins of Metal. Three songs are completely done, one is in work and there are many ideas for more. We will record it by ourselves, i.e. Andreas, again, but it is too early to say much about it. We intend to finish it this year. Then we finally found a drummer that is good enough and we want to do as may shows as possible. Our keyboarder Michel left, because he moved and will study in future, and will have his last show together with us in about
one month. Afterwards we think we will do the keys as playback and also will not use it so much for new songs. But, as written above, that is the future and noone knows what really will be.

DT: Your last comment for DEATHTHRASHER's readers?.
GOG: Thanks a lot for your support. I hope many people from your country will find their way to our homepage www. gardens-of-gehenna.de. There are more informations, photos, lyrics and for each cd a complete song and an edit to
download it. I hope that we will put the Type-O-Negative cover as an edit also online soon.

Well Birgit, I hope your reply,