Purgen (group)

The group was founded in 1989 by Ruslan “Purgen” Gvozdev and Gennady “Chikatilo” Filimonov, impressed by listening to “ Dead Kennedys ” and “ The Exploited ”. At first the group was called “Lenin-Samotyk” and consisted of two members, later the drummer “Battery” joined them.

The first album, "Brezhnev Alive," was recorded at home, using acoustic guitars and a drum borrowed from the Pioneer Palace as instruments. The second album, "The Great Stink," was recorded in the assembly hall of the school, where they taught to tombstones in marble, and where Gvozdev was studying at that moment. The third album was titled "Well Where We Are Not."

The name "Purgen" was coined on the eve of the arrival of the American delegation at the school, before which the group was supposed to speak. But the debut did not take place, as the school leadership was shocked by the appearance of the group members: Ruslan Gvozdev came in a shirt “Dead Kennedys”, and Gennady Filimonov - in a shirt with the inscription “Brezhnev alive” of his own manufacture. Soon, the members of the group were expelled from the school for brawl, then they got acquainted with other punk rock groups, and then merged with the Punk Rat group, from which the part of Purgen included guitarist Eugene Bibis Arenov and drummer Oleg Iserli Bukhtiyarov. So the first composition of Purgen was formed, recording two albums in three years (“All States Are Concentration Camps” and “World Transplantation”). Also, one album was re-recorded with the addition of new songs ("World Transplant"). The group performs at well-known Moscow venues: Sexton Fo.ZD club, Club of the Academy of Armored Forces, etc.

On February 1, 1994, the last concert of the first part of Purgen took place at the MEI DC at the major festival “Johnny Rotten's Birthday”, after which three members left the group at once: Filimonov, Arenov and Bukhtiyarov. Only in early 1995, the leader of the group Ruslan Gvozdev decided to revive the group and began to recruit a new composition.

In 1995, the second part of Purgen was formed, two musicians moved from the group “Without 5 minutes they died” (Korolev): bassist Denis “Panama” Pokrovsky and Sergey “Gnome Jr.” Beloglazov - drums. Gennady "Chikatilo" Filimonov returns to the group, but already as a guitarist. A few months later, backing vocalist Alexander “Gnome the Elder” Beloglazov, Sergey’s brother “Gnome the Younger” Beloglazov, was accepted into the group. However, D. Pokrovsky did not stay in the group for long and was soon replaced by session guitarist Denis “Robots” Gerasimov, with whom Purgen is learning material for the upcoming album “Radiation Activity from the Garbage Can”, which was subsequently recorded in the basement of the Theater for 2 months ". In 1996, the composition changed again: R. Gvozdev began to combine the functions of a vocalist and a guitarist, Denis “Cologne” and Anatoly “Gogol” Savelyev periodically replacing him were invited. G. Filimonov had acquired a family by that time and was forced to leave the group. Currently Filimonov works as an architect, but did not leave the music. At different times, he was a member of the Otherworldly Chaos, Dissocial, Hieronymus Bes, and many others, and he is currently participating in some (mainly in the direction of the crust).

After recording half the album Philosophy of Urban Timelessness, Cologne leaves the group, and the second half of the album was recorded without him already in 1997.

At the end of 1997, Rustam "Crazy" Gurbanov joined the group; the first foreign tour of the group, held in Germany.

In 1999, in winter, "Purgen" recorded the album "Toxidermists of Urban Madness" in the following composition: Purgen - vocals, guitar; Crazy - bass, backing vocals; Sergey “Bai” Baibakov (one of the founders of the Distemper band) - drums. Two years later, “Toxidermists ...” will be the group’s first album to be released on CD.

In 2001, Crazy left the group, Denis "Martin" Ushakov, the leader of the "Mausoleum" group, became the bass player.

In 2002, Ruslan "Purgen" decided to take a new guitarist into the group in order to become a free vocalist himself. So the young guitarist Oleg “Diagen” Sobolev (who at that time was only 17 years old) came to the group. He played the first concert with the group in September 2002.

Ruslan Gvozdev’s new cyberpunk project, “Toxigen,” records and releases the electronic music album “Carmaoke” on July 28, 2002 (remixes of Purgen’s songs + new songs).

In 2003, the long-awaited album “Destroy for Creation” was released by JetNoise Records, and on October 23, 2003, its presentation was held at the Relax club in Moscow. In addition, the first five official albums of the group were reprinted, which were digitized and supplemented with bonus tracks and video clips.

Then Denis “Martin” Ushakov leaves the group, Crazy, first the ViViSector, alternately play bass, then Bai left “Purgen” in the middle of 2004, he was replaced by a new drummer - Dmitry “Krok” Antonov, and started playing bass again. Crazy In the summer, July 11, 2004, in 15 hours, an album was recorded of the best songs previously released on other albums, plus one new song - “Reincarnation”. This album is called the "Gear Parts Protest." His presentation took place on October 29 in St. Petersburg in the club "Old House" and on October 30 in Moscow in the club "Flyover". The album is characterized by successful arrangements of old songs. Then, after a tour in support of the album, Crazy finally leaves the group, and Sergey “Platon” Platonov takes his place. For the next 2 years, the group performs as follows: Ruslan Gvozdev - vocals, Diagen - guitar, back vocals, Plato - bass, Krok - drums.

At the end of 2005, the group recorded the album "Reincarnation", the presentation of which takes place on October 1, 2005 in the club "Flyover". It is very different from the rest, not only in the musical component, but also in the content of the songs, their main topics are religion, progress and people. Also in the same year the tribute of the Purgen group was released in honor of the 15th anniversary of the group - it included 31 tracks.

In 2006, the film “11 Years of Silent Scream” was released on DVD, which consists of clips and video recordings of the group’s performances since 1993. Atmosfera film studio also shoots 7 new music videos for songs from the Reincarnation album.

On February 15, 2007, the presentation of the next new album, entitled “Transformation of Ideals”, takes place, but its release took place a little later - on April 2, 2007. In the summer, a DVD with new clips for songs from the album “Reincarnation” is released. In the fall there is a big tour of Germany (15 cities). On October 27, 2007, the last concert with Krok and Plato takes place, after which Alexander “Alex” Chikhanin (ex-Chaos Theory) - bass and Cyril “Kiryusha” Bakharev - drums come to play in the group.

In 2008, the group shot 4 clips in Europe for songs from the album “Transformation of Ideals”, as well as a concert video for the song “Gray Concrete” (live performance at the festival “Ours in the City”). In April, the group went on a tour of Siberia and other cities of Russia. In autumn, a new album-collection “30,000 years of punk hardcore” was released, consisting of old, previously not performed songs, as well as several new ones. In the gift version of the disc, a bonus was a concert on O2tv.

2010s

In 2010, a new numbered album of the God of the Slaves group was released. By that time, the composition had changed again, Anatoly Lyovochkin (drums) and Alexander Pronin (bass) came to the group. The music became even tougher and better, in some songs folk instruments (balalaika) were used as an experiment.

On September 5, 2010, the Tochka club in Moscow hosted a jubilee concert dedicated to the band’s 20th anniversary, which was attended by members of former members and session members of the group: Sergey “Platon” Platonov, Andrey “Mokh” Shvetsov, Alexander “Alex” Chikhanin, Sergey “Bai” Baibakov, Victor “Zeleny”, and also for the first time in a long time, a member of the very first roster, Gennady “Chikatilo” Filimonov, appeared on the stage with Purgen. As part of the anniversary concert, the presentation of the album “God of Slaves” was also held. Suddenly, the 20th anniversary of Purgen fell into the news of a number of central channels - the reason for this was the big fight on Leninsky Prospekt after the concert, shot by eyewitnesses from the window of the nearest apartment building.

In 2012, the bass player Alexander Pronin leaves the band, and former band member Sergei Platon Platonov takes his place. With the return of Sergey in Purgen, he began to play essentially the entire previous composition of the Diagens group.

In the fall of 2012, the group celebrates the 20th anniversary of the release of their first album, All Concentration Camps, with a large concert tour, during which the entire album is performed at concerts. On October 25, a big concert took place in Moscow, but the announced participation of first-line musicians in it, however, did not take place.

In August 2013, the group performs at major European festivals: Pod Parou (Czech Republic) and Resist to Exist (Germany). In September 2013, a concert was held in Moscow as part of a short tour in honor of the 23rd anniversary of the group.

The group begins 2014 with new foreign tours - concerts are held in Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Three more concerts in the Czech Republic took place in the summer of 2014. From this moment, tours in the Czech Republic begin to be regular, the group often notes the increased interest in creativity among fans in this country.

In 2015, Purgen successfully toured Russia and Europe (Czech Republic, Poland, Finland), taking part in the notorious CrimeaFest festival in the Crimea in the summer.

On July 31, 2015, the band played at the Pod Parou festival in Moravská Trebova (Czech Republic) together with Skarface, 7seconds, Misfits, Konflikt and others. Unfortunately, this concert was the last for the bass player Sergei Purgen, who died. August 12, 2015 under circumstances that are still unclear.

In this regard, the group takes a short pause and postpones the date of the big anniversary concert in Moscow in honor of the 25th anniversary of the band. September 26, 2015 in Ryazan the first concert of the group in a new composition took place. The new bass player was Yevgeny Kuzmin, who simultaneously played as part of the Diagens group, becoming, as in 2012, the third musician from this group as part of Purgen. Suddenly, the group includes another guitarist, Vadim Rytukhin, who at that time also played in Zuname.

On September 27, 2015, the Mona Club in Moscow hosted the long-awaited anniversary concert in honor of the band’s 25th anniversary. Despite all the difficult circumstances that preceded him, the concert gathered a large number of spectators, the group showed a new confident sound in an updated form. In memory of Sergei Platonov, the song "Tragedy at the Aviamotornaya" was sounded. As guests, only two members from the previous squads took to the stage, Alexander “Alex” Chikhanin (bass) and old friend of the band Sergey “Bai” Baibakov (drums). Bay's partner in the album “Toxidermists of Urban Madness” Rustam “Crazy” Gurbanov fell ill on the eve of the performance. Due to health reasons, the co-founder of the group Gennady “Chikatilo” Filimonov was also unable to take part (Evgeny “Bibis” Arenov also refused to participate earlier), so he failed to collect Purgen in the very first team again.

In October 2015, the group visits the Czech Republic and Slovakia as part of a foreign mini-tour organized with the support of the Czech NVU group. Concerts are held in Prague, Brno, Vrchlabi (Czech Republic) and Topolchani (Slovakia).

The tour continued through the cities of Russia in November-December, and on December 25, 2015 the group posted on the network a completely new song, “Third World Woof”, which became the first new track recorded by “Purgen” in 5 years, after which the band’s musicians confirmed that in 2016 they will start recording a new album.

On April 15, 2016, the drummer of the group Anatoly Lyovochkin announced that the upcoming 4 concerts were on April 15 in Moscow, the Mona club, on April 21 - St. Petersburg, the Backstage club, on April 23 - Tallinn, the Tapper club, April 24 - Riga, the club "NABAKLAB" - will be the last for him in the group due to moving to a permanent residence in California, USA. Interestingly, another ex-drummer of the group, Dmitry “Krok” Antonov, is currently living in Los Angeles.

The new drummer for Purgen was Daniil Yakovlev, who previously played in the bands Todestriebe, Agressive opression, Andem, Vector and a number of other bands (from melodic heavy to black metal), but soon was replaced by Egor Kuvshinov , periodically playing session in Purgen and earlier.

September 2, 2016 Ruslan Gvozdev unexpectedly puts on the network a completely new track of the group, "Betrayal of the Elites", the concert premiere of which took place a week later at a performance in Moscow in the club "Mona". A little later, in an interview with Punxlove.ru, he confirmed that the group is actively working on recording a new album: three songs are ready, the fourth is in work.

On December 5, 2016, as a New Year's gift to Purgen fans, they are putting out professional multi-camera shooting from the concert on September 27, 2015 in Moscow at the Mona club for the 25th anniversary of the group for free access to the Internet.

On July 5, 2017, it became known that ex-backing vocalist and showman of the group in the second half of the 90s, Alexander “Gnome the Elder” Beloglazov, died of throat cancer.

July 31, 2018 Oleg “Diagen” Sobolev announced his retirement from the team after almost 16 years of work in it. Soon after this, the group publishes a new track "17-97-17" on the Internet and announces that the group will finally complete the new album by the end of the year already in an updated composition. The drummer changes again in the group - Dmitry “Bam” Mikhailov (ex- Az ) sits at the drums.

The long-awaited new album, “Lunar Ship Reptology”, was posted on the Internet on November 14, 2018. It included 11 new and 2 re-recorded old tracks, “Bifurcation” and “Dead Music”. It is interesting that previously published on the network versions of the songs “World War Three” and “Betrayal of the Elites”, recorded with Anatoly Lyovochkin and Oleg Sobolev, were not included in the album and were overwritten. Eight new songs from the album were composed and rehearsed by the group in two weeks, it took about two hours for Ruslan to write a single text. Recording and mixing of the album was carried out by Sergey "Lazar" Atrashkevich ( Rossomahaar).

Present

• Ruslan "Purgen" Gvozdev - vocals
• Vadim Rytukhin - guitar
• Evgeny Kuzmin - bass
• Dmitry "Bam" Mikhailov - drums

Former members

Back Vocals

• Alexander “Gnome the Elder” Beloglazov (1995-1998) †

Guitar

• Eugene "Bibis" Arenov (1992-1994)
• Gennady "Chikatilo" Filimonov (1995)
• Denis "Robots" Gerasimov (studio) (1995)
• Ruslan "Purgen" Gvozdev (1996-2002)
• Andrey "Shaggy" Shvetsov (1997-1998)
• Nikita Druzhinin (in-session) (2007-2012)
• Oleg "Diagen" Sobolev (2002—2018)

Bass

• Gennady "Chikatilo" Filimonov (1991-1994)
• Denis "Panama" Pokrovsky (1995)
• Denis Cologne (1996) †
• Anatoly "Gogol" Savelyev (1996-1997)
• Rustam "Crazy" Gurbanov (1997-2001, 2003, 2004-2005)
• Denis "Martin" Ushakov (2001-2003)
• Alexey “ViViSector” Karlin (2003-2004)
• Sergey Platon Platonov (2005-2007, 2012-2015) †
• Alexander “Alex” Chikhanin (2007—2010, 2011 session)
• Nikita Druzhinin (in-session) (2007-2012)
• Alexander Pronin (☎)

Drums

• Oleg Iserli Bukhtiyarov (1991-1994)
• Sergey "Gnome the Younger" Beloglazov (1995-1999)
• Sergey “Bai” Baibakov (1999-2004) ^[2]
• Dmitry "Krok" Antonov (2004-2007)
• Cyril "Kiryusha" Bakharev (2007)
• Anatoly Levochkin (2008-2016)
• Danila Yakovlev (2016-2018)

Timeline

Oleg Sobolev and Anatoly Levochkin are the creators of their own group “Diagens”, where Oleg is a vocalist and guitarist, and Anatoly played drums. Eugene Kuzmin (bass) and Vadim Rytukhin (guitar) also play in Diagens. In addition, Anatoly Levochkin was a member of Private Radio and Zuname, where he also played the guitar and Vadim Rytukhin.

After leaving Purgen, Yevgeny Arenov played with Vitaminoise, Iniciativa, and is now the Universideath guitarist. Oleg Bukhtiyarov did not return to music, at present he is a police major.

Studio Albums

• 1992 - All states - concentration camps
• 1993 - World Transplant
• 1995 - Radiation activity from a garbage can
• 1997 - Philosophy of Urban Timelessness
• 1999 - Toxidermists of urban insanity
• 2003 - Destroy For Creation
• 2004 - Gear Parts Protest
• 2005 - Reincarnation ^[3]
• 2007 - Transformation of Ideals ( A and B Records ) ^{[4] [5]}
• 2010 - God of Slaves ( A and B Records )
• 2018 - Reptology of the lunar ship

DVD

• 2000 - Live in Smolensk (split concert with the Orgasm of Nostradamus )
• 2003 - 11 Years of silent cry
• 2008 - 30,000 years of punk hardcore

Clips

• Philosophy of Urban Timelessness
• Purgen, Turtles, Scooter, Vasya Kazurov - Punk Revolution
• This is not what I thought.
• Dreams of a normal child
• Australopithecus go
• Addiction
• Robot Paradise
• Rain
• 220 not speed
• Moscow city
• Finish off parents
• Gray concrete
• Evil shepherds
• Russia 2012
• 1984-1988
• Boomerang of God

Live Albums

• 2008 - 30,000 years of punk hardcore
• 2015 - Live in Ekaterinburg (MC)

Collections

• 1997 - Dead President
• 1998 - German compilation
• 2005 - 15 Years Of Pure Generation

• Purgen's Profile at Last.fm