Live-Metal.Net - Interviews: Cradle of Filth

No introduction needed. On the 2011 Creatures of the Abyss tour, LiveMetalNet’s Jeff Maki and Ryan Mavity sat down with longtime Cradle of Filth guitarist Paul Allender to discuss the band’s beginnings all the way up to this particular dark and rainy present day.

LiveMetalNet: First of all, how did the Creatures of the Abyss tour come together? Do you guys have a relationship at all with Nachtmystium? Did you guys select the acts?

Paul Allender: Every tour we do we always get a list of bands sent in to us saying, “What do you think of these?” And nine times out of 10, we’re just like whoever wants to do it can do it. We don’t really choose. But Nachtmystium, I never even heard of them until this tour, and I love ‘em—they’re fuckin’ great, a great band. But Turisas, they’ve played with us before, so when I heard they were on the bill, I was like, “Fuckin’ hell, brilliant, that’s really good.”

But Daniel Lioneye, I never even heard of them before. So a lot of the bands we tend to take with us on the road are different to what we do. We try and bring different music with us—still metal, but different music with us. Because there’s nothing worse, than say, us headlining, then you got four bands that play exactly the same sort of music underneath us. It would be like fucking tedious. So we try to bring other, still heavy music, but different bands with us.

As far as the audience goes, are you seeing mostly old-school fans or a lot of a younger crowd?

The old-school fans are still there, but we’ve noticed this time around there are a lot of young kids, which is great. Yeah, we’ve noticed a lot of young kids at the front and stuff, which is brilliant.

Our fan base goes like from people that got into us when we first started and are still with us right up until now. And then you’ve got kids which have come onboard since Thornagraphy or Nymphetamine or Midian. Midian is a classic one, as well. Or kids that have come onto us just from this album being released, which is good. There’s a massive variety of our fan base, age-wise.

You’ve been with the band since the early days of it. How would you say that Cradle of Filth’s sound has evolved over time?

It’s more mature now, I think, personally. Everybody has obviously got better at their instruments. And the songwriting abilities, even for myself, my songwriting ability has gone tenfold—just being able to hear what works and what doesn’t.

But I think beforehand, we were young, like 19, 20. Fuck, I’m 40 now [laughs]. So like 19 and 20, it’s a case of you’re all into it, fucking just to get drunk and smoke drugs. That’s what it was like back then. But now it’s a lot more like—don’t get me wrong, we’re still into it for the music—but the whole drinking and drugs thing doesn’t happen anymore. It’s more focused on the business side of stuff and actually making the band work, pushing it forward and having a completely professional attitude over it.

Each band goes for it. All the bands have gone for it—loads of bands. When they first start off, it’s just like party central. Then they realize, “If we keep going like this, there isn’t going to be a band.” [laughs] So its just like it hits and they really have to fucking pull our shit together. Luckily, we’ve come across that principal idea, fuckin’ years ago—years ago.

Not only that—like myself, I’m 34, and I just can’t do it anymore. My body just can’t take it. After awhile you just can’t do—there’s just no way.

Yeah, when I actually come offstage, I feel my engines just like [crash] gone. I’m like, “Fuck this. Where’s my tea? I’m going to bed.” [laughs]

Now, when you guys were coming up in England, there were a lot of different varieties of metal over there. Were you guys more into New Wave of British Heavy Metal kind of bands, or were you more into extreme kind of stuff, like Napalm Death or something like that?

When we started off, the whole death metal thing was huge. So we supported all the death metal bands that came through England—fucking everybody, which was great. Obviously, in the whole band, we all have our individual tastes, but as a collective root that runs through the band, it’s Maiden, Priest and Motorhead. All of us are Maiden fans. Priest, Motorhead, thrash metal—everything.

But then on the other side of things, I love blues and jazz. A lot of people like film score music. Some people listen to some pop stuff if it’s good. It’s just the thing of being a musician and getting influences from everything.

That’s one thing that I’ve never understood. I’ll get people talking to me, like younger bands, and they say that’s they’re “this black metal,” and this and that, and this and that, giving themselves these really bizarre pigeonhole tags. And I’ll say, “Do you like this band?” “Oh no, thats’ crap,” they say. “And what about this band?” Same thing. And they’ve got their fucking blinkers on and it’s only black metal they’ll listen to, and it’s only black metal they’ll play. And it’s no wonder they sound like fucking everybody else. If you’re serious about wanting to do it as a job and take it to the next level as far as you can, you’re going to have to get rid of those blinkers. You’re going to have to. And get as much influence from the outside as possible to try and get your own sound. I just never understood why anyone would want to be in a band to sound like somebody else. I don’t know, perhaps it’s just me.

The album has been out for a while now, but reflecting back on Darkly, Darkly Venus Aversa, are you completely satisfied with the work? Is there anything that you would go back now and change?

Some of the riffs I think I’d change now, when I listen back to it. But it’s the same with every single album. Once you’ve finished with each one, you go back and go, “What the fuck was I thinking?” It’s just what it is. I don’t think you’ll ever be mega-satisfied. When it first came out, I thought it was amazing. I had no grumbles at all. But after listening to it a couple of times, I’m like, “Eh.” [laughs] But there would be some stuff I would change on it, but I’ll just save that for the next album.

Over the years, you guys have taken inspiration from a lot of different things like literary sources and film scores. How do you guys keep coming up with those different things to integrate?

We tend to write the music and we have no idea of what the lyrics and concept is going to be. So we tend to write each track to be a standalone on its own—strong enough to be played on its own. So once we’ve got about three quarters of the album, we’ll give it to Dani, where he’ll come up with ideas, the lyrics, concept and come up with the image for it and stuff like that. And we’ve found out that’s the best way of working around. We’ve tried the other way and it’s just too fucking confusing. It just doesn’t work. We found our formula. But it’s not really a formula. We don’t write in a formula the way the songs are written. But the way the whole process is put together, the way it actually works.

I feel that the latest album continued along a more extreme path, similar to Godspeed, whereas you guys kind of got away from that a little bit with Thornagraphy. It was a little more accessible, maybe even controversial with fans. Do you feel that the last two releases have been a kind of a direct result of that album?

Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love the album and think it’s great. It’s not completely different. You’re still going to hear it’s us. But we went down more of a rockier root, and we got so many fans onboard because of that album, which was amazing. But then again, so many other fans, the harder fans, absolutely fucking hate it. [laughs] But you can’t please everyone.

But from Thornagraphy, as a band and the style of music we play, you can’t really go lighter than that. You can’t carry on in that vein because it’s just going to get lighter and lighter, and that’s not what the band’s about. So there’s only one way you could’ve gone from that album, which was fucking back the other way. That’s the only way you could have gone, and that’s what we did. It’s totally what we did.

Talking about Thornagraphy still, it was around the same time that you guys were on the Viva la Bands tour and Bam Margera had an interest in the band and everything like that. Was it a collective band decision to enter into the mainstream and public eye with all of that stuff?

No, it just happened. It’s the same with every single album. We don’t actually set off to write “this type of album” or “that type of album.” Whatever we do and whatever type of album comes out is basically the style of music that we’re writing at that particular point in time. There’s no actual mental concept or plan or nothing there. It just happens, and if it comes out and it sounds good, then it’s fucking great. If it sounds like crap, we’d better start again. That’s the way it’s done.

We’re talking a lot about a few years back here, but how was the time with Roadrunner Records? Were there really all of these restrictions put on you guys that Dani had mentioned in the press?

Sometimes. Restrictions as in just basically budgets for stuff. That was actually it. Once they tried to send someone else in to rearrange one of our songs, and we heard it, and we’re like, “You’re fucking kidding me!” We just kicked him out. It was just more with budgets and stuff that we wanted to do, and they said, “No, no, no, we’re not going to do that.” Then they decided to put the money into fucking Nickelback or something. It was like, “Really?”

I can understand the business side of it, but if you’re trying to build a band up—or should I say, don’t sign a band and leave it alone thinking that you’re going to let them take over. If you’re going to sign a band, no matter how big they are, you’re still going to try and make them bigger. And no, they just didn’t do anything like that..

Is it more liberating to be on an independent (label) creatively or business-wise?

Creatively, on all labels, it hasn’t made a blind bit of difference. But on the business side of it, it’s better to be on where we are now than any of the others. Because where we are now, they’re actually putting money where their mouth is. Say something like the fan box set, for example, that came out for the new album. That book thing and everything else—there’s no way we would have had that on Roadrunner, ever. They would have gone, “No.” We tried doing a special edition on Roadrunner and all they wanted to do was just re-release the album again, and the fucking plastic case would have round edges instead of squares. “You gotta be fucking joking.” In the end of the day, that’s not a box set. It’s not a special edition. A special edition is like the box set we re-released with a whole book in it, cards, T-shirt, hologram, this and that and everything. That’s what it should be like.

Personally, I see Cradle of Filth having a similar career path as Dimmu Borgir, the way you have kind of run parallel. Do you think that comparison is accurate and how do you feel about Dimmu Borgir?

Personally, we get along well with them. There’s no feud, there’s nothing there. Musically, some of the stuff is OK, but it’s not my taste of music personally. I’ve got their albums, but I don’t really listen to it much because I’m not really into that sort of music. But I know loads of people who are. And what they do is fucking great. The whole feud thing of Dimmu and us has been brought on by press. Nobody has fueled it, not one of the bands. Shagrath—they questioned him, and he’s like, “We’ve got Cradle albums and what the fuck are you talking about, a feud?” It is completely brought up solely by press, just because we are two of the main bands in the scene. That’s the only reason why, because they’re trying to get a rivalry going and it’s just not going to happen because we’re too fucking old for that shit.

Yeah, we thought about it, definitely. Whether it happens or not is something completely different, but yeah, we’ve totally thought about it. Even fans have suggested it.

How did the new album come about with the orchestral stuff? And how did you guys turn things around so quickly, because you put out an album last year, and now you’ve got one coming this year?

The orchestral stuff is all done by programming. We’ve got some fucking amazing samples, orchestral choirs and everything. So when I’m demoing, I’ll send off a melody line, and I’ll send back and ask if you can orchestrate around this melody line I’ve given. And it’ll come back with huge amounts of fucking tracks upon tracks upon tracks of orchestral instruments. And I’ll slot that into the songs I’ve been writing, or whoever’s been writing them. So I’ll slot them in because I pretty much do all of the arranging. I’ll spend like two or three days just going over these tracks of individual instruments, and listen to how they sit with the guitars and how they sit with the drums, what particular atmosphere I want to go for. And then I’ll listen to stuff and literally have 100 tracks sent through of different instruments. But then I’ll listen through to it and may get rid of like 50 of them because it’s too cluttered and it doesn’t breathe enough, and because it’s not quite the right atmosphere.

But then again, I might come through sometimes, listen to it and go, “Fucking hell, that section sounds amazing!” and get rid of all the drums and guitars.

Oh, huge. [laughs] Huge amounts for us. We’re constantly listening to film scores. I just bought the one for the new Cthulhu film coming out. This Spanish guy has done it and it’s fucking phenomenal. It’s amazing.

Has anyone ever approached the band about turning one of your concepts or albums, along with the music, into an actual movie or sort of show?

No, no one’s ever actually mentioned to us. I would definitely do it, but yeah, no one’s ever mentioned it.

This is a major part of the band, but do you ever see the band shedding the corpse paint one day?

No! Absolutely not. We’re not going to do a KISS. [laughs]

Back in the day, wearing the paint is all about being extreme and offensive, and all part of the imagery. But what does it represent to you right now?

It’s all part of the imagery of the band and all goes with the music. Playing our stuff, dressing the way we do, but without the makeup on is going to be like, “Really?” Kids are going to look at you and be like, “What the fuck?” Even now, it’s part of the parcel. Even if we wore all the leather stuff and had no makeup on, it just wouldn’t be the band—it just wouldn’t be it. It’s having the makeup on, and the image, and the music that all go together, and if any one of those is missing, it’s just not Cradle. So no, we’ll never, ever do it.

Yeah, this place is going to be amazing. I’m so looking forward to playing this place because when we soundchecked, the fucking guitar sound was like whoa. [laughs]

What is the difference for you guys onstage between a small place like this and a big thing like an open-air festival?

Just apart from space onstage, really to be fair. I prefer smaller ones. They’re more intimate. And you can hear what’s going on up front, as well. But festivals, they’re OK, but you feel really detached because the start of the crowd is fucking way over there. I prefer it when they’re stuck right there and you can see their eyes and stuff.

I think the biggest high has to be when we were nominated for a Grammy for Nymphetamine. That’s pretty fucking cool. That was all surreal. Cradle of Filth being nominated for a Grammy? What the fuck is the world coming to? [laughs]

I suppose, also, with my PRS guitar, having my own signature series, as well. That’s fucking amazing.

Lows? I tend to forget about the lows. [laughs] There’s nothing really because I take it each day as it comes, and I plan out what I have to do for that day. I don’t even think about what the fuck is going on tomorrow. I used to worry about what was going to happen weeks ahead, but now it’s just sending the wrinkles on my face. [laughs] You can’t do nothing about it.

When I left Cradle in 1996, I started a band called Blood Devine and we had a couple of albums out. And I started playing PRS then. Originally, I was playing B.C. Rich. I used to have this bitchin’ giant (one) with a massive gold inverted cross nailed to it and fuckin’ all that shit. But then I done this Blood Devine band and I bought a PRS, and fucking since then I’ve been hooked—absolutely hooked. So then I got back into Cradle in December 1999, and then a couple of years later I decided to design a PRS with the bats on it, the coloring and everything else. I thought, well fuck, I’ll just send it off to them and see what they say. So I sent it off to them, and a couple of months later, they come back and said we’re going to make it for you. I was like, “Fucking really?” They said, yeah, we’re going to endorse you, and this and that. It’s pretty cool.

B.C. Riches are OK, but they’re just your typical run-of-the-mill metal guitar. Whereas like PRS are completely different, and you never thought of a metal band playing PRS, especially a band like us. So that’s one reason why I played it, especially when I designed the whole thing. But yeah, playing it is like putting a hot knife through butter—it’s effortless, completely effortless. The balance is fucking amazing. The guitar is just a fucking wet dream basically.

No, all I’ve got is a Blackstar 200 Head, a 2x12 cab, and that’s it.

I’ve noticed a lot of metal bands using smaller gear and not as much stuff as they used to.

Well, yeah, there’s no need for it, to be honest. So yeah, I’ve got the Blackstar head, my guitar, and I have the gain rolled off quite a bit so it’s distorted, but not overly distorted. It makes it play harder on the guitar, so it’s more audible. Doing that, it is more audible actually out front, so the soundman’s job is a little bit easier, so he can mix it properly. It’s a bit harder on guitar, but I’ve got used to it now. But when I want it quiet, because it’s not overgained, it’s instant quiet—I don’t need any pedals. I don’t need any noise gates; I don’t need nothing.

The last question is what is the best Cradle of Filth album, or song, in your opinion from start to finish? If someone is just getting into the band, what is the album they should go out and buy, and why?

See, the thing is, that’s hard because at the end of the day each album is different, so you can’t really say go buy this album because it’s a good representation of the band now, because it won’t be at all. It’ll be completely different. I’ve always said you have to buy Dusk and Her Embrace. I love that album, it’s fucking great.

I remember this song, “Nocturnal Supremacy.” I remember going when we just finished recording that back to the apartment where we used to live in the U.K. All the band was there, but I lived there on my own. And all the band was there and we just fucking dropped loads of drugs. [laughs] And we put this fucking “Nocturnal Supremacy” song on and it was like, “Fucking hell!” Of course, we were all like tripping our nuts off. And it was like it literally had come in, and I just remember all of us just fucking went off on this song. Yeah, we were envisioning like all sorts of shit going on. But when it fucking kicked in, it was “Holy shit, this is better than sliced bread!” [laughs]

Just to all the fans of the band, thank you so much for your support. It means so much to us because if it wasn’t for you guys, then we wouldn’t be able to do this. And we’re going to see you on the road, and when the next album comes out, it’s gonna be an absolute fucking corker.