DANI FILTH of CRADLE OF FILTH: From The Cradle To The Grave
An interview by Sarah Kidd.
Formed in 1991, Cradle of Filth is the epitome of all that hides in the shadows. Taking their influence from such things as ghoulish literature, horror films and mythology, they have cemented their place in music as one of the most influential bands of their genre.
Today sees the release of their twelfth studio album aptly titled Cryptoriana – The Seductiveness of Decay; lead vocalist Dani Filth drawing deeply from the dark waters of Victorian infused gothic horror. It is an exploration of death itself and man’s infatuation with all that goes bump in the night.
At the time of my call Dani Filth is nestled in the middle of his home office; surrounded by creepy curiosities and eerie oddities. Intelligent, well read and with a quick tongue coated in dry wit, they are surroundings that only a character such as Dani Filth himself could ever truly be pictured in…
The Principles of Evil made Flesh was released 23 years ago; in all honestly what has kept you invested through all of these years?
“Ah, hard drugs…
No, obviously it’s a ‘job’, a very good job and one that we love, so I think that is pretty much the be all and end all of it. Still very much into what we are doing as you can probably tell; yeah you know it’s either this or I guess Burger King … “
(laughs) I was thinking more along the lines of grave digger or something like that
“Yeah, that’s good work to come by! ‘You dig graves?’ … ‘Yeah, they’re alright” (mutual laughter)
Obviously your love of death, decay and all things supernatural has certainly not waned at all in those 23 years and still inspires you?
“Yes absolutely! I’m a massive horror buff for sure! [cue in depth conversation comparing latest horror films we have both seen] I collect all kinds of weird and wonderful things; I’m an avid book reader slash collector, still very much into my toys as well. My office where I am in now is a bit of a mess (laughs) when I say – it’s not a mess, just full of stuff! Yeah, yeah absolutely still into it”
I must ask, what’s your earliest memory of being attracted to the darker side of this world that we live in?
“Probably from a very youthful age; I lived and still do in the Witch County of Suffolk. I live in Ipswich now but I lived on the periphery of it in a village called Hadleigh which is about 12 miles away, but it’s a very famous, quintessentially, English village; you know timber framed houses and it’s got a very strong connection with witchcraft due to being highly protestant at one point because they were always fearful of anything untoward. In fact I used to live in a house which once was frequented or on several occasions frequented by Matthew Hopkins, Witchfinder General! So yeah it just had a really cool atmosphere and I just remember being very much into ghosts and the supernatural; reading up a lot about witchcraft and demonology.
On the discovery of horror movies, I migrated – you know when you’re a kid you’re into dinosaurs, then you’re into monsters, then you’re into monster movies and they turn into Hammer House Horror films and The Universal Horror stuff. Then Thriller came along by Michael Jackson and I saw that it was produced by John Landis who obviously did American Werewolf in London and they showed some clips of that and I begged my Dad to see it; and then from there straight into things like Evil Dead! Then you had the whole X-rated sort of 80’s thing going on, where you used to go to these sort of smoky ridden – which every village had – video stores, where around at the counter they let me rent films like Zombie Flesh Eaters, which you look back on now and you go ‘Bloody hell!’ They used to put people in prison for trading those sort of movies for one shitty scene that you probably get in the first couple of minutes of The Walking Dead now!
Everything now just seems so much, you know darker and yeah more gruesome than it’s ever been. But yeah, from there, when I eventually got into metal at the age of 12, everything kinda fell into place as it were – for the worse maybe” (laughs)
The twelfth Cradle Of Filth studio album is entitled Cryptoriana – The Seductiveness of Decay; the title of which instantly conjures up the juxtapositions of that era. Why in particular did you choose this theme for the album – a theme which of course ties in closely with your own heritage?
“Yes, it’s an amalgam of crypt and Victoriana, and definitely! In fact I live in a Victorian House and collect – well not avidly collect I just seem to accumulate (laughs) there’s a difference – a lot of weird and wonderful Victorian artifacts. It just seemed right for the material that had been written.
We had actually – as a band collectively because we are scattered across the galaxy as people from Canada to the Czech Republic, Scotland to England – convened in the Czech Republic in a place called Brno where Martin [‘Marthus’ Škaroupka] the drummer and Ashok [Marek Šmerda] the guitarist live, for a week and a half prior to a festival appearance to play all our ideas for the album. And when we came away from there we had pretty much 80% of the album written and subsequently I was suddenly presented with something to throw an umbrella of ideas and themes over. That summer, strangely enough, I was reading collective ghost stories from the likes of E. F. Benson, Oscar Wilde, Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, H. Rider Haggard, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle etc. etc. and it just seemed very apt because the music was quite ghostly and atmospheric and archaic almost and it just seemed that it worked well.
So having known a lot about the Victorian era and their fascination with the macabre and the high gothic melodrama that was sort of swathed in that particular time, it just seemed right to be able to do it. Coupled with the artwork – which was undertaken by Arthur Berzinsh who is a Latvian National, and who also directed our video [Heartbreak and Séance] which we actually we went to Riga in Latvia his home city to film – it just seemed very apt, the whole Victorian era.
Everybody expects something conceptual from Cradle of Filth, be it a full concept record or just a satellite orbiting a main theme which this essentially is; it’s either children in the Victorian age or it’s based on the gothic writings of the aforementioned authors, like I say, it just seemed very apt and the artwork has done a great job of replicating that”
There are eight songs on the [standard issue] album; besides the two singles that have already been released, which track personally for you would best sum up the themes of the album?
“Well that’s tricky because each song is an identity unto itself; I always think there are ten songs on the album because that’s how many we wrote, but that’s the special edition and I strongly recommend that people get the special edition for the two extra songs. We look on all of our songs as our children and you can never decide which your favourite child is can you? It’s pretty hard! It’s easy enough to pick a single because you have to pick it out of necessity; for a first track that kind of not necessarily sums everything up but it’s the right length, it isn’t too extreme and it’s not too wet so that’s kinda easy. And then the second ones easier, because you’re trying to do something different from the first one to show the parameters of the album; the second one is always a little bit heavier.
I suppose I would go for the title track just because it’s the title track ‘The Seductiveness of Decay’; it’s quite a lengthy song and it goes through all the emotive states of the album, it’s very ornate which is another reason why we thought it would be best to hinge this album around the Victorian Era, so yeah I’d go for that.
But … there is a another single being released next week which is [titled] ‘Achingly Beautiful’, so I think between those three songs, ‘Heartbreak and Séance’, ‘You Will Know The Lion By His Claw’ the second single and ‘Achingly Beautiful’, I think people will get an idea of what the album is about, mainly because they have got a third of the album right there (laughs). I think between the three of them that encapsulates the record.”
Yes, I am quite taken with the second single actually, just the title itself ‘You Will Know the Lion by His Claw’ is poetic and quite beautiful. The accompanying [lyric] video featuring an old typewriter spitting out the words as you sing – can you speak to the idea behind the track and subsequent video?
“The track is actually inspired by the works of H. Rider Haggard, who was a Victorian author who lived in my own proverbial neck of the woods. It’s quite a complicated song (laughs) it’s good, it uses the railroad annexation of the Transvaal in South Africa – basically when greedy Victorians were trying to link up the provinces in South Africa by the railroad – but it paints the vision of the greedy mass nations of man coming up against the furious displaced natural foe like Lions for example so it’s a metaphor.
It’s also a metaphor for the downtrodden, you know, the kind of ‘Don’t step on me attitude’; it’s also a Latin expression actually, I’ve got it written on my arm. It was made famous by someone who said something about Isaac Newton, who was given a problem to solve and he did it in record time and they said that about him, that you will know the lion by his claw. Like I say it’s set in Victorian South Africa, and indeed in the Transvaal and essentially it’s a metaphor for ‘Don’t fuck with me’ … or ‘Don’t fuck with the lion if you don’t want to get your head ripped off’”
And the video – using the typewriter to display the lyrics?
“Well yeah again coming back to the Victorian authors; it was actually the idea of the director, the video director who has undertaken the same one for ‘Achingly Beautiful’. In ‘Achingly Beautiful’ the crux of it is a book with the words being written in the book, so again coming back to the whole idea of Victorian authors”
Cradle of Filth have always been a very deliciously visual band when it comes to their videos – one of my personal favourites being ‘Nymphetamine Fix’. How important still are the aesthetics of your videos and on stage appearances as a band, and who is the decision maker in regards to this?
“Well we all discuss it and then generally discuss it a lot with whoever is directing the video. We also work with artists and many [other] great video directors. ‘Nymphetamine Fix’ is directed by Danny Jacobs who later went on to do ‘Forgive Me Father (I have Sinned)’ as well. But yeah, it is an important aesthetic – not as important as the music because that’s first and foremost – but we’re a very theatrical band so the lyricism, the artwork, the videos, and the stage presentation are. In order to dress up that music and then give it further life I think it’s important to represent it well, colorfully, cinematically …”
And that’s the perfect word; cinematically. As Cradle Of Filth videos are often like watching short movies, they tell stories.
“I’m not overly keen on lyric videos … like I understand the necessity, especially in the current climate where the music industry just hasn’t got – unless you’re Taylor Swift of course – the money to just doll out five or six videos per album; so it’s an easy way to visually get across singles.
But personally I just think they’re a bit of a cop out, a necessary evil I suppose but I obviously prefer being a little bit more lavish!”
Now as much as I hate to pigeon hole – how would you describe Cradle of Filth’s current sound? Extreme, Death, Black etc.
“I wouldn’t even go that far because I think those descriptions now are obsolete, just as record shops are getting obsolete! I don’t like them [record shops] being obsolete but it’s just a sad state of affairs.
I think those definitions are just there to word as necessary, so that you could find the right record when you go into a store; you know you could look under black, death, industrial whatever and find the album you’re looking for, like little subgenres.
But the biggest accolade that we could get as a band is to solely be known as Cradle of Filth! I’ve always said – and I know I’m comparing myself to the greats which is I suppose a little pretentious – but when Iron Maiden is mentioned to anybody, nobody answers ‘Oh yeah I know that new wave of British heavy metal band’ they’re just known as Iron Maiden. The same with Metallica, no one says ‘Oh yeah I know that Bay Area Thrash outfit’. It would just be a great accolade to be known as Cradle of Filth and have people just go, ‘Yeah I know Cradle of Filth’ and instantly they think in their head what they think we are… So [when it comes to Cradle of Filth] I would probably go for Heavy Reggae Funk then …” (mutual laughter)
Unfortunately sub-genre titling features heavily in the elitism of the metal world…
“Yeah it is a very elitist scene, it’s also a bit disparaging as well. If you ever go – which I don’t because of this very reason – on Blabbermouth and you look at the comments, it’s all ‘No that’s shit, that’s bad shit, this is shit, that’s shit’ it’s like great … pull together everybody aye?
One of my friends who is totally not into metal at all but more into chart stuff – I couldn’t even begin to think what they’re into actually to be honest cause I wouldn’t know – but they’re like ‘God Metal’s so bitchy init – what the hell is going on?’ and I think, yeah I thought it was supposed to be this … you know big worldwide sort of …”
Brotherhood?
“Brotherhood yeah! And it just comes across to the outsider as being a big bitchy playground and it’s a bit sad really init?”
There is a bonus track on the special edition of the album, which is a cover of ‘Alison Hell’ by Annihilator. Now I know by your own admission it’s taken you nearly 20 years to cover this track, but out of what I am sure are many, many favourite songs that you have, why in particular did you choose that song to cover?
“It had been a favourite for ages and there were two reasons; one, because I guess it just felt right to do it now, it sits very well against the other tracks which again are very ornate, creepy and very melodic; and two because we met the protagonist, the guy who wrote the track Jeff Waters several times over the last couple of years – primarily on the 70,000 Tons of Metal cruise – and we mentioned to him that we were thinking about covering the track and he was like ‘Yeah, that’d be great man! Cradle doing Annihilator!’
Since then he’s heard the track and on his site last week he actually said it was the best cover he has ever heard which is great you know, a great accolade for the band. We just played it as closely to the original as possible; normally when we cover stuff we undertake something that is not metal and then bastardize it, cradlelise it …but this one, it felt at home on the album. I think that if a fan came in quite late in the day and didn’t realise it was a cover they could actually think that it was a Cradle of Filth song. With that in mind there’s a smattering of extra cheese in there just to creep it up a little bit and I think the last four bars of the song, the drum beat changes up tempo; but other than that it’s played as close as damn it to the original as possible – another good reason for buying the special edition!”
Now just quickly any message for the New Zealand Cradle Of Filth fans? Because you have got quite a legion of them down here…
“Yeah well, we really want to come to New Zealand, everybody says ‘Why haven’t you come!’ and there’s a massive reason for that; we can’t just invite ourselves, we need to be invited ‘over the threshold’ as you know … But we have been wanting to come over … I am literally a Hobbit …”
Cradle of Filth’s new album ‘Cryptoriana – The Seductiveness Of Decay’ is out today on Nuclear Blast Records and is available from wherever good music is sold or streamed.
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