interview by: Roberto Martinelli

Cradle of Filth has been the bullseye for the ire of all self-proclaimed “true” black metallers for years now. It just keeps getting worse for the “true” camp, especially since now Cradle has signed to Epic Records, a division of Sony, which is of course, like, the biggest company imaginable. But that’s been Cradle of Filth’s goal all along, and for that, we must congratulate them as being the first “extreme” metal band to make it on a major. Just don’t think of them as black metal. They’re not. But they are good. Really good. This is a discussion with guitarist Paul Allender.

Maelstrom: It’s kind of like when people ask you on your birthday how it feels to be a year older. It’s funny to ask you how you feel to be on a major label, but, how does it feel?

Paul Allender: It’s pretty cool. To be brutally honest, it doesn’t feel any different. We’ve always worked hard at what we do, no matter what sort of label it was. Obviously, we’ve got a bigger budget now, which makes what we do sound a lot better, and the imagery and videos look better.

Maelstrom: I saw you play in Chicago in 2001 when you were touring with Nile and God Forbid. The show had a dancer and a large, opera singing woman. Apparently, now you’re going to have an even bigger stage show.

Paul Allender: Yes. It’s got various sizes of ramps and differently positioned lights under the ramps. We’ve got platforms.

Maelstrom: Ramps? Are you going to have vehicles running up them?

Paul Allender: (laugh) Not quite like that. We just came back from Europe. The set had staircases coming from the back of the stage, so when we walked on, we walked over a big riser and down various connecting ramps to the front of the stage. Adrian (Erlandsson, drums) and Martin (back up vocals) had their own risers. So it’s pretty cool. We had big projection screen on the side of the stage, showing artwork and animated footage.

Maelstrom: What’s the biggest crowd you’ve played so far?

Paul Allender: The Ozzfest in Donnington.

Maelstrom: That’s generally 100,000 people at those things, right?

Paul Allender: Basically.

Maelstrom: There seems to be this Anathema/ Cradle of Filth connection in terms of members of both bands coming and going over the years.

Paul Allender: Yeah!

Maelstrom: You’ve got Dave Pybus (from Anathema) on bass, and you had the keyboarder...

Paul Allender: From My Dying Bride...

Maelstrom: ...right. The bands are so different. What’s this connection?

Paul Allender: I don’t know. I think the member thing was a pure fluke. We’ve known the Anathema guys for years. We toured with them when we were a demo band.

Maelstrom: Paul, you were on the first record, and then you left for some years. Then you’ve been back since Midian. Where did you go?

Paul Allender: I just fancied a change, to tell you the truth. We did Principle... and we wrote Dusk... when I was in the band. Originally, Vampire... was part of Dusk... It was just one record. And then what happened was that I wanted to try different stuff. I wanted to say, look, I’ve actually worked 9-5, you know?

Maelstrom: And that’s what you did?

Paul Allender: Yeah. Every bit of normality. I was in other bands, too, ‘cause I wanted to play different styles of music as well.

Maelstrom: How different did it get?

Paul Allender: There’s a band we formed called The Blood Divine.

Maelstrom: Oh, yeah, sure! You’re on Peaceville. (See our review here)

Paul Allender: That’s done now. I fancied a bit more of a change than that, so I was in a band called Primary Slave. We used hardcore techno samples mixed with music like Strapping Young Lad, Fear Factory stuff. I left Cradle for four years, and then out of the blue Dan called up and said someone had been sacked and asked if I wanted to give it a bash. I was just about to sign a deal with Primary Slave. Literally, he called the day before I was going to go sign the contract. The other Primary Slave guys still signed. They watered the stuff right down. The demos we had done were really heavy, and really extreme. When the album came out, I was quite disappointed. It sounded limp-wristed. It was unbelievable. So, that’s basically it. The only Cradle stuff I didn’t have a part in is From Cradle to Enslave and Cruelty and the Beast.

Maelstrom: This new one is your best yet. Production wise, it’s really great. But you’ve got so much! You’ve got 17 tracks over 77 minutes. I don’t want to say it’s exhausting, but it’s nearly that. To get a grasp of all the tracks takes some time.

Paul Allender: We didn’t intend it to be quite that long.

Maelstrom: Not that you should have, but you could have spread this over two records.

Paul Allender: There were so many rumors going around about how we sold out just because we signed to Sony. This is before people had even heard any of our stuff. I felt deep down we had a bit of a point to prove. Then before we knew it, we had tracks being turned out left, right and center. Originally, it was all of us writing. And then we realized that we had too much. There were like, two songs that couldn’t go on there. And two others had to be cut down. We thought about making it a double CD, but the label said it would cost too much... So we found the maximum we could put on the disk. We wanted to give the fans a) quality music, and b) to prove we hadn’t sold out from the top music we are. I know there are a few people that are winjed about how long it is, and that Dusk and Her Embrace is so much better and all that bollocks. But at the end of the day, if a band doesn’t move forward and write music, you ain’t going to have a band anymore.

Maelstrom: Let’s talk about the utilization of the choir and orchestra from Budapest. Those parts of super. Did you have any interaction with them?

Paul Allender: We didn’t meet them. There was no interaction there at all. We scored the orchestra and choir pieces. They’re written on the keyboard. We’ve got a guy from the states named Dan Presley...

Maelstrom: Yeah, I was going to ask you about him. Who is that?

Paul Allender: To tell you the truth, I don’t know. I do know him, but I don’t know his background. He scores stuff for bands; he really adds a lot to them. He says which bits will work and which won’t, just to make it sound more film score. He wrote out all the choir and orchestral sections on notation, went over to Budapest and gave it to the chaps over there and said, “right, this is what you’ve gotta do.” They spent about two days and did the whole lot.

Maelstrom: It always sparks my imagination when you have these type of musical crossovers. I wonder if these classical musicians listen to metal - I imagine they don’t, but maybe they do - saying, “oh, what are we doing here? Cradle of Filth...” I wonder what they think when they hear the final product.

Paul Allender: They probably think we’re a bunch of freaks. Martin (Cradle’s keyboarder) is classically trained. He’s got a few notches under his belt. For the riffs, though, we just play what sounds good. Nine time out of 10, that’s usually what works. Sometimes we’ll write stuff and Martin will say, “oh, you can’t do that.” And we’ll say, “but it sounds great. We’re keepin’ it.”

Maelstrom: Hehehe. “You can’t do that.” “Well, I just did.”

I read an interview with you in which you said, “live music is dying really fast.”

Paul Allender: It is.

Maelstrom: What do you mean?

Paul Allender: What’s really dying fast is actual record sales of people who actually, physically play their instruments. That’s really dying fast. You’ve got all these record company generated bands - even in the rock’n’roll scene. What the hell is going on? And the internet as well is killing music. Eventually, what you’ll see happen is all these kids wanting all this free music. One person buys an album and before you know it you can download it on your computer.

Maelstrom: But you don’t get the artwork. That’s important for a lot of people.

Paul Allender: Granted. But there is a lot of people that don’t give a fuck about the artwork. Some of the stuff you can download now has got quite good quality, and that’s really worrying. Eventually, there isn’t going to be any record companies. There isn’t going to be enough money turnover for bands to be able to go back into the studio and record new stuff. I reckon in about 10 or 20 years time, it’ll really hit the fan.

Maelstrom: I visited your site. There’s a Sony-sponsored, drag down menu that has a list of bands. There’s J. Lo, Desiree, Kelly Rowland...and Cradle of Filth!

Paul Allender: (Laugh) To tell you the truth, I haven’t gone on the site.

Maelstrom: It’s really quite nice. Do you think you’ll be reaching out to people who like J. Lo?

Paul Allender: No, I can’t see it myself. But stranger things have happened.

Maelstrom: What is the best memory you have of Cradle of Filth so far?

Paul Allender: Going and recording the first album, 10 years ago. It was magical. It really was. We were in northern England, crashing in a really cold house on the floor, ‘cause we couldn’t afford beds. The whole scene kicked off from there. The young hunger for everything was new; the whole mystical aspect of the scene and record companies and seeing the artwork for the first time.

Maelstrom: How about the worst memory?

Paul Allender: I think Dan’s underpants on the tour bus.

Maelstrom: (laugh) What kind of underpants does Dani wear?

Paul Allender: I’d really not like to go into it.

Maelstrom: Last question. What’s the craziest fan-related story you can tell us about?

Paul Allender: Somebody throwing a wooden leg on stage. And the wooden leg was signed and thrown back.

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