Music > Interviews

Cradle of Filth

29/09/15

Cradle of Filth have over two million fans on Facebook. They fill venues wherever they play, from South America to Europe. They’ve been making Extreme Metal for 24 years. Chockfull of melodies and literary and historical references, this isn’t just any old scary-ass music though. Original lead singer, Ipswich resident and all round nice guy Dani Filth had a chat with me about the Oval Rock House, steam baths and writing comic books. Your mother wouldn’t like it.

You’re from Suffolk aren’t you Dani?

Yeah I’ve lived in Suffolk most of my life; I’ve orbited Ipswich by living in Woodbridge and Hadleigh and I actually live in Ipswich now. I used to go to Wraith at the Waterfront back in the day and also the Oval Rock House…we played some pretty good shows there, with bands like Paradise Lost. It was a shame that went. I had some flying lessons at Norwich Airport until they made it an international airport and on my fifth lesson I had to bring the plan down between two Boeings. Fuck that! I don’t support Ipswich; I want to make that clear from the off.

What was it that made you want to be in a band?

The idea of being a frontman appealed to me; I started a band when I was 13, and went through six or seven school bands which achieved varying success. We played at our Sixth Form prom, which didn’t go down too well! But it was serious for me from the age of 17. Everything was done by word of mouth, flyers, posters, tape trading because there was no Internet then of course.

Would you say metal is the hardest popular music to play, alongside classical? It’s so fast and complex.

Yeah I would definitely say that, especially with our band. We use a lot of orchestral sounds on our music; we worked with a hundred piece orchestra in Budapest. But yes it can be very technical; it’s about tempo and riffing and the atmosphere. Even mixing is hard as it’s quite frantic in places, so you don’t have the spaces you’d have if you were making a contemporary pop album, for example.

How do you maintain your incredible voice?

I see a doctor/throat manipulator in London three times a year; he does to my throat what a coach or physio would do to someone who had tennis elbow. It sounds really relaxing but it’s not, it’s horrible! It has prolonged my voice and smoothed it out and made it more controllable. Because I’ve been doing it for 20 years I know the parameters of my voice. I only warm up for 10 minutes before a show, and then I do regular steam baths and other tricks of the trade.

How much of metal is pure theatre?

For Cradle of Filth it’s part and parcel. We’re like an ideology I suppose; our fans very much get into everything to do with the band. Obviously the music is of paramount importance but there’s also the lyricism, the subject matter, the videos, the merchandise. The metal fraternity have a very close relationship with their peers.

Speaking of merchandise I have to ask about your infamous t-shirt of a nun masturbating which reads Jesus Is A C*nt. I know people have been arrested for wearing it! Is that t-shirt still available?

That t-shirt has appeared in the weirdest of places, on Paris catwalks, Ben from Curiosity Killed The Cat wore it in Edinburgh years ago..and in May this year it was part of a contemporary art exhibition about  in New Zealand. There was an adult only section and that’s where it was being exhibited. Some woman decided to spray paint all over it which caused a bit of an uproar. And because of that loads of people took more notice of it than they would have done otherwise! Somebody’s been arrested for wearing it in Texas, our drummer got arrested at Dover, this guy Rob got beaten up by police in London for it. It started as a kind of apathetic, anarchic joke 22 years ago in someone’s back garden and it worked very well with our ideology, so it’s strange that it now has so much impact now!

You’ve clearly been influenced by all the research you’ve done on the history and literature of the Dark Arts. Have you had fans tell you that you’ve introduced them to knowledge that they might not have otherwise gotten into?

Yeah, all the time! The strangest stories…people who have become palaeontologists, or historians and have done amazing things with their lives as they’ve been inspired by our lyrics and the references in the music. People have even visited Suffolk from America to explore the things we’ve introduced in our songs! It’s kind of bizarre but good. And parents, as well, have thanked us for steering their children in the right direction and most of starts off with “they started listening to raucous music and wearing back and we thought it was all going tits up but then they’ve got interested in lots of different things’.

Your crowd funded comic book The Curse of Venus Aversa, a tale of Victorian England, came out last year; is writing something you’d like to do more of?

I would like to but just don’t have the time. I have two bands, and it’s a lot of day to day running of things. We’re going into a world tour soon including Russia and New Zealand, and then we’ll be back onto summer festivals again. It’s a bit like spinning plates. We did a book called The Gospel of Filth, a huge encyclopedia that I wrote with an occult historian with hundreds of contributors. I’ve been asked to write a horror movie script, and a TV programme as well. When I start latching onto something that I want to be great, I can’t be flippant with it. I think if I get too old and ridiculous to do this onstage, maybe then I’ll start thinking about doing some of these things.

Your latest album Hammer of the Witches is bloody great. What’s your favourite track on it?

I’d probably say Blackest Magick In Practice. There are three really corking tracks before it; melodic, symphonic, intricate, fast, and then suddenly there’s this track that’s very morose, or Edgar Allan Poe-esque. It’s got this melancholic riff in it and then it picks up in the middle. That’s definitely my favourite.

What other genres of music do you enjoy as well as metal??

I listen more to soundtracks than anything, especially when I’m working…and I work until 02:00 every morning. My wide usually goes to bed at 10:30 and I usually get up and work. If I’m writing I don’t like someone shouting down my ear. Soundtracks create the mood, they’re ambient. Ever since I heard Jeff Wayne’s The War of the World I’ve loved soundtracks. I also like stuff like The Prodigy, plus stuff that’s symphonic or ambient. My family has really eclectic tastes, so when we get together for BBQ’s and parties and stuff, the only thing we can agree we all like is shit 80’s music, cos everyone can relate to that.

What’s it like one minute being on stage with the make up and the skulls and the crucifixes and all that hardcore energy, and then to be home with your wife and your daughter and normality?

My wife makes a lot of my stage outfits! Everyone I live near knows who I am. People who come round to do painting or decorating, or the East Anglian Times came to view our house when we were selling it. They sort of let it slip that they knew who I was and it was a bit creepy. But it’s cool. My daughter’s just getting into entry-level heavy metal…not screamo…I don’t know what they call it to be fair. I think that’s about two years out of date, ha ha!

Cradle of Filth play at the Waterfront on 18th October. Tickets from ueaticketbookings.co.uk.