Post by AndyLaRocque on Jun 25, 2005 12:47:25 GMT -5
Cradle Of Filth - Black Country - Metal Hammer - July 2005
It's a typically miserable March morning in Wolverhampton, fine drizzle seeps out of the grey as we approach the Wulfrun Hall stage door to meet the UK's (if not the world's) most famous black metal band. With a commendably protestant work ethic for ones so Satanic, this tour kicked off last September and is only now three shows from completion. The girl from Roadrunner Records is bounching out to meet us, but something is amiss - rows of scooters crowd the huge, battered blue doors that swing open to reveal hellish soundcheck in action. It...it...sounds like, urrgghh...The Beatles. What in damnation's name is going on? A rippling wall of spam with eyes and security t-shirt, growls: "Are you here for Ocean Colour Scene?" Thank fuck. We're at the wrong venue.
Cradle, it turns out, are playing the sister hall next door and, as we turn the corner, we see a phalanx of death-black buses, one of which has a six-foot latex gargoyle costume with wings hanging up in the window and gloomy classical music drifting out of it. Some vod with a tennis-ball sized hole in his ear and a Sepultura t-shirt roars at others loading in speakers and guitars. This is more like it.
When we meet Dani Filth he is urbane and charming - in another 12 years he'll make a fair David Niven in leather trousers. We ask him how the Nymphetamine tour is going and how much they are all looking forward to knocking it on the head.
"When we finish in London on Saturday night we're having Sunday off and then we're starting on the next record," he says. He looks like he isn't joking. But, then again, Cradle Of Filth are a well-oiled machine, albeit a dark and evil machine forged deep in the cancerous heart of some nameless foreign volcano.
Dani is a little nervous tonight, because his long-term girlfriend is comng to watch the show and he hopes he doesn't mess up. But he's garnered a few trade secrets on the road to Sodom that should keep his Mephisto growl sweet, night after night.
"Just don't go out and get absolutely leathered the night before," he says with a fairly clear indication that he went out and got absolutely leathered the night before. "Really just don't smoke. And then there are the details you just wouldn't think about like avoiding air conditioning and badly ventilated buses. We used to be really obsessive about drinking red wine but then we found out it dries your voice out, so now we just drink white wine instead."
It was after a couple of white wine, or something, a day or two later that Hammer is quizzing Dani about his connections with various back-in-the-day olc school Scando black metallers that we, naturally get onto the subject of mayhem which leads to the following exchange, which - given the contentious legal nature of it, we've reprinted verbatim:
Hammer: "Did you feel like you should have put a lot of distance between yourselves and bands like Mayhem?"
Dani: "No not at all. I wrote to Euronymous a couple of times and some other guy. I can't remember his name. Let's call him Anonymous. (groans) Sorry. We had connections with Emperor, Burzum, Mayhem, Disection. I do remember one night, and I don't know if I'm still liable for prosecution for saying this, you know, for withholding information from the police, but it was about the thing with Faust. He did admit - everybody was drunk - we were having a party round at Darren from Anathema's. We were in Liverpool and he offered to put us all up at his parent's huse and shortly before he [Faust] fell asleep and we drew all over him he said, 'Oh, I've just stabbed this gay person in a park'."
Hammer: "fucking hell."
Dani: "And it's like...'Riiiiight. Fair enough'. (puts on Faust's voice again) 'Yeah, I feel quite bad about it actually. Blah, blah, blah'. I wouldn't actually put all this in because it might actually be liable for prosecution. Maybe just say he said something about the murder. When you're pissed and that and he's pissed you just think, 'Oh fuck off! Just shut up!' But I can't remember how many months later and you read about the murder and you go (adopts shocked voice), 'Oh fuck!' (laughs) It wasn't a planned...nobody looks back and sees it as a satanic plan. I think they were just kids who got caught up in all the excitement and stuff. They went that little bit too far."
Hammer: "Too far? You mean killing people?"
Dani: "Yeah, obviously. But they're all out now. If it hadn't been us in England (which it wouldn't have been obviously) we'd still be in jail for it. We were caught up in it but I like to think we had the intelligence to think: 'Err, nope. It's a bit...silly."
Hammer (incredulous): "Silly? I'm of the opinion that murdering gay people is a bit more than...silly. I've got a few harsher words for it."
Dani: "I think his excuse was that the guy was coming on to him."
Hammer: "Again, it's not much of an excuse is it really?"
Dani: "Not really."
Hammer: "Just say no. He could have just said no thanks, not really my cup of tea and got on with his day. There's no need to kill someone. (Getting angry) Or maybe there is and it's just me who's stupid."
Dani: "No, I agree with you but people try and make out that all these murders were some kind of Satanic plan and..."
Hammer: "And you just think it was youthful idiocy?"
Dani: "Yes. Like glue sniffing."
Hammer: (Lost for words) "Let's move on shall we?"
Of course Dani Filth hasn't covered anything up, he genuinely believed Faust was talking rubbish because he was drunk but, and it's a big but...we are of the opinion, that when a disturbed fascist beats a man to death in a park because of his sexual orientation, it's a little bit more than high-jinx.
Later in the day, the main shopping centre in Wolves is resembling a mall in a zomblie flick as hordes of kids in black lipstick, dog collars, mesh blouses and leather skirts (and that's just the boys) prowl toward the local branch of MVC for a signing. The staff, and the one or two 'normal' shoppers left, look genuinely worried at the approaching death march. CD's get signed and afterwards the band traipse around quoting lines from their favourite film, Scum and pick up CDs to listen to on the bus.
The turn out is sizeable and dedicated, and the band savour the tales about the loyalty of their followers. "There was the amputee who used to come to our gigs and gave us his prosthetic leg," says Martin. "Yeah, there was this guy hopping along at a signing in Australia and he gave us his fake leg to sign. Later on at the gig he was waving it over his head and it came flying up on stage. I think he must have got carried away and thought, 'fuck it'. Wave your leg in the air like you just don't care."
Tonight's gig is nothing short of awesome. Even though Cot Of shite can easily fill venues three times the size of this on the continent, the show is eye wateringly energetic. Sure, you will be able to watch Marilyn Manson when he comes over to play Reading this summer but will you be able to stand so close that you'll be able to see the greens of his eyes? Didn't think so. During breathless and coruscating newbies ('Gilded cunt') and churning standards ('From The Cradle To Enslave') the set is bolstered by the appearance of living gargoyles, armour-plated dancers angle grinding their crotches and a 12' tall puppet called Eddie. ("It's short for Edwina!" adds Martin, the affable keyboardist after the gig.)
The receuved wisdom after all this time is that Cradle Of Filth are not a party band any more. Their record label tll you this, punters tell you this and rock journalists tell you this. And like all wisdom, it's a crock of shit. As soon as they are off stage a seemingly never ending supply of Red Stripe lager starts pouring from the dressing room fridge. Paul Allender, the teetotal guitarist and second longest serving member of the group, only hangs around long enough to get Metal Hammer as stoned as a bat before disappearing off to smoke weed with support act Mendeed through something terrifying called an Atomiser. Martin sticks around to punish his liver and rack out a few drinking tales: "It was the last gig of our American tour in 2003 and Dan couldn't be arsed to take his boots home because they stank so much, so he set fire to them on a petrol station forecourt. I was stood next to them pretending that my feet were on fire going 'Wahey! Look! I'm on fire! Take a photo'. Of course by the time they came back with a camera, I was on fire. It hurt a lot. I spent a few weeks in hospital on a drip having skin grafts." Consequently, spirits are now banned on tour.
The last thing Hammer remembers that night is Martin doing a worryingly adept pole dance in an 80s theme bar before vomiting all over Charles at 3am. No, they ain't no party band no more.
Next day Manchester. It's raining and a cleaner is clearing up the remains of the smashed fridge. Beers are open and corpse paint is going on thick. So Hammer hits them with the the Bolder theory. It goes like this: When you look at an old photo of The Spider From Mars, Bowie looks amazing, Mick Ronson looks pretty good and Woody Woodmansey looks quite cool but Trevor Bolder looks like a nightclub in epileptic eyeliner and his wife's dress. Who is the Bolder of the group? They all crack up laughing and chirp in unison: "Charles!" James adds: "It's always the newest guy who is worst at applying corpse paint and, yes, in this case it's Charles. But he's starting to learn the blending technique. You have to blend so you avoid the panda-eye look."
"It's one thing looking like a tit on stage but walking round town? No." says Martin. "I feel sorry for the fans to be honest. The grief they must get."
As the bus speeds towards the last night of the tour in London, a good-natured debate over the merits of Cradle's cover of Cliff Richard's 'Devil Woman' descends into thoughts of a remake of Cliff's 'Wired For Sound' complete with Satanic 70s roller disco!
James warms to theme: "Brilliant we could do something similar with Scum." The band seem taken with the concept.
"Scum: the musical. On rollerskates," suggests Charles.
With that everyone breaks into operatic singing: "I'm the daddy now!", "Where's your fucking tool?" And, most upsettingly "Take him to the greenhouse, greenhouse, greenhouse!"
It's a typically miserable March morning in Wolverhampton, fine drizzle seeps out of the grey as we approach the Wulfrun Hall stage door to meet the UK's (if not the world's) most famous black metal band. With a commendably protestant work ethic for ones so Satanic, this tour kicked off last September and is only now three shows from completion. The girl from Roadrunner Records is bounching out to meet us, but something is amiss - rows of scooters crowd the huge, battered blue doors that swing open to reveal hellish soundcheck in action. It...it...sounds like, urrgghh...The Beatles. What in damnation's name is going on? A rippling wall of spam with eyes and security t-shirt, growls: "Are you here for Ocean Colour Scene?" Thank fuck. We're at the wrong venue.
Cradle, it turns out, are playing the sister hall next door and, as we turn the corner, we see a phalanx of death-black buses, one of which has a six-foot latex gargoyle costume with wings hanging up in the window and gloomy classical music drifting out of it. Some vod with a tennis-ball sized hole in his ear and a Sepultura t-shirt roars at others loading in speakers and guitars. This is more like it.
When we meet Dani Filth he is urbane and charming - in another 12 years he'll make a fair David Niven in leather trousers. We ask him how the Nymphetamine tour is going and how much they are all looking forward to knocking it on the head.
"When we finish in London on Saturday night we're having Sunday off and then we're starting on the next record," he says. He looks like he isn't joking. But, then again, Cradle Of Filth are a well-oiled machine, albeit a dark and evil machine forged deep in the cancerous heart of some nameless foreign volcano.
Dani is a little nervous tonight, because his long-term girlfriend is comng to watch the show and he hopes he doesn't mess up. But he's garnered a few trade secrets on the road to Sodom that should keep his Mephisto growl sweet, night after night.
"Just don't go out and get absolutely leathered the night before," he says with a fairly clear indication that he went out and got absolutely leathered the night before. "Really just don't smoke. And then there are the details you just wouldn't think about like avoiding air conditioning and badly ventilated buses. We used to be really obsessive about drinking red wine but then we found out it dries your voice out, so now we just drink white wine instead."
It was after a couple of white wine, or something, a day or two later that Hammer is quizzing Dani about his connections with various back-in-the-day olc school Scando black metallers that we, naturally get onto the subject of mayhem which leads to the following exchange, which - given the contentious legal nature of it, we've reprinted verbatim:
Hammer: "Did you feel like you should have put a lot of distance between yourselves and bands like Mayhem?"
Dani: "No not at all. I wrote to Euronymous a couple of times and some other guy. I can't remember his name. Let's call him Anonymous. (groans) Sorry. We had connections with Emperor, Burzum, Mayhem, Disection. I do remember one night, and I don't know if I'm still liable for prosecution for saying this, you know, for withholding information from the police, but it was about the thing with Faust. He did admit - everybody was drunk - we were having a party round at Darren from Anathema's. We were in Liverpool and he offered to put us all up at his parent's huse and shortly before he [Faust] fell asleep and we drew all over him he said, 'Oh, I've just stabbed this gay person in a park'."
Hammer: "fucking hell."
Dani: "And it's like...'Riiiiight. Fair enough'. (puts on Faust's voice again) 'Yeah, I feel quite bad about it actually. Blah, blah, blah'. I wouldn't actually put all this in because it might actually be liable for prosecution. Maybe just say he said something about the murder. When you're pissed and that and he's pissed you just think, 'Oh fuck off! Just shut up!' But I can't remember how many months later and you read about the murder and you go (adopts shocked voice), 'Oh fuck!' (laughs) It wasn't a planned...nobody looks back and sees it as a satanic plan. I think they were just kids who got caught up in all the excitement and stuff. They went that little bit too far."
Hammer: "Too far? You mean killing people?"
Dani: "Yeah, obviously. But they're all out now. If it hadn't been us in England (which it wouldn't have been obviously) we'd still be in jail for it. We were caught up in it but I like to think we had the intelligence to think: 'Err, nope. It's a bit...silly."
Hammer (incredulous): "Silly? I'm of the opinion that murdering gay people is a bit more than...silly. I've got a few harsher words for it."
Dani: "I think his excuse was that the guy was coming on to him."
Hammer: "Again, it's not much of an excuse is it really?"
Dani: "Not really."
Hammer: "Just say no. He could have just said no thanks, not really my cup of tea and got on with his day. There's no need to kill someone. (Getting angry) Or maybe there is and it's just me who's stupid."
Dani: "No, I agree with you but people try and make out that all these murders were some kind of Satanic plan and..."
Hammer: "And you just think it was youthful idiocy?"
Dani: "Yes. Like glue sniffing."
Hammer: (Lost for words) "Let's move on shall we?"
Of course Dani Filth hasn't covered anything up, he genuinely believed Faust was talking rubbish because he was drunk but, and it's a big but...we are of the opinion, that when a disturbed fascist beats a man to death in a park because of his sexual orientation, it's a little bit more than high-jinx.
Later in the day, the main shopping centre in Wolves is resembling a mall in a zomblie flick as hordes of kids in black lipstick, dog collars, mesh blouses and leather skirts (and that's just the boys) prowl toward the local branch of MVC for a signing. The staff, and the one or two 'normal' shoppers left, look genuinely worried at the approaching death march. CD's get signed and afterwards the band traipse around quoting lines from their favourite film, Scum and pick up CDs to listen to on the bus.
The turn out is sizeable and dedicated, and the band savour the tales about the loyalty of their followers. "There was the amputee who used to come to our gigs and gave us his prosthetic leg," says Martin. "Yeah, there was this guy hopping along at a signing in Australia and he gave us his fake leg to sign. Later on at the gig he was waving it over his head and it came flying up on stage. I think he must have got carried away and thought, 'fuck it'. Wave your leg in the air like you just don't care."
Tonight's gig is nothing short of awesome. Even though Cot Of shite can easily fill venues three times the size of this on the continent, the show is eye wateringly energetic. Sure, you will be able to watch Marilyn Manson when he comes over to play Reading this summer but will you be able to stand so close that you'll be able to see the greens of his eyes? Didn't think so. During breathless and coruscating newbies ('Gilded cunt') and churning standards ('From The Cradle To Enslave') the set is bolstered by the appearance of living gargoyles, armour-plated dancers angle grinding their crotches and a 12' tall puppet called Eddie. ("It's short for Edwina!" adds Martin, the affable keyboardist after the gig.)
The receuved wisdom after all this time is that Cradle Of Filth are not a party band any more. Their record label tll you this, punters tell you this and rock journalists tell you this. And like all wisdom, it's a crock of shit. As soon as they are off stage a seemingly never ending supply of Red Stripe lager starts pouring from the dressing room fridge. Paul Allender, the teetotal guitarist and second longest serving member of the group, only hangs around long enough to get Metal Hammer as stoned as a bat before disappearing off to smoke weed with support act Mendeed through something terrifying called an Atomiser. Martin sticks around to punish his liver and rack out a few drinking tales: "It was the last gig of our American tour in 2003 and Dan couldn't be arsed to take his boots home because they stank so much, so he set fire to them on a petrol station forecourt. I was stood next to them pretending that my feet were on fire going 'Wahey! Look! I'm on fire! Take a photo'. Of course by the time they came back with a camera, I was on fire. It hurt a lot. I spent a few weeks in hospital on a drip having skin grafts." Consequently, spirits are now banned on tour.
The last thing Hammer remembers that night is Martin doing a worryingly adept pole dance in an 80s theme bar before vomiting all over Charles at 3am. No, they ain't no party band no more.
Next day Manchester. It's raining and a cleaner is clearing up the remains of the smashed fridge. Beers are open and corpse paint is going on thick. So Hammer hits them with the the Bolder theory. It goes like this: When you look at an old photo of The Spider From Mars, Bowie looks amazing, Mick Ronson looks pretty good and Woody Woodmansey looks quite cool but Trevor Bolder looks like a nightclub in epileptic eyeliner and his wife's dress. Who is the Bolder of the group? They all crack up laughing and chirp in unison: "Charles!" James adds: "It's always the newest guy who is worst at applying corpse paint and, yes, in this case it's Charles. But he's starting to learn the blending technique. You have to blend so you avoid the panda-eye look."
"It's one thing looking like a tit on stage but walking round town? No." says Martin. "I feel sorry for the fans to be honest. The grief they must get."
As the bus speeds towards the last night of the tour in London, a good-natured debate over the merits of Cradle's cover of Cliff Richard's 'Devil Woman' descends into thoughts of a remake of Cliff's 'Wired For Sound' complete with Satanic 70s roller disco!
James warms to theme: "Brilliant we could do something similar with Scum." The band seem taken with the concept.
"Scum: the musical. On rollerskates," suggests Charles.
With that everyone breaks into operatic singing: "I'm the daddy now!", "Where's your fucking tool?" And, most upsettingly "Take him to the greenhouse, greenhouse, greenhouse!"
