Cradle of Filth
Straightforward & honest Paul Allender
Interview enough musicians and you get to hear your fair share of waffling. Waffling, with regards to musicians being interviewed, is the practice of skillfully avoiding a question until it goes away.
With metal bands, this is never an issue. Ask someone who plays in a metal band anything and you’ll get an answer.
Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine once told me that he doesn’t sing songs about anarchy anymore because he believes it’d be “pompous [to pretend] I'm an anarchist when I've got a f----n’ Mercedes in my driveway.”
Cradle of Filth’s Paul Allender is cut from the same cloth.
Asked if the age-old argument as to whether the Filth are a black metal band or not is something that he devotes thought to, he replies, “I don’t give a flying s--- what people call us. In the end of the day we’re a metal band with no frilly tags.”
In an age where bands’ messages are crafted by top-dollar PR agencies and even the historically seedy metal scene is a sanitized, hard plastic Disneyworld version of itself, Allender’s words are more than welcome. They’re necessary.
Explaining why metal bands are just more straightforward and honest with both writers and fans, than, say, musicians from other scenes, Allender pulls no punches.
“Most indie bands’ heads are stuck so far up their arses that they don’t know what it’s like to ‘pay your dues’ if you know what I mean,” he says. “Most of these are pampered bands and have no real experience with life on the road. [They jump] straight onto a tour bus instead of spending years in a van.
“Most metal bands have done this which makes them respect and be thankful for what they have done and achieved.”
In its twenty years of existence, Cradle of Filth has certainly achieved, and I’m not referring to getting arrested at the Vatican (though I’m surely not omitting this as a certain kind of achievement). By any metric, they have to be considered one of the most successful and influential British metal bands in history.
Their last two records, 2008’s Godspeed on the Devil’s Thunder and 2010’s Darkly, Darkly, Venus Aversa have continued their legacy of quality. Of the two, Godspeed is particularly brilliant, a concept album about the murderous Gilles de Rais, a contemporary of Joan of Arc.
All of which suggests that Cradle of Filth isn’t thinking about retiring anytime soon.
“Metal is in my blood,” Allender says. “It’s who I am as a man, I live and breathe the music. The only time when I hang up my guitar and stop playing is when I’m six feet under and being eaten by worms.”
Cradle of Filth plays @ Metropolis w/ Satyricon + Septicflesh on February 27th.
Paul Allender
Cradle of Filth
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