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Hours before they were set to play thier set at the Saint Petersburg, Florida stop of the Viva La Bands tour, I got to sit down with the guitarist of Cradle or Filth, Paul Allender. Due to the fact that Paul is also a fantastic artist, the last few questions are all regarding his visual art. Interview written, conducted and transcribed by j. ward [COMA] Why did you guys leave Sony for RoadRunner?
[Paul Allender] Cause Sony was shit. They never had a say in our music but they just didn't know how to work the band. It's just one of those things, we just wanted to give it a go and see what happened and they just didn't have a clue. We lost markets in Spain and throughout Europe, We lost markets all over the place. The band started going down hill so we were like, "Fuck this, we're getting off." And that was it, we refused to sign a second contract and they said, "Fair enough. We haven't go a clue who you are what you're about. Just go." So we did and ended up with RoadRunner. [COMA] How's that working out? [Paul Allender] It's brilliant. [COMA] When you were on Sony you were able to employ the Budapest film orchestra and choir; is that something you would like to do again? [Paul Allender] Yeah, but to be honest, the samples coming out now for midi and stuff is just phenomenal. A lot of film score producers and people that write film scores have stopped using full orchestras now and they have just gone to some of these samples. The samples are just-- you can't tell the difference. All you've got to do is know how to work midi and know how to envelope things and make sure they blend in properly. Once you know that, it's hard to tell the difference. It was good, just for the experience, but at the end of the day you might as well spend like a quarter of that money and get some decent samples and you can't tell the difference. [COMA] Throughout the years you've made quite a few elaborate music videos regardless of what label you've been on; have you been able to finance them due to your popularity and ability to sell albums? [Paul Allender] To be honest, I haven't got a clue. I don't know, we just do the music bits. We just got producers come up to us, directors and they say, "We want to do this video for you." or we'll look for someone and someone 9 times out of 10 it's always the same old stuff tho, that they first come up with; blood, gore, fucking pentagrams, inverted crosses, all that cheesy crap. It's like, "No, you don't really know what the bands about. It's not about that at all." And then we, as a band, end up rewriting everything, everyone want to go this way. And thats what usually happens.
[Paul Allender] Hopefully. There's talk about me doing the next one because, to be honest, whenever we do vids we always end up going to wherever the producer is doing it or the director's doing it and sitting down with him because 9 times out of 10 they really don't understand what the bands about, like I said before. After the last one I said to everyone, cause I ended up editing it again and I said, "Why bother getting everybody involved, why don't we do it ourselves next time?" So I think thats what we're going to do. [COMA] Everybody has this image of Cradle of Filth being this evil band, is anyone in the band Satanic or even Pagan? [Paul Allender] (laughing) No. The only sort of Satanic thing we go by is live for your self and do what the fuck you want. It's just general life. I must admit beforehand we were into that sort of stuff when we first started, it's serious to us but you can't take it that fucking seriously to be honest. You know like trying to preach to everybody, "You've got to worship the Devil." or some crap. And then at the end of the day, we're all speedingly approaching our 30s. [COMA] The puppets in the video for Mannequin, they remind me of George Higham's Annabelle Lee video but it's not actually his work is it? [Paul Allender] No but I'm trying to think of the woman that made the puppets. To be honest I've not seen that video, has it got puppets the same as what we've got? [COMA] It does. [Paul Allender] That's funny cause that rings a bell cause I think the woman that made the puppets has done his as well. But I'm not too sure on that. [COMA] That would explain it cause the Poe-looking figure in your video is very similar. [Paul Allender] I think it's the same woman. [COMA] Do you feel like Cradle of filth is Dani's solo project like former band members have said?
[Paul Allender] You wouldn't believe how many times I've heard this. No, not at all. I'll tell you exactly what happens, we all write the music and Dan writes the lyrics. Dan has no say in the music at all whatsoever. It's just like that, he's good at doing the lyrics but he's not good at doing the music and we're crap at doing lyrics but we're competent at writing music. So that's the working relationship and it works well but his solo project, no.
[COMA] I've just read that there's been some past members that have felt like that. [Paul Allender] I may have well been like that when those members were in the band but it's not been like that since I've been back in the band. [COMA] You guys toured the U.K. with Hanzel und Gretyl, did you enjoy touring with them? [Paul Allender] Yeah, I really like Hanzel und Gretyl. What's the guitar players name? [COMA] Loopy. [Paul Allender] Loopy, have you heard of Special Brew? [COMA] No. [Paul Allender] It's like 10% alcohol volume beer and we told him it's basically fighting juice, which it is. It just sends you nuts but he didn' t believe us so we bought him a case of Special Brew for the last show and he only managed two of them and he just completely fell to bits on stage. He picked his guitar up, smashed it up, crowd surfed with his guitar in bits half way through the set and because some of their stuffs on backing tracks, the kids are looking and guitars still coming out but one bit's gone this way, another bit's gone that way and Loopy's gone that way across the crowd. Then he gets up walks back around on to the stage and just falls flat on his back. That's half way through the gig on our last show. [COMA] How did he manage the rest of the show? [Paul Allender] He didn't basically, that's what Special Brew does to you. We told him but he didn't believe us. [COMA] I read in an interview with Sarah that said before a show you all touch each others genitals, any truth in that? [Paul Allender] No. [COMA] I didn't think so. [Paul Allender] No, no, no.
[COMA] Why did you leave Cradle in '96?
[Paul Allender] I wanted to do something different. I didn't agree with some of the politics going on in the band, too many egos floating around for my liking so I said, "Fuck it." and just left. I started The Blood Divine and then Primary Slave then four or five whatever it was years later Dani phoned up and asked me to come back. [COMA] Speaking of The Blood Divine, you were one of the founding members but you were the first to leave. [Paul Allender] Yeah cause the second album was shit. The first album was really good, it was on a really good roll and Darren, the singer, he's brilliant at doing metal vocals but he tried to sing and he can't sing. I've got two things I absolutely hate in music, singers that think they can sing when they really can't and fucking Hammond organ. I hate Hammond organ with a vengeance and what happened on the second album? a) he tried to sing and b) there was fucking Hammond organ all over it. So I said, "That's it, see you later." [COMA] Now lets move on to your artwork. "Chaos", "Chaos Reborn" and "The Northern Gate" all appear to be hand drawn are they? [Paul Allender] Yeah. [COMA] I saw that "Chaos" was part of Necronomicon project, is H.P. Lovecraft and inspiration to you? [Paul Allender] I'm interested by it but I wouldn't say it's an inspiration. I like the whole chaos Cthulhu type subject. I'm planning on doing at least 12 pictures in the series of the whole Necronomicon thing but I don't know whether to carry on with the pencil drawing or turn it more into the Vomitorium stuff, the newer stuff that's coming out. I don't know yet. Either way it's going to be pretty cool. [COMA] "Chaos" is my favorite piece of your art you have on the website, do you do alot of hand drawing or is it more towards the digital stuff these days? [Paul Allender] That was actually hand drawn in Photoshop with a tab pencil, you know a graphics tab(let). I don't really do much hand drawing and such, it's all digital. Pretty much it's 3D or if I need props for images I would build them in 3D and texture them in Photoshop. But most of it is digital. [COMA] This will be the last question. Your picture "Nightmare", I looked at it and before I even read anything about it I just thought Silent Hill so I just wanted you to know you did a good job representing that.
[COMA] Well that will do it, thank you for the interview. [Paul Allender] Awesome, thank you very much man. Cradle of Filth's newest studio album "Thornography" and new live album "Eleven Burial Masses" are both out now.
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[COMA] So far you have made three videos for tracks on "Thornography"; now that you are with Roadrunner are you still planning on making as many videos as you did before?
[Paul Allender] Yeah, I got inspiration after watching the film 40 times. The bit where she's trying to get away from the cop and she crashes and she goes to try to find her daughter. She walks down the stairs and that weird sound comes and it all goes black, that's where thought, "That's brilliant." So that's where the idea from the picture came up and the woman, this is exactly the same woman but I wanted to do it in three stages of changing, as she's going down, you notice in the picture, the further you get to the bottom of the stairs the more bloody it is.
