Below is the full Q&A with Dani Filth that provided the quotes for our feature story on Cradle of Filth; read that article here first.
Also, read the full Q&A with Frost from Satyricon, tourmates with Cradle of Filth.
» EXPRESS: Is this your biggest tour of America — and are you going to bring Edwina [Cradle of Filth’s giant stage-puppet, which is in the spirit of Iron Maiden’s Eddie].
» FILTH: Two years ago did a similar length tour. It’s on a pretty large scale. … [But] Edwina is having a hibernation period at the moment — i.e., she’s in a huge box in my parents’ house’s garage. Which my parents are very pleased about [laughs]. She’s being repaired, getting some rest. It takes two performers to work her, [but the] bus only holds 12, so we’re not getting everything in like the European audiences do.
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» EXPRESS: I love the voiceovers on your albums because the add to the aura of evil. To American ears, aristocratic English voices and those of small English children often sound evil — like with Damien in “The Omen” and all those devil-fueled Hammer House of Horror movies.
» FILTH: English are often typecast [as evil] — like Alan Rickman as the Sheriff of Nottingham in “Robin Hood” [1991] and even the Death Star people [in Star Wars] are played by loads of English actors, like Peter Cushing. That’s my daughter [as the Child Victim on the CD]. And the male narrator is Doug Bradley, who played Pinhead in the Hellraiser series. It’s slightly out of context being in English, since the narrator is supposed to be French, be we thought it would be too hammy.
» EXPRESS: How did the concept for “God Speed on the Devil’s Thunder” come about?
» FILTH: We just got off the Viva La Bam tour, and we had about six weeks before we all went our different ways for Christmas. And by that point, we had written the skeleton structures for about half of the album, maybe a bit more, and at that point the atmosphere and the time of the year in which we were writing and the aggressiveness, it pointed back to an earlier incarnation of Cradle of Filth. With that in mind, I revisited some of my old lyric books and stumbled over some of the work I had done on Gilles de Rais in the past. And I coupled that with approaching the co-author of my book, “The Gospel of Filth,” which is coming out at Easter, who had done some research and written about Gilles de Rais, so he was able to point me in the direction of some good books and some books to avoid. I basically spent the next two months immersed in penning a dark fairytale around his crimes and going back as far as the catalyst for his detour from God, as it were, and expanded the story to his death as well.
» EXPRESS: What is your favorite concept record?
» FILTH: My favorite album of all time is Jeff Wayne’s “War of the Worlds,” based on H.G. Wells’ novel about aliens invading the Earth in Victorian England — huge tripods that trample across England, destroying everything. It’s a ’70s-based thing, but it’s currently being revisited and the show is playing big places in England. And I auditioned for the part of the Artilleryman, but unfortunately the American tour came in between the possibility to do that. But the original [1978] had Richard Burton on it, Justin Hayward of the Moody Blues, Phil Lynott from Thin Lizzy, amidst many other people. That’s my favorite soundtrack or concept record.
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As for most concept records are a bit hokey, and they claim to be concepts, but they’re all a bit confusing. But King Diamond — I love King Diamond, and there’s loads of material there: “Abigail,” “Conspiracy,” The Eye, things like that. What I like about us doing concept records is that it becomes more involving, from the artwork to the videos to the lyrics — it’s a little bit more in depth if people want to scratch beneath the surface of the music and it becomes all encapsulating.
» EXPRESS: It makes sense that you’d want to get into movies or acting; the theatrically is one of the best parts of Cradle of Filth.
» FILTH: Theatrically hasn’t overwritten any other sensibilities, it’s just that we try to pursue every facet of our art. We try to give 100 percent to lyricism, the artwork, videos. There’s only about 8 or 9 strings that bands can actually pull, so we try to pull all of them to the best of our abilities.
» EXPRESS: Have you always been interested in the dark side?
» FILTH: I grew up in an area — well, I still live in the area known as the Witch County — but I used to live in old village, and one of the old houses we used to live in was where where Matthew Hopkins, the Witchfinder General, actually stayed. And my father was into Dennis Wheatley novels, and that transgressed into staying up to watch Hammer House of Horror, and the Amicus films, and Universal films, which they put on every Thursday, and it just progressed from there on in. But I was a normal teenager: smoking, drinking, womanizing. But I managed to keep a healthy balance between being a naughty boy and getting my math work done.
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» EXPRESS: How did having a daughter change you as an artist?
» FILTH: It’s enabled me to keep my eye on the ball a bit more. And it’s a great time for her; she gets to meet a lot of people in the industry. Recently she go to meet Avril Lavigne. So she’s sort of like a heroine in her school, even though she’s only 10. … The majority of my friends have normal 9-to-5s — librarians, computer technicians, IT — so for them it’s quite exciting. Bu tit’s also quite normal now, because they’ve been around it. Obviously, we’ve got a quite successful band, which I suppose sways people.
» EXPRESS: Did you grow up in a religious household?
» FILTH: No, although my mother tired to get me confirmed, and went to a Church of England school, and got christened, etc. But religion wasn’t a big thing; my parents were down to earth. My grandma is a very devout Christian, but she kind of has this blind spot when it comes to us. We can’t do anything wrong, despite obvious flaws like the “Jesus Is a Cunt” shirt. I’m sure she heard of it; she’s not stupid. She’s all seeing, my grandmother.
» EXPRESS: So, your parents like Cradle of Filth?
» FILTH: They love it. My mother like some of my leather costumes, my mother and father — though they’re separated — always come to out shows, always bringing the tour merchandise back and stuff. Like I said, Edwina is in my mother’s garage, taking all the room up. I think they’re very proud of it. It’s not their cup of tea — my dad’s into ’60s and ’70s music and reggae, and he was a music collector, but each to his own.
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» EXPRESS: Back to “Godspeed”: Do you really believe Gilles de Rais was actually in touch with the devil?
» FILTH: I certainly do. Trial transcripts support that theory. He was kind of an entrepreneur and playboy of his time, and after Joan’s death he felt like he had gone as close to God as he could go, and he venerated her by taking a massive tour production around a lot of France, paying for the food and drink and hospitality for the whole township. And he had a sort of military escort of up to 1,00 people, sort of like a mini army. And after being basically the richest man in Western Europe at the time, his fortunes decreased rather rapidly. He was conned by beautiful alchemists, who kind of fleeced him really. Then he sought the philosopher’s stone to try and replenish his coffers by the transmutation of base metals into gold, and through that he started trafficking in demons. And being a war hero — and the brutality and nature of war at the time — led him to his second deviancy, to reinterpret some of the salacious rites, and all sorts of horrors went on. But he was far removed, he was above the law. At one point, he was very close to God.
» EXPRESS: So, you think he was very conscious of his decisions as opposed to being purely insane?
» FILTH: Yes, he knew what he was doing. At that time, alchemy and sorcery were the closest things to scientist. He was a bit of Frankenstein character as well.
» EXPRESS: Are you religious in any way?
» FILTH: I take bits from all kinds of things. I’ve been out to India a lot of times, and I’ve seen a lot of things, and practiced a lot of things. I take tidbits from everything; a composite religion, really. Each to their own beliefs. I don’t adhere to any one belief system. I collect antiquities, so my house is full of religious and demonic kinds of things, like masks, voodoo stuff, Egyptian artifacts, Hindu artists, statues of Kali, busts of Nefertiti, and people like that. A bit of everything.
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» EXPRESS: Tell me about your forthcoming book.
» FILTH: “The Gospel of Filth” is more of a foray into the darkside. It’s about horror movies, childhood nightmares, esoteric England, Satanism, witchcraft, femme fatales. And it’s all corroborated and substantiated — verified almost, validated. There are contributions of hundreds of different people, like [horror film director] Dario Argento, Clive Barker, Doug Bradley, [horror actress] Ingrid Pitt, Christopher Lee, Ville Valo [HIM], Tom Araya [Slayer], Marilyn Manson, Charlie Manson, [serial killer] Richard Ramierz. It uses Cradle of Filth, with each of our albums as a springboard to discuss other topics. And it was co-written with an occult historian, so what it’s come out as is a dark arts bible, which is why it’s taken four years to reach completion”
» EXPRESS: SInce you engage in the dark arts, do you ever worry about demonic possession?
» FILTH: I do and I don’t. On one hand, a lot of people believe in protection, and other people believe in just absorbing everything and allowing life to take its course. I have a lot of things in my house that are quite questionable — like serial killer art, which was bought quite a long time ago. But my house is a very homey place, filled with antiquities and stuff like that. My wife doesn’t work, so it’s a nice house that she looks after, and people say they feel comfortable there despite some of the things I have.
» EXPRESS: Thanks for your time. Take care.
» FILTH: Cheerio, bye!
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