Cradle of Filth

Cruelty and the Beast (Mayhem)
An interview with Dani Filth
by Chris Best

Cradle of Filth is a band that deserves respect, even if you don’t like their music. Not many bands are efficient enough to record and release an album in less than four months and have it look and sound brilliant. Sure, there are some in the black metal community who feel that Cradle Of Filth sound too polished, that their art looks too perfect, but for once, a metal band can put a hot, naked woman on an album cover without it looking offensive or cheesy. If there’s such a thing as a thinking man’s black metal band, it is Cradle Of Filth. Their new album is titled Cruelty and the Beast (Mayhem).

I was going to start by talking to you about Jeffrey Burtron Russel’s books on the devil [a series of four books which showed the evolution of Christianity through the evolution of the idea of evil and its manifestations].
I haven’t read them.

So much for those questions…
As long as it’s not Anne Rice.

Wouldn’t dream of it… What were you into as a kid?
Well, at one point I was really into skateboarding until I had a bad accident. I smashed up me arm doing it. I was into heavy metal and Goth. I was the one always thought to be a little strange, had some friends into witchcraft. [Changes subject] I just moved into this old house, built in 1685. It has all these old beams and high ceilings, it’s really old.

I’m going to do some name association with you now, OK?
Yeah, sure.

OK, Aleister Crowley.
Madman or genius? I sort of lean towards genius. I’ve read a lot of his works, he was a complete genius. I think he went off his head at some point, but I think he was one of the truest English occultists that ever lived. People were genuinely scared of him, and he had a laugh at their expense. I mean, he had a laugh at a lot of other people’s expense.

Do you ever have a joke at other people’s expense, like with your fans or something?
Not in our music. We never lead anybody into a false sense of… like fans who are totally into the music and then turn around and say, “Ha Ha! It was all a great big joke!” But we do have a laugh at those we consider enemies. Record companies, always twisting them around, fucking them about, taking them to court, because they’re the real enemy if you think about it. Not just record companies, but wankers on the scene.

Like?
Well, I don’t want to name anyone, but there’re a lot of them. These people just set themselves up for a great big falling down. We don’t like being messed around by other bands, either.

Do you have problems with other bands? Do they give you shit?
Some people do, just talking up in interviews. When you get face to face, it’s all just been (journalists) messing with words. It’s too small a world. There is no opposite of laughter. It’s like Chaos – one of the primal things of life. Since it has no opposite, it sets itself up as something to really relish. Just one true thing. You know what I mean?

Yeah. OK, another name, Anton LaVey.
Now, I don’t know whether this is true or not, because so many people go underground from time to time; he is dead, is he not?

To my understanding he’s dead.
And he will stay dead?

I don’t know anything about that.
I take it Zena has taken over the Church?

You mean his daughter?
Yeah.

I guess so. I don’t know. She was hot! I would have become a Satanist if it meant I had a shot at getting with her.
Yeah. Then again, his was a kind of “armchair Satanic doctrine,” wasn’t it? It was the setting up of psychodramas. Of being comfortable, rather than the more European version of Satanism which tends to be a process of evolution – or rather, “EVILution” – through hard work and discipline. His was more contemporary, sitting back, relaxing, just being comfortable.

Corporate Satanism?
I would say that, but isn’t that the essence of Satanism? If Satan takes over the world, it’s going to be corporate, isn’t it? It’s not going to be individual, because that just wouldn’t work. I’ve got a lot of respect for what Anton LaVey did. He had a lot of bad shit talked about him in Europe by so-called occult groups, but no one touched him. He lead a life he deemed fit, and brought a lot of people to the better side of their nature.

King Diamond.
Well, that goes without saying, he’s an absolute god as well. I am a really, really big fan of King Diamond, and I think it was from hearing Don’t Break the Oath, which is one of my favorite King Diamond albums (Mercyful Fate, actually, but who’s gonna argue? – ed). If you don’t know that album you better check it out, because it’s timeless. It sounds like funeral music. Despite being quite heavy metal, it’s quite melodic in all the right places, and downright creepy. You could play that alongside Nosferatu and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and it would sit perfectly. I’ve been into his stuff since then, but I feel his new stuff has become quite trite. It’s a bit repetitive, and he’s lost some of his zeal for it, but when he was in his prime, he was one of the greatest Gothic/Horror entertainers.

Would you work with him, or produce him if you had the chance?
Fuck yeah, definitely.

Do you think you could update his sound any?
Well, yeah. I’m not a producer, but I could tell him where he’s going wrong. Well, but… No! No! That’s a horrible thing to say. I’ve just got my opinions and I’d like to work with him. He’s obviously more talented than I, but some of his ideas I’d beg to differ on. He’s a fuckin’ great bloke.

How about Marilyn Manson?
I’ve met him once and I thought he was a pretty decent chap. I mean, you get a lot of people talking shit about him because he’s in the limelight. He’s done a lot of good things, he’s brought the “freak” side of America back out again. That side of America that Iggy Pop and Alice Cooper let out. I thought Rob Zombie was going to go that way, but he held out. I think he’s a more focused, cards close to his chest kind of guy. Marilyn Manson is out to shock and good for him. He’s got the bravado to do it, and he’ll take the shit that comes with it. I’ve got nothing bad to say about him, except that maybe his stuff could be a little more metal.

Black metal has had an unfortunate relationship with the media, where the only things most people hear about are church burnings, right-wing politics, shotgunnings, and brain eating. How do you deal with being tied to that image?
Well, there was a French documentary that used clips of us live and talked about the rise of fascism in this sort of music. I was so horrified that we went to do a press trip there to let everyone know we have nothing to do with that. I really hate being painted with the same brush as the rest of those blokes. As to whether we’re “above” the regular black metal scene, if that scene is a quagmire of fascist ideals, than yes, I do consider ourselves above it all. Politics doesn’t come into our music. We’re misanthropic, if anything. We were asked recently in this BBC documentary, which was absolute fucking shit, about human sacrifice. I said that I believed in it, but that I felt the cutting of humans is more important than the cutting of animals. That’s way more misanthropic than fascist.