AARON STAINTHORPE Talks 'Heartbreaking' Dismissal From MY DYING BRIDE And Formation Of TOWARDS THE SINISTER

By David E. Gehlke

Unceremoniously dismissed in 2025 from the band he co-founded and fronted for 35 years, former MY DYING BRIDE singer Aaron Stainthorpe has returned with TOWARDS THE SINISTER, a new project featuring three of his ex-bandmates, Calvin Robertshaw (guitar),Ade Jackson (bass) and Rick Miah (drums). The new outfit also features second guitarist Chris Revett, keyboardist Mark Deeks and violinist Emma Allington, all with the intent of faithfully paying homage to MY DYING BRIDE's classic first four studio albums of utterly dark, dreary and miserable doom metal. The band's immediate plans include a handful of small warm-up gigs in their native England, accompanied by European festival slots by the time next summer comes around. And, according to Stainthorpe, new material isn't too far behind either.

To the heart of the matter: A Stainthorpe-less MY DYING BRIDE is a hard pill to swallow for many of the band's fans. The man's oftentimes poignant turns of phrase and uncanny vocal machinations of moans, growls and howls have made him one of the most distinguishable frontmen in doom metal. Stainthorpe is virtually irreplaceable, but long-simmering differences with co-founding guitarist Andrew Craighan contributed to his firing last year, leading to MY DYING BRIDE bringing aboard SWALLOW THE SUN frontman Mikko Kotamäki in his place. While the jury is still out on the reformatted MY DYING BRIDE, Stainthorpe appears to be quite keen to move forward with TOWARDS THE SINISTER. In this exclusive interview with BLABBERMOUTH.NET, Stainthorpe shared how TOWARDS THE SINISTER came together and dished on his painful split from MY DYING BRIDE.

Blabbermouth: What got the wheels in motion to form TOWARDS THE SINISTER? Did it start after you split from MY DYING BRIDE?

Aaron: "I've not seen Calvin, Rick or Ade for a decade. They don't live a million miles away. I ran into Calvin a couple of times at a festival in Scarborough up the northeast coast called Fortress Fest. I bumped into him a couple of times there, but that's really about it. It was only when, I think, MY DYING BRIDE issued this statement 'firing' me that these guys came out of the shadows with loads of support, which was wonderful. It was great to hear from them. They suggested, 'Let's get together for a drink for old times' sake.' We met in a pub. Martin [Powell], our old violin player, tagged along. Dave Pybus, who used to be in ANATHEMA and worked for Peaceville Records, tagged along. We all had a really good catch-up. It was great fun. This was in October of last year. We didn't discuss anything about reforming. We took a photo of all of us. I popped it on the socials, and that got people talking. And that got us talking. Honestly, we were talking about the old times. The ridiculous times. We did this festival, we did that gig, we got drunk here, we fell over there. It was brilliant. Then we were complaining about arthritic knees and all that stuff. The internet sort of decided, 'I wonder if they're getting together?' I got messages from Rick and Calvin, saying, 'Should we have another get-together and discuss what the internet is discussing?' I said, 'Alright. Why not?' We got together, and after a few more drinks, we sort of thought about the idea. No single person instigated it. As I said, I think the internet instigated it. We mulled it over. Could we pull it off? Do we want to, more importantly? Rick was so keen to get behind the drum kit. Chomping at the bit, really. It's been a long time for him. Calvin has had his own project, MANY SUFFER, which is great. You've got to remember, we, back when we were kids, helped write those early MY DYING BRIDE albums. We're on them. We penned them. And we thought, 'Yeah, let's play them again.'"

Blabbermouth: And to confirm, Martin Powell was not interested in taking part, right?

Aaron: "Martin wasn't interested. He's turned the page, which is absolutely fair. It was a long time ago. It's sort of like remaking a classic film. It was what it was when it was. Is there any point in doing anything new? Calvin, Rick and I didn't feel like that. We thought, 'Let's have a go.' Of course, they haven't performed MY DYING BRIDE songs for years. I have, obviously. They brushed off the cobwebs and started to learn them. We got in touch with Ade, who I have not seen for years. He was very much for it. We get on so well; they're such happy, nice people. We decided, probably at the beginning of this year, to make a serious go of it. It's four original members in TOWARDS THE SINISTER, which is fantastic. We have a violin player, Emma. She's actually a violin teacher. We have a keyboard player, Mark Deeks. We have another guitar player, Chris Revett. There are seven of us. It's a good-sized band. We've sent the setlist to everyone so they can learn the songs. Our first rehearsal is sometime in September, probably, with the hope of doing a few warm-up gigs here in the U.K. first. Then, we've got some big summer festivals planned already. Our agent, we spoke to him about it a couple of months ago, and he had a little word with the people in Europe. They couldn't wait. They couldn't believe it. We've been offered some great slots. It's going to be great sharing the stage again with my old mates."

Blabbermouth: In terms of the live set, where's the cutoff? Are you thinking of the first four MY DYING BRIDE studio albums?

Aaron: "The first four albums. That's the songs these guys wrote. They're not interested in performing songs they didn't help write. It's the first four-album period, which we'll concentrate on and which is the best period according to the fans. I don't see it myself; I've been writing MY DYING BRIDE songs for years and years. The rest of the boys, they're not interested in playing stuff they didn't write. The focus is the first four. We'll do all of the classics. Obviously, we can't do them all at the same time, but we have a decent setlist. You know what it's like: There will be people in the audience screaming for songs that aren't in the setlist, but they will be the next time we come around. We plan to play as many of them as we can, even some that have never been played live. We're going to look into all of them."

Blabbermouth: Maybe the biggest surprise with the lineup is getting Rick back. He quit after the American tour with DIO in 1997. We're looking at almost 30 years of him not being in a band. He's an amazing drummer, though.

Aaron: "He is an amazing drummer! You listen back to the records, he's so talented. You wonder why he hasn't picked up his drumsticks for such a long time. He doesn't know why, and he's in great shape! Normally, when you, I don't know, don't let yourself go, but if you grow up a little bit, you fill out quite often. Rick's as slender now as he was back then. He doesn't own a drum kit; he sold it years ago. He's looking into that, but at the moment, he uses a rehearsal room drum kit, which is fine. Again, he said it all came straight back to him. Similarly with me, even though we cobbled together the setlist between us all. Of course, there's loads of arguing because everyone wants everything. We finally got it. I thought to myself, 'I better listen to some of these. I've not sung these songs for a very long time.' Again, they just came straight back. I knew 90 percent of the words, which is incredible. It's muscle memory. It just seems to come back, works, and settles very nicely. I think we're chomping at the bit. We can't wait to get on with it."

Blabbermouth: To confirm, all seven of you have yet to be in the same room, right?

Aaron: "Correct. We even tried to set something up to meet for a drink. The problem is Rick's in London. Mark's up north near the Scottish border; Chris is another two hours north; Emma's only an hour away. Getting together is not easy. We haven't been able to get together for a drink, but we've nailed down two days of rehearsal in September. That will be the first time a lot of them have met each other. Emma, I don't think she has met anybody except me. Chris has met Calvin and me. No one has met Mark. I know they'll be terrified. To some degree, we will be as well. We're all going to make mistakes; that's what rehearsal is for. As a person like myself, you start singing in front of people you've never sung in front of before; it's nerves. You still get it. Even though I've done it for years, you can't help thinking, 'They're all watching. They'll all be listening. You better get it right!' Even when you do get it wrong, you're so embarrassed. I'm going to break the ice and let them know we're all going to make mistakes here. It doesn't matter. If you know why you made a mistake, gloss over it and get it right the next time. If you don't know why, we'll stop and figure it out. I'm looking forward to it. We found this wonderful studio in Bradford called Prospect. It has a stage setup with the kit, monitors and mixing deck; everything is there. We've got that for two days. We'll see how we get on. Two days doesn't sound like a lot of rehearsal, but it might be enough. If everyone is doing their homework now, when you rock up for those two days, if everyone nails it straight away, we'll be laughing. We're now looking for two suitable venues, preferably one in the north of England and another in London for the warm-up gigs, then we'll see how it goes. But, yeah, a lot of strangers are going to meet very soon."

Blabbermouth: Is there any talk of writing new music?

Aaron: "Yes, there will be new material. Calvin never stops writing. I think he's working on his second MANY SUFFER album, but he has written some stuff that won't fit with MANY SUFFER but will work with us. I don't think MANY SUFFER is a great deal like MY DYING BRIDE; it's certainly more death metal. You have to remember, MY DYING BRIDE did a lot of death metal. It wasn't all doom. A lot of that was Calvin's riffs. We've got some new stuff. Like, a couple of songs that Calvin's mooted to us, saying, 'Would these work?' They're definitely going to work. But we're not in any rush to do that."

Blabbermouth: Did you have a list of names for the new project? How did TOWARDS THE SINISTER bubble to the top?

Aaron: "We had a list this big. It was crazy. [Laughs] I wanted something with 'Swans' in it to reference 'Turn Loose The Swans', but there's a fine line between cheese and theater. [Laughs]"

Blabbermouth: THE FOREVER PEOPLE would have been cool.

Aaron: "That cropped up. I liked SYMPHONAIRE INFERNUS. Basically, we looked at all song titles and tried to take a word from that and a word from that. It was like Scrabble. [Laughs] Somehow, TOWARDS THE SINISTER, which is the title of our one and only demo tape, popped out and we quite liked it. It's not too long. It's not too short."

Blabbermouth: And no one has used it?

Aaron: "I haven't got a clue! We Googled a few of the names. There's an artist in Brazil who's called SYMPHONAIRE INFERNUS. He's a solo artist, but I don't know how copyright law works in that case. We like TOWARDS THE SINSISTER. We have the logo with TTS, like a Greek cross with a snake encircling it. It's a bit rock and roll and heavy metal cheese, but we like it."

Blabbermouth: You don't have to answer this if you don't want to, but what's it been like for you seeing MY DYING BRIDE carry on with a different singer?

Aaron: "It's heartbreaking, to be honest. I've seen cover bands doing MY DYING BRIDE songs. I quite like that; it's entertaining but seeing someone in my shoes, it's an awkward thing. It doesn't work for me. It doesn't seem to be working for the fans. It is what it is. It's not going to change now. To stop my heartache, I stopped following anything MY DYING BRIDE does. It's too painful to see it. I don't bother. All of my friends check it out, and I just tell them, 'Don't tell me. I'm not interested. I've moved on. I'm moving into a better place.' I know people are going to be like, 'Who are we going to see?' They've got one original member; we've got four! Who do you want to go and see? I'm not going into that argument, but, yeah, it's not easy seeing someone else do my job. I can't change that. I have no intention of changing it."

Blabbermouth: The issue that many have is that your vocals and lyrics are so integral to MY DYING BRIDE. You've stated many times that it's difficult for you to perform those songs live because of the emotion and meaning attached to them. No disrespect to Mikko from SWALLOW THE SUN, who is a good frontman, but it's hard from this side seeing someone else perform your songs.

Aaron: "Writing lyrics is hard for MY DYING BRIDE. They're not wishy-washy nonsense. Performing them live is very taxing on the soul. Although I'm looking forward to what we're going to be doing, there's that 'dread' that when the first gig comes up, I've got to get out there onstage and man up a little bit and deliver the songs how they're supposed to be delivered. It's all going to come back to me. It wasn't that long since I stopped singing for them. Is it two years or something like that? I'm kind of looking forward to it, but that emotion will just naturally come out of me, which you don't get from other people. It's not an act; I can't help it. I'm lost up in the characters. I do know what I'm doing, I think. [Laughs] It's where I need to be. It's where I belong. I'm looking forward to getting back there."

Photo credit: Jonny Hunter