CRADLE OF FILTH Frontman On 'The Gospel Of Filth'

Bryan Reesman of Attention Deficit Delirium recently conducted an interview with vocalist Dani "Filth" Davey of British extreme metallers CRADLE OF FILTH about "The Gospel of Filth: A Black Metal Bible", the new book written by Dani and renowned music journalist Gavin Baddeley ("Dissecting Marilyn Manson", "Lucifer Rising"). A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Attention Deficit Delirium: What's cool about "The Gospel of Filth" is that it's not only a history of CRADLE OF FILTH, but also a journey into the darker regions of religion, politics, and films, literature and music. You didn't craft a standard band autobiography.

Dani: God, no! I think you actually forget about that when you're in the thick of each chapter. I think you forget that it has anything to do with the band. Basically, CRADLE OF FILTH from album to album is used as a springboard to jump into the relevant topics and to meet relevant musicians and film producers and other estranged souls.

Attention Deficit Delirium: The in-depth nature of this tome makes me wonder about how you can know so much about a genre and its history, yet the older you get the more you find something that you haven't read, seen or heard.

Dani: That's cool. I like finding out about stuff. I'd hate to think that all the surprises have gone. When you start at the beginning of a genre or find something that you're good at or are interested in, it's always really magical at the start. Then the weight of the world crushes your spirit, like everything else. [laughs]

Attention Deficit Delirium: You obviously have a dark and menacing image that you want to portray on stage, but the book features casual, candid photos of you with your family. I guess you weren't so concerned about removing that mystique while assembling this book?

Dani: That's the thing. This is intended as a grimoire, hence why the first wave of the book is a limited edition, leather bound thing. It was mine and Gavin's original intention to do something like a medieval grimoire that was elitist and highly sought after and would be really hard to find in 10 years time. But, of course, that's just ridiculous unless we were barons and had hordes of money to throw away, so that's why it's going to be in bookstores. We'll probably make 10p a book off of it at the same time. The original signed, bound, extra-chaptered print run is limited to about 2,000 [copies], and then the one that comes to the stores will be in Barnes & Noble's, Borders and Waterstone's. It's going to be filed under occult/music. It's more like a journey through the dark side, and I think music is just a small part of the book. Yet you had to have a basis for why you're exploring these characters and like-minded souls.

Attention Deficit Delirium: So the limited edition has sold out?

Dani: I'm afraid so. It's not a marketing ploy, unfortunately. I'm not so sure on the [release date of the] paperback one. I think because of demands we might do a hard-backed, unsigned version of the "grimoire" — it'll be cheaper by half — which should satiate the demand and fill the gap between the two releases. I'm not sure yet though.

Attention Deficit Delirium: Isn't it funny to think that some of the offensive stuff you did 10 years ago may not be in 10 more years? Does it make you wonder what will be offensive in another decade?

Dani: In the book you'll see other people who were labeled as diabolists, and you think, "He was a great composer. Why was he branded as a Satanist of his time?" "He was a great poet. How come he was a Satanist?" The book answers quite a few questions and dives behind the mystery, henceforth why it's got people from all the different genres. Not only are there serial killers interviewed in there, but you also have Robert Ressler, who was a serial killer catcher for the CIA.

Attention Deficit Delirium: In putting this book together, you included many sidebars. How hard was it for you and Gavin to focus on assembling this material so that it did not meander all over the place?

Dani: At one point, because of the time factor, we were using each album as a marker, as a subject matter. "Cruelty And The Beast" is about criminal chic, "Nymphetamine" is about illicit sex and drugs and "Damnation And A Day" is about Satanism. We got to the point where CRADLE wrote two albums during the course of the Bible, so then we had to divide, conquer, replace and reshuffle and come up with another idea, so that added to the length of the work. We were a bit stupid to just sit there and think, "We're going to do something that uses CRADLE OF FILTH as a small part and then explore [everything else]." In retrospect, considering it took five years to do it, we might've been a bit naïve, but if I thought about [doing] it now I wouldn't even undertake the project. It was quite eye-opening and a bit of a journey.

Read the entire interview from Attention Deficit Delirium.