CRADLE OF FILTH Frontman: 'We Write Music Because We Love What We Do'

Vassil Varbanov of Bulgaria's Tangra Mega Rock recently conducted an interview with CRADLE OF FILTH frontman Dani Filth. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow.

Tangra Mega Rock: Compared to Clive Barker, is Ann Rice better or worse in writing horror literature?

Dani: It depends. Both are very mainstream. I actually prefer 19th century horror books myself — that kind of British ghost stories, you know, like M. R. James and people like that... so I don't know, I wouldn't say one is worse or whatever. The one is a bit more fabulous than the other one, while the other is a bit more vampiric and... girlie, if you prefer.

Tangra Mega Rock: I mean, you probably interested in occult literature, and if yes, then what's the most interesting and intriguing piece you've ever read?

Dani: I guess there's lots of different stuff. There's a huge library on the Necronomicon — some of these books are very fictional, others are rooted in Mesopotamian mythology... That stuff I find very interesting. Quite interesting are also some of the works of the Order of Nine Angles, which is some kind of a satanic cult. I approach these things much in the way of an observer. I used to be more into this kind of stuff, but nowadays I prefer to be more like a Van Helsing type of character or like Sherlock Holmes — just reading about it and surrounding myself with intriguing elements, statues and so on. I'm a family man now, so you know — no more digging up corpses!

Tangra Mega Rock: Have you ever been tempted to join the Church of Satan in San Francisco?

Dani: Not really, no, although the guy I've written the book with (Gavin Baddeley) is a highly ordained high priest of the Church of Satan. You know, when Marilyn Monroe was a member of the Church of Satan, she used to have a pink and black painted baphomet pendant, so... I find all this too American for my liking. I prefer Crowley just because it's more English and I can relate to it more than to Anton LaVey.

Tangra Mega Rock: I'm sure you've read Aleister Crowley. What do you think of him? Was he real or he was just writing and mumbling?

Dani: No, no, I certainly don't think he was writing or mumbling - he got to the very depth of it and was very intelligent, and he might have possibly believed that he had several guardian angels and spirits talking to him and teaching him various things for "The Book of the Law"... Actually, a lot of this is written about in our book "The Gospel of Filth" — we have a huge amount on Crowley and the Church of Satan, including an interview with Zeena LaVey and a very rare interview with Anton LaVey, which was transcribed shortly before his death.

Tangra Mega Rock: So where to do you see CRADLE OF FILTH in ten years?

Dani: Oh, I don't know. I'd like to say I see myself living somewhere in the South of France in a huge castle, driving at least 3 or 4 top range landrace Lamborghinis, but... Ha-ha, back in the real world... I don't know. I can't comment on that. Somebody asked me that question ten years ago and I couldn't comment then. How was I supposed to know that we'll be becoming bigger as a band? I don't know, I can't say. We write music because we love what we do. We love everything about it... But I really don't know what will happen. I'd like to think that we'll still be on top of our game in ten years time, but then I'll be 43, so I don't know.

Tangra Mega Rock: The biggest global event these days is the Olympics in China. Are you, CRADLE OF FILTH, very much into the idea of free Tibet and stuff like that?

Dani: Well, I guess so... I remember when I was in India I went to a lot of places where they were holding Free Tibet rallies. Our old keyboarder was actually in prison in Tibet for year, so he can't say anything nice about it, ha-ha! He was smuggling gold, so... Or it was in Katmandu, which is actually the same thing... I don't know, I might be wrong. And I care very little about the Olympics, but funny enough, some bands that we know — like ARCH ENEMY — have managed to play in China now. It was illegal to play or listen to heavy metal music there until recently. Those boundaries seem to go down.

Read the entire interview from Tangra Mega Rock.