CRADLE OF FILTH Guitarist Talks Next Album In New Interview

Steven Rosen of Ultimate-Guitar.com recently conducted an interview with guitarist Paul Allender of British extreme-metal veterans CRADLE OF FILTH. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Ultimate-Guitar.com: "Darkly, Darkly Venus Aversa" was based on the concept of the demon Lilith. Many other CRADLE OF FILTH albums were also concept albums. What is the appeal musically of creating records around a central theme?

Paul Allender: The concept doesn't actually get decided 'till like everything's recorded and finished. That's the very last thing, which gets decided whether it's going to be a concept or not. Because when I'm writin' songs, I try to write each track so it can stand out on its own. I don't have songs that follow from one to another I'd like to think each track can stand out on its own as its own entity. They'll go to Dani [Filth, vocals] and he'll suggest, "Oh, can we put this one here and this one here?" because lyrically it might fit better or blah blah blah blah blah. You know? It gets put together like that and then the concept will get decided right at the last minute when Dan's writing the lyrics. All the music and everything comes first and then it goes to Dani for lyrics and concept and whatnot. Doing a concept album musically is fine but lyrically stuff on Dan's side of things to be honest, is a bit of a pain in the ass.

Ultimate-Guitar.com: Will the next studio album be a concept record?

Paul Allender: I know the next one we've got coming out isn't a concept. I'm writing it at the moment and it's just a collection of songs. The new album has definitely, definitely gone back to what we used to be like for "The Principle Of Evil Made Flesh" and "Dusk And Her Embrace". It's totally gone back that way, though it's a bit hard to explain, really. I know I've had a few friends that have come over and heard me writin' and asked me to play them stuff. I've played it and they said, "Oh, well that sounds old."

Ultimate-Guitar.com: Did you want the next album to specifically sound like it was from the "Principle" and "Dusk" era?

Paul Allender: The last thing we want to do is come out with another album that sounds like the last two. So this is the reason why we decided to change up the direction and go back to what we used to do with the female vocals like we used to have on there. All the strong melody lines and harmonies and that sort of shit. I've also put a lot of punk-orientated riffs back into it again. It's really gone quite dark and pretty hardcore.

Ultimate-Guitar.com: Did the punk riffs come from touring with certain bands or listening to any specific albums?

Paul Allender: I've always wanted to put the punky stuff back into it again. Yeah, I've always wanted to do that. It's just what happened it's just the way it's come out. I mean, I must admit this time 'round, like I said, "Let's try and make it a bit different," but different in a good way. We listened to a lot of the fans this time and we've kind of gone the direction they wanted or the suggestions they've come up with. So we've done that, but as I said, I've always wanted to put the punky stuff back in. For like "Principle", there was loads of punk-styled riffs all over that and there were some in "Dusk" as well. So we decided to go back into it again and the people that have heard it have gone, "Fuck, it's amazing."

Ultimate-Guitar.com: On "You Can't Polish a TurdBut You Can Roll It In Glitter" rockumentry on the DVD, you document your experiences touring in Russia.

Paul Allender: It was weird because usually before when we've gone to Russia, we've only gone to two, three places at the most and that was just like main cities. But this was the first time we've flown and got the trains and stuff from smaller places because we've never been to that part of Russia before. It was a bit of an eye-opener. [laughs] It was good, though, and it was really, really cool. And yeah, the gigs were great and just the general travel of it was amazing. But yeah, it was very different compared to, like, St. Petersburg and Moscow.

Ultimate-Guitar.com: It probably felt like the early days of the band when you were doing the small clubs and stuff.

Paul Allender: Yeah, it was exactly like that. Because these other places nobody had a clue who the hell we were. [laughs] It was actually really refreshing and really cool. I mean, there was fans turned up, there was people turned up, but all different types of people turned up which was kind of really strange. We had like loads of old people in the audience as well. "Do you actually know this is CRADLE OF FILTH?" You know what I mean? We're just sittin' there goin' on full makeup and playing as loud as we possibly can and these old people are just sittin' down in front and like clapping their hands and stuff. It was like, "Oh, shit really?"

Ultimate-Guitar.com: At this point you're finishing up the songs for the next album?

Paul Allender: I'm writin' 'em. I'm waiting for my computer to come out from bein' serviced 'cause my motherboard died on me. So I haven't done much writing at all really for about a week and a bit because my computer is bein' fixed. Hopefully it's coming back today so once that comes back, I'll carry on writin'. But yeah, I've just been writin' songs at the moment and I've got three tracks finished.

Read the entire interview at Ultimate-Guitar.com.