MY DYING BRIDE's AARON STAINTHORPE On 'The Ghost Of Orion': 'It's A Very Rich Album'

France's United Rock Nations recently conducted an interview with frontman Aaron Stainthorpe of British doom metal veterans MY DYING BRIDE. You can listen to the entire chat below. A few excerpts follow (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET).

On what to expect from MY DYING BRIDE's forthcoming studio album, "The Ghost Of Orion":

Aaron: "You could expect a lot, really, because we've put a lot into it. There's lots and lots of guitars, more guitars than any other record we've ever done, even though there's only one guitar player, because Calvin [Robertshaw] left before the recording began. So that meant Andrew [Craighan] did all the guitars, and because he had free rein to do whatever he liked, he did lots and lots and lots of guitars, so it sounds pretty amazing. And, of course, we got violins and keyboards and bass. We have Lindy-Fay Hella from WALDRUNA doing some vocals. Jo Quail is playing cello. I've been doing lots and lots of different vocals, so it's a very rich album. There's lots of things going on. There's death metal vocals, clean vocals, there's whispering, there's all kinds of stuff — enough variety, I think, to keep most MY DYING BRIDE fans happy. Of course, there will always be some that complain, but there is with every album."

On the lyrical themes on "The Ghost Of Orion":

Aaron: "It materializes in the same way that most [albums] do. You write about the things you know about; you look back at your history in MY DYING BRIDE and you try to make the music you write today better than the music you wrote on the last album. Our last album, 'Feel The Misery', got some very good reviews, which means we have to work even harder for the new album to make it better than the last album, but that's good. It's a good challenge. It makes you try harder, it makes you force yourself to be better every single time, so that's always good. And you evolve. As you get older, you change, your interests change, your influences change — not by much, but they change just enough to add variety to the new things you create. Although when you hear the album, of course, you will know it's MY DYING BRIDE, but it still has enough fresh ideas to keep it interesting for everybody because we don't want to write the same songs over and over again, and the fans don't want to hear the same songs over and over again. You have to have some fresh variety."

On which artists inspired MY DYING BRIDE during the creation of "The Ghost Of Orion":

Aaron: "Various artists do, but that doesn't necessarily mean we will sound like them. I'm a big fan of NICK CAVE & THE BAD SEEDS, but even though I listen to them and it makes me want to write, I don't write the same way Nick Cave writes, but it's still an inspiration. In the same way the music inspires Andrew sometimes, but it doesn't mean he's going to write in that style. It just wakes something up in your mind and allows you to pursue your own ideas even though it was started by something completely different. I think a lot of artists do that because if you take too much inspiration from somebody, you will begin to sound like them. And when you start to sound like somebody else, that means you're doing it wrong. It's fine to have inspiration, but you can't rip people off."

On the decision to sign with Nuclear Blast Records after spending MY DYING BRIDE's entire career with Peaceville Records:

Aaron: "We were on Peaceville Records for many, many years, and they were great. They did everything they could for MY DYING BRIDE, which is wonderful. But we thought MY DYING BRIDE had more to offer, so we were hoping that when the contract with Peaceville came to an end, we might find a bigger label. Now, we knew Nuclear Blast was one of the coolest labels to be on, so we hoped they would be interested. Thankfully, they were interested. We got a contract from Nuclear Blast and it was wonderful, so we said 'goodbye' to Peaceville Records. We're still happy with Peaceville. I went out for a drink with everyone from Peaceville just on Friday night. Everything's fine; we're all still friends, so it's great, but it was time to move on. We needed to do bigger and better things, and Nuclear Blast is the perfect label to take MY DYING BRIDE further around the world to people who have never heard of us before. I think it was the right move. Yeah, the promotion has been great. We've been down to London to do lots and lots of interviews, so many interviews on Skype. It's amazing. It's great that people still find interest in MY DYING BRIDE after 30 years. The buzz so far is still amazing. We're still enjoying our honeymoon with Nuclear Blast."

"The Ghost Of Orion" will be released on March 6 via Nuclear Blast. The album's cover artwork was created by artist Eliran Kantor (TESTAMENT, ICED EARTH, SODOM).