PARADISE LOST Vocalist Says 'Humans Tend To Ruin Everything On The Planet'

Barbara Caserta of Italy's Linea Rock recently conducted an interview with vocalist Nick Holmes and lead guitarist Gregor Mackintosh of U.K. gothic metal pioneers PARADISE LOST. You can watch the full chat below. A few excerpts follow (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET).

On whether Nick Holmes's participation in the Swedish death metal supergroup BLOODBATH had any influence on PARADISE LOST's forthcoming "Medusa" studio album:

Nick: "Finding the style of vocals, perhaps, yeah, with BLOODBATH, there's no other style you can do. You just do that voice, there's nothing else you can do. Once I did some shows with the BLOODBATH guys, I definitely found my voice that I remember I used to do with PARADISE LOST. It definitely helped shape my voice, but beyond that, not really because I used to growl in PL back in the late '80s anyway. My voice has changed. It doesn't sound like it used to when I was younger anyway. I guess it brought it back again, the spirit, perhaps."

On the sound of "Medusa":

Nick: "I would say if you've ever heard every album by PARADISE LOST, it's closest to the 'Shades Of God' album, our third album. It's an album carrying on from that, but hopefully it's a lot more sophisticated and it's better produced and better played than that album."

Gregor: "Style-wise, it's more between 'Gothic' and 'Shades Of God' era, with modern touches to it as well."

On the band's new drummer, Waltteri Väyrynen, who replaced Adrian Erlandsson (AT THE GATES, THE HAUNTED):

Gregor: "I have a side band called VALLENFYRE and Adrian was in that and he had to leave because he was busy with AT THE GATES. I did an online audition for a drummer and Waltteri got the job. A couple of years later, the same thing happened with PARADISE LOST. Adrian has too many bands, so yeah, we're still friends with Adrian. He's a jobbing drummer; that's his main job, being a drummer. You have to go where the gigs are. And if we have time off for songwriting, he has to go and do shows. Waltteri got the job in PARADISE LOST as well. He brings down the average age of the band quite well, I think."

On whether the band has any plans to shoot music videos for "Medusa":

Nick: "No, we haven't done anything yet. Whatever we do shoot, we probably won't be in it. That's the thing."

Gregor: "The best videos don't have us in it."

Nick: "You should stop being in videos after 32. I know we were with 'Beneath Broken Earth' [from 2015's 'The Plague Within'], but it's very silhouetted and moves fast and doesn't stay on us for too long. I think the 'Beneath Broken Earth' video is actually very good. I'm surprised how good it is considering, but yeah, I don't know. The budgets are not the same for videos. Also, you did videos to get on to MTV because there was no other platform. You had to get on MTV. Now, it's not as important. Like I said, when we did those videos, there was only that, so you had to try to get on MTV and make it commercial, which sucked, really, but that's what you had to do then. I don't know about a new video, but we probably won't be in it."

On the lyrical approach for "Medusa":

Nick: "Humans tend to ruin everything on the planet. I don't like to approach [lyrics] negatively. You don't really need to read negative lyrics, you can just turn on the news and you got it in front of your face, especially at the moment. If you can read and take something from it positive, then great, and if you find the negative, that's not necessarily what I meant. You get out of them what you want. I'm not a negative person, but you can't deny the horrible things that are going on in the world, particularly in the name of religion, which is a veil, it's covering up insanity, as far as I'm concerned. Some of the things I've written make a lot of sense, especially if we're speaking about recently, weirdly enough, even though they weren't about that initially. They fit in with the modern concepts of what I believe. I've written lyrics since I was teenager. It's the same thing, but from a different age perspective."

On their expectations for "Medusa":

Gregor: "I never have any expectations. You're usually disappointed if you have expectations, so yeah, I'm constantly disappointed. [Laughs]"

Nick: "It's hard to say. If we like it, then we're halfway there. If we're unsure, then our fans will definitely be unsure about it. I know that for a fact. We've done enough albums to know how positive we are about it…you know our fans are very similar, like-minded, they probably grew up listening to the same bands as we did. If we're confident, quietly confident, then we're halfway there. You never know. You honestly never know. You can't get too cocky about these things."

PARADISE LOST's fifteenth studio album, "Medusa" will see the light of day in September via Nuclear Blast. The album was recorded in Woburn, England with producer Jaime Gomez Arellano.