"Р•very track that was on the album went through about 30 different versions before we hit on the one we liked."

The new PARADISE LOST turns to be a killer album.

'Faith Divides Us, Death Unites Us'В will be outВ on Century Media Records on September 28, 2009 in Europe and October 6, 2009 in the US.

After a series of interviewsВ with vocalist Nick Holmes through the years, this timeВ weВ insitedВ to talk this time to guitarist Greg Mackintosh.

an interview conducted by Vassil Varbanov

HELLO GREG, HOW ARE YOU?
I’m very good, thank you.

FIRST OF ALL – FUCKING GREAT ALBUM!
Oh, thank you, thank you. I appreciate that.

WE’RE LISTENING TO “AS HORIZONS END”, THE FIRST TRACK FROM THE NEW ALBUM. IT APPEARED ON YOUR MYSPACE A WHILE AGO – DOES THIS MEAN THAT IT’S GOING TO BE THE FIRST SINGLE OFF THE ALBUM? OR ARE SINGLES DEAD AND A THING OF THE PAST?
We didn’t write the album to have any singles on it really. It was more that we were concentrating on doing a really strong album. I’d say it’s not a very commercial album, it’s possibly harder to get into. I don’t think there will be a single, but there might be a couple of video tracks and one of them will probably be the title track.

WE’VE NEVER REALLY HAD A SO-CALLED SINGLES MARKET HERE IN BULGARIA, NOT LIKE IT’S BEEN IN THE UK ANYWAY. SO A “SINGLE” TO US OVER HERE WOULD BE A TRACK THAT’S BEEN CHOSEN FOR RADIO PROMOTION BY THE LABEL OR THE BAND ITSELF, POSSIBLY WITH A VIDEO TO GO WITH IT. WE AT TANGRA MEGA ROCK CHOSE TO PUT ‘AS HORIZONS END’ IN HEAVY ROTATION – WOULD YOU AGREE WITH OUR CHOICE?
Yeah. It’s one of my favourite tracks and that’s the reason it’s the album opener. It’s kind of a…it reminds me of a thunderstorm or something.

PLEASE ELABORATE ON THE ALBUM TITLE – ‘FAITH DIVIDES US – DEATH UNITES US’.
Well we knew it would be a very provocative title, because people have their own views. Personally, as a band, we’ve always been atheists. We sing about it occasionally, but we don’t want to force anything down everyone’s throat, because otherwise we’d be just as bad as the religious people. But the title kind of speaks for itself – you’re born alone and you die alone, so there’s not really any point forcing anything on anyone else in the meantime – just get on with your life and enjoy it.

Plus we like the two sides to the title, we think it’s the longest title that we’ve had, but it’s also quite good for the packaging of the album cause the special edition will be like an old novel or something, with old printed pages and a book cover and we just think the title fits really well with that too.

IS THERE ANYTHING IN PARTICULAR THAT INSPIRED YOU WHILE YOU WERE WRITING THE MUSIC?
The main thing that I had in mind when I was doing the music for this record was…and this is something I like about the irony on the record…is that it was very inspired by religious music. Like choral music and hymns. So I thought it was quite a good irony, quite a good dichotomy that the title is very atheist, yet the music and artwork are very inspired by religious things.

YEAH, LIFE IS FULL OF IRONY.
We just thought that it was an interesting idea, because as much as I disagree with religion, the history it has preservedВ  and the architecture and the art and the music it has inspired are pretty awe-inspiring.В 

WE’RE NOW LISTENING TO THE SECOND TRACK FROM THE ALBUM – “I REMAIN”. THE OVERALL SOUND OF THE ALBUM, A SORT OF “FRESH BREATHING” SOUND SEEMS TO BE SIMILAR TO YOUR OLD, NOW CLASSIC, WORKS. WAS THIS INTENTIONAL OR IS IT A NATURAL PROGRESSION FOR YOU?
While we were creating the music for this album, apart from the hymn-like element we were trying to create, we also wanted to make it very guitar orientated and very heavy…And it was inspired by a lot of stuff we used to listen to when we were very young. It’s very difficult to get that good balance between very heavy music and kind of having that “breathing” sound that you’re talking about.

That was one of the main things that we asked our producer Jens Bogren to do, was that we wanted it very very heavy, but we didn’t want it compressed like the American sound.  We wanted it to be more like a mix that you could walk through, that you felt was in the room with you. I think he did a really good job. 

HOW LONG DID IT TAKE YOU TO MAKE THE RECORD?
I would say probably about two years. From beginning to write the first song to when it was mastered, I would say about two years, yeah.  The recording itself, mixing and mastering, took  maybe two to three months and the rest of it was writing because we’re very critical of our own stuff, we don’t want to put rubbish out there, so…every track that was on the album went through about 30 different versions before we hit on the one we liked.

TELL US MORE ABOUT THE DRUMMER SITUATION IN PARADISE LOST NOWADAYS…YOU HAVE ADRIAN ERLANDSSON JOINING YOU OFFICIALLY, BUT DID HE TAKE PART IN THE ACTUAL RECORDING OF THE ALBUM?
No, he came down to audition for us two days before we recorded the album. So he got the job, but we’d already been working for like a month with a session drummer called Peter Damin from Sweden, who actually did the album recording. So Adrian is our full time member and has been for most of this year, but the actual album recording was done by the session drummer, Peter Damin.

I CAN HEAR SOME CHOIR VOCALS IN THE OPENING TRACK FROM THE NEW ALBUM, BUT ALSO IN THE SIXTH TRACK TOO I BELIEVE – WHAT ARE THOSE WONDERFUL VOICES IN THERE?
It’s actually an original recording from some monks in a Sicilian monastery. It’s like a really old recording from about 80 years ago. And the first one is a choral thing that was done in a church in England.

LAST TIME WE INTERVIEWED NICK, HE TOLD US THAT HE NEVER READ MILTON’S 'PARADISE LOST'…WHAT ABOUT YOU, GREG?
Well, I began to read it, but I defy anyone to finish it, because it’s pretty damn boring.

YOU ACTUALLY MISSED THE FIRST EVER PARADISE LOST GIG IN BULGARIAВ IN 2005. ARE YOU OK AND ALL SET TO GO THIS TIME ROUND?
Yeah, I’m fine. I was surprised that that gig was confirmed after I fell ill. I think it was a management decision. It was something that the band kind of honoured and went and did. They asked me if I   minded and I said: “no, do your best”, you know. I was pretty much at death’s door when that was happening, so I wasn’t well at all, but I’m fine now, I’m a 100%.

GREGOR MACKINTOSH – I CAN BARELY THINK OF A MORE SCOTTISH-SOUNDING NAME THAN YOURS.
That’s true, yeah. Actually my younger brother has a more Scottish name. His name is Ross Mackenzie Mackintosh. And actually my grandfather was called Edward Murdoch Mackenzie Mackintosh.

OK, SO THE HIGHLANDER STORY – WAS IT TRUE?
Hahah! Well, I don’t think the immortal part was true, but I guess the living in the Highlands part was.

AS FAR AS I COULD GATHER THE MORAL OF THE STORY WAS THAT YOU HAVE HEROES AND YOU ALSO HAVE SOME PEOPLE WHO CAN SOMETIMES FUCK THE HEROES UP THE ARSE…
Hahahah! Well, yeah, I guess… Record companies fuck people up the arse.

DO YOU HAVE ANY SCOTTISH JOKES WITHIN THE BAND OR IS THAT TOO OLD FASHIONED?
Well, I have Scottish roots, but we’re all Yorkshiremen really, we’re from the North of England, most of us. And the in-joke there is that we’re all miserable Northeners, so I guess that’s where the gloomy Gothic image comes from…

rights Tangra Mega RockВ