"Cradle won't stop! We just keep going like a juggernaut!"

A few days before their first ever show in Bulgaria (August 17, 2008 at the Spirit of Burgas festival), Cradle of Filth's leader Dani Filth revealed what to expect from the show, the band's upcoming new studio album and book, and shared his thoughts on classical music, the summer Olympics, the prisons in Tibet...

Vassil Varbanov: Mr. Filth, good evening! How are you?

Dani Filth: I'm fine, good evening.

V. V.: First question: Who's your favourite classical composer of all time?

D. F.: Favourite classical composer of all time? Hmm... I'd probably say of the top of my head: Stravinsky.

V. V.: What are you up to now in Cradle of Filth?

D. F.: Well, we're very looking forward to playing Bulgaria on August 17, 2008. We just finished a new album - about six weeks ago - which is entitled "Godspeed on the Devil's Thunder". At present we're putting artwork together in the booklet; we're about to shoot a video and we're going on a press trip. I'm also finishing writing... Well, I finished writing a book called "The Gospel of Filth", which is now at the publishers.

V. V.: You're gonna play for the very first time in Bulgaria now...

D. F.: That's true... Wait a second - what's this music I hear playing in the background?

V. V.: A sonata by Carl Philip Emanuel Bach.

D. F.: I know, but it just sounds like my daughter practicing on a recorder, ha-ha-ha!

V. V.: Ha-ha-ha! I think it is a good relaxing background for our conversation... if you don't mind.

D. F.: I don't mind, ha-ha!

V. V.: I believe you have received lots of mails from Bulgaria through the years, am I right?

D. F.: Yes, that's true. We're really looking forward to play there. I hope the weather's good.

V. V.: Are you completely honest when saying you hope the weather's good? Isn't a bad weather with thunderstorms and shit the best...

D. F.: Oh, no - it would be nice if it's dry at first. A thunderstorm may be a bit later on, once we finish. That'd be perfect.

V. V.: Being a band with such a long history and such an impact on the extreme scene, if somebody asks you to play at daylight these days, obviously it's not the best time to...

D. F.: No. A few years back we headlined the B-stage on the American OzzFest and we thought, "Great, we're headlining at night!" Wrong! It was like 3:30 in the afternoon! In places like Arizona! Not only would it be broad daylight, but fuckin' baking hot! It was as hot as it can be, and we were dressed up in leathers and... you know.

V. V.: One of you albums was entitled "Midian", like the name of the city from this Clive Barker novel. What exactly inspired you - the book or the night breed movie?

D. F.: A little bit of both, mixed also with the fact that I named my house Midian as well. It just seemed right... You know, the album contains a lot of monster songs, like a city or a house becoming the place where the monsters live.

V. V.: Compared to Barker, is Ann Rice better or worse in writing horror literature?

D. F.: 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.

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

D. F.: 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!

V. V.: Have you ever been tempted to join the Church of Satan in San Francisco?

D. F.: 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.

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

D. F.: 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.

V. V.: Books are something very interesting, but...

D. F.: I love books! I love working on the computer, I love e-books, I love to have a library full of interesting books. There's something about books, you know - you can hold them, breathe them in...

V. V.: And they're part of the aesthetics.

D. F.: Yes, much like music. I know people download stuff from the Internet nowadays, but it's nothing like getting the actual disc or record of the band you like, with all the artwork and everything.

V. V.: Writing a book is one of the best ways of expression, but have you ever thought of directing a movie?

D. F.: We did "Cradle of Fear", which was more my friends' baby... It's again down to money. Now I've finished with the book, and I've also written a big bunch of poetry that I hope to publish next year. You said expression - well, I think we express a lot in our music. The current album, "Godspeed on the Devil's Thunder", is a testament to this fact - it's a story that follows in chronological order, like a soundtrack album.

V. V.: You're gonna play at a quite "British" festival in Bulgaria - the first evening we'll see The Sisters of Mercy, then it's Asian Dub Foundation, then it's Cradle of Filth... Are you listening to such stuff?

D. F.: Well, we've actually played with Asian Dub Foundation before. I am into lots of different stuff, but it's quite dark and tragic music. I love classical music, my favourite thing is soundtracks, but I like them being very dark and tempestuous... a bit like Stravinsky, as I mentioned before. I also like a lot of dark trance and I spend a lot of time in India... I just got addicted to really dark sounding trance and anything like that... Also thrash metal... and metal in general. Also punk hardcore... I like music that makes you feel good, but mainly dark music. Not Euro-pop!

V. V.: Obviously, The Sisters of Mercy have influenced a lot of bands.

D. F.: Of course, us included.

V. V.: Their latest studio album appeared in 1990.

D. F.: Yes, "Vision Thing".

V. V.: This was 18 years ago, but they still have a huge impact on the music scene.

D. F.: I can't comment on why they haven't done another album - I've got no idea - but I know this can't happen to Cradle. Cradle won't stop! We just keep going like a juggernaut.

V. V.: So where to do you see Cradle of Filth in ten years?

D. F.: 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.

V. V.: 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?

D. F.: 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.

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