My Dying Bride Interview

Interview
Aaron Stainthorpe
My Dying Bride

Click here to access the official MY DYING BRIDE website

Lineup:
Dan Mullins (Drums)
Andrew Craighan (Guitar)
Aaron Stainthrope (Lead Vocal)
Hamish Hamilton Glencross (Guitar)
Ade Jackson (Bass)
Sarah Stanton (Keyboards)

Aaron Stainthorpe of My Dying Bride (Photo: Kelema Béata )

1/1/07
Interviewer: Erika Kristen Watt

“On a personal level, I don’t think I can be complete.”

With the release of My Dying Brides’s 2006 oeuvre A Line of Deathless Kings (recorded at Sunday Chapel Studios in Lincolnshire then mastered at Abbey Road Studios) was bound to be a well thought out metal-piece. It was a cold, colorless morning when doom leader Aaron Stainthrope “rang me”. The composed and at times humorous lead singer was kind enough to give us a look inside the abnormal workings of this long thought to be tortured soul. Believed to be the Dead Can Dance of the doom metal crowd, My Dying Bride has been seducing audience for over 16 years. And yours truly, was no exception. Picture this: The scene from Interview with a Vampire where the dark haired nymph leaps from her seat when Santiago asks ‘Would you have me choose a sacrifice from the audience?’ at the Théâtre des Vampires play in Paris and she says “Take me, I adore you!” SCENE. That’s how I felt when conversating with Mister Stainthrope. Mock me if you will, but you’ll see. ‘Lose yourself freely…’ as his lyrics taunt you. You’ll only feel vulnerable for a little while. Read on…

Erika Kristen: Congratulations on Deathless Kings but could you please help us fans to understand the mini wait?

Aaron Stainthrope: We…ummm… (Long pause) I don’t know where to start. [Laughter]

Erika: Well, let’s start with where you guys were. Were you off doing other projects?

Aaron: Um, I don’t know really. I really don’t understand why. Sean the drummer hurt his foot and we couldn’t wait but Sean had to take a back seat so we borrowed a drummer from another band. There always seems to be a long wait between albums. I guess if we had a manager, we manage the band ourselves. We handle the accounting, artwork, all ourselves. We’re kind of hectic. I guess it looks dull in the public eye.

Erika Kristen: I wouldn’t say dull. If you could you be so kind as to dispel any misconceptions for us fans, who make up the official lineup of My Dying Bride?

Aaron: The official lineup would consist of me, Aaron, on the vocals and the other founding member would be Andrew on lead guitar. Abe joined a year after on bass guitar and the other guitar would be Hamish who I think joined us five years ago. His girlfriend Sarah does the keyboards for the last few years, I think. And we’re officially drummerless at the moment. Sean has very recently just left but we have been working with John Bennett, he’s the drummer for The Prophecy. He’s currently drumming for both bands but he hasn’t officially join MY DYING BRIDE. Would be nice if he did for the future, he’s a great guy, knows his material, easy to work with and creative as well. But he’s in two bands at the moment, he seems okay, he really doesn’t need to pick and choose, as long as he can handle the workload.

Erika Kristen: Okay, okay I know many people were wondering, “Did John leave?!?”

Aaron: No, no he’s not in the band but he’s played many live shows with us and recorded the album but he’s not an official member yet. He might be and it would be nice but not yet.

Erika Kristen: Thank you for dispelling that. Now, with each album there’s evolution and a more mature sound, many others are curious as to where this era of musicianship is going. How do you feel you’ve evolved as musicians to date?

Aaron: I think we’ve evolved pretty much as most other bands do. As you grow older, you should become more skilled at the things that you do because you’ve had more practice. I think as you mature as well, you’re ideas as well, you want to entertain people on a higher level. So we matured quite nicely although, we’re still doing the whole doom/gothic/death thing that we’ve been doing for 16 years. You may be mistaken for thinking that that would become very very dull. You know, how can you continue to do a similar style of music for so long and keep it interesting. But I do think that as we’ve matured, we have tried to make things more interesting by becoming more creative. Diversifying more on the things we do in order to keep it creative. We don’t want to play the same stuff over and over again. It would be boring for us as well as the fans. So we dig in deep, inside ourselves, to find things in life that make the music much more interesting. And again, not just for us but for the fans too. It’s natural development, as you grow older, you get better at the things you do because you’ve had more practice.

Erika Kristen: Very well said! You know, I was wondering, how do you feel about having this label of being a doom metal band considering the progression of how many years of music making you guys have been involved in?

Aaron: I think it’s wrong to label MY DYING BRIDE to just doom, which a lot of people, quite recently, have just been doing. We like to think we span a sort of doom/goth and death metal market. Even touching on black metal at times, not so much on this album but in the past; so to just call us doom, that’s wrong. To just call us gothic, that’s wrong as well. You’ve got to somehow link these genres together and that’s MY DYING BRIDE. As well as throwing in words like ambient or atmospheric or emotional it’s kind of tricky to describe the sound that we create. So we just call it the My Dying Bride sound. [Chuckles]

Erika Kristen: There’s a lot of gloom and seduction surrounding your band, that filters through into the music, is that what you want to be known for as a musical entity?

Aaron: I think we’re already there. We do try to seduce listeners to a degree. We want people to absorb themselves fully in the whole MY DYING BRIDE thing. From the lyrics, to the artwork, photography and the music. So it’s not just the music. We put a lot of effort into all the other elements of MY DYING BRIDE. It’s almost theater. Our music is not the kind that we feel, you will hear in a rock club. It’s the kind of music we imagine kids will put the CD on, lie on the bed, close their eyes and really absorb themselves and allow themselves to be seduced completely by the whole visage of the band. Not just the music but all the imagery as well. We worked hard to create who we are and it’s nice that people can throw themselves into us 100% and really get something out of the band.

Aaron Stainthorpe of My Dying Bride (Photo: Kelema Béata ) Erika Kristen: That’s the perfect way of phrasing it. I’m sure you’ve been a fan of major bands and you feel as though you have to play your albums back to back to become emerged in the whole MY DYING BRIDE experience. It becomes all the more…seductive!

Aaron: Oh, it’s a nice thing. I think also, a lot of people get the weird idea that our albums are conceptual. Which I can kinda of understand because there’s this whole feeling of…darkness throughout the whole thing. But the problem with thinking about it in that way is that you have to try to make sure that by saying that all the songs do not sound the same would be a very difficult thing to do. So, there is no real concept but there is a feeling, a MY DYING BRIDE feeling that joins and morphs the music together.

Erika Kristen: You guys have been together since the late 90's. How do you keep the music fresh & awe in spring for yourselves?

Aaron: By working harder and always trying to beat the last thing you did. Then if you can do that, then you can only improve. Because, we wouldn’t release an album unless we weren’t completely happy with it. The last album we did, Words of Darkness, we loved it! When we were beginning to write Line of Deathless Kings, we naturally wanted to make it better than the last album. You know, that was a big hurdle to get over because the last album we thought was great. But we persevered and we come up with riffs, we finalize them, if they’re not good enough they’re scraped and we do it the same way with each instrument and we really work hard. And then, once you’ve got good riffs, good ideas, you’ve then got to execute them in slightly different ways than previously. Keep it fresh! You know, it’s hard work. We just don’t knock songs off in a couple of days. They’re crafted to be the things they are. It’s not easy and that I think is why we are still here! Many bands who simply through together songs, they’ll split up after a few years because people can see through that. People know that we work hard on the music. Which is why we’re still here, people still like it after all this time. They are hand crafted, pieces of art. I mean, that sounds pretty pompous but when you consider how hard we work on them, I can’t call them anything less.

Erika Kristen: Perfect! I love this! It’s an honor to talk to you! (Laughs) Let’s go through the process of record companies and such. Do you feel as though you have to prove yourself in this industry with each release?

Aaron: Only to ourselves. We’ve been fortunate that with Peaceville Records, our one and only label, they’ve given us free reign. They don’t ask anything of us. When we want to do an album, we pretty much ring them and say okay we got some material; we want to book the studio. It’s not them saying to us ‘Hey guys, we need another album.’ It’s us saying to them, ‘We’re ready.’ That’s a relationship almost no other band will have. They respect us. We respect them. They trust us to come up with the goods. They know our workload is great and we put so much effort and heart into all the music. And again, it’s not just the music. We look for the best photographer we can, who’s going to capture the images that are going to sooth this album best. The same with the artwork. Right down to the font for the typesetting. We don’t just come up with something willy-nilly! We’ve even chosen certain fonts in the past, which can be a little bit tricky to read but they look right. Which is kind of an unusual thing to do (Laughs) to stain the eye of the fans…

Erika Kristen: But you’re an artist as well aren’t you?

Aaron: Well, (Hesitant) Yeah. I’ve done several of the band’s album covers in the past. Again, that’s another outlet for me. If I’m not writing lyrics, I’ll be creating some form of 2-dimensional artwork. Some things we’ve used in the past. Which I’m very proud of. It’s a whole package and Peaceville knows that they’ve got a good package with us and we’ve got a good package with them. They don’t push you. They don’t ask for radio friendly songs. They don’t ask if ‘Can you say a few more “Hey baby” a few more times?’ They wouldn’t and that’s why we’re still with that label, for such a long time. We trust each other.

Erika Kristen: So tell us a little about the writing team. What is the process of how you create? Does someone come in with a riff or a lyric and you build off of that…

Aaron: It’s all of the above! There is no set formula, which is good because a formula would mean restrictions. We try not to work with any restrictions. Both guitarists, Andrew and Hamish, quite often are at each other’s houses, just jamming basically, toying with a few interesting ideas. They’ll record them. Come to rehearsal give us all a ring. And we’ll all come to rehearsal to listen to what they’ve done. Rearrange it a few times. I might take a recording from that, take it home with me and again try and put some lyrics to their music. And again, the other way around, the song “Deeper Down” the lyrics were written months before the song. I presented the lyrics to the guys and said I want something simple because there’s a lot of words to sing. It was going to be a long song but I didn’t want to overly complicate it. I wanted to keep fairly simple. So we all work together on the riffs for that. The rarest part of writing a song is when all of us are actually in the rehearsal room and somebody simply starts off with one tune and we all build and build, then it’s a jamming session from one small feed. This giant thing is beginning to grow and manifest itself into this awesome dark piece of music in one evening. Sometimes you think, that was a little bit too easy. Perhaps we should go back and have a look at it. Then you think, that might work!

Erika Kristen: Right, go with your first thought…

Aaron: It came from the heart and soul, here and now. Let’s leave it there, don’t mess with it too much. If you guild the lily, that’s a pointless thing to do.

Erika Kristen: Okay, song explanation time! I know everyone has their own interpretation of your songs but what was going on in you guys’ lives doing the process of these tunes. The first one “One of Beauty’s Daughters” it’s actually a pretty moving tune.

Aaron: There’s not many lyrics to this song. We actually penciled the name “Stoner” for this song because (Laughing) it has a “stoner” riff to it. It goes on and on and on. It’s about (gets quieter) basically a guy who really is obsessed with this young woman to the point where he simply cannot allow her to leave. It’s like these eerie movies about obsessive people and they become so obsessed that it becomes disturbing. And they love someone so much that they would kill them so no one else can get near them. So he sees the woman he loves as this mythical being almost. “One of Beauty’s Daughters”. Almost Greek legend. It’s all about the last lyric in the song “Walk away, she can try, and if she does, she dies.” You know, I’m the only one allowed to love you. It’s obviously disturbing. (Laughs) that frame of mind… to love somebody so much that you would be prepared to kill them. There’s a word that they have for it… I forget the word but obsession isn’t a strong enough word I think! Where you push it so far, it breaks.

Erika Kristen: For the next one, “I Cannot Be Loved”

Aaron: Um, just as a footnote here, that’s actually going to be the second single.

Erika Kristen: Oh really?

Aaron: “Deeper Down” was the first single, an edited version. We edited “I Cannot Be Loved” to fit on the single. And no release date for that one. Umm, this again (chuckles) this is another similar thing, this is a guy not so much “obsessed” with a woman. He just wants her for her flesh and her body. He desires her physically. The mental part of love is there to a degree but it’s the physical thing. Which I think we’ve all been there. You’ve seen someone and you think ‘Oh my God!’ (Laughs) ‘I need to be in bed with that person!’ And you honestly, sometimes you don’t give a damn who they are or what they sound like or their background or anything! That desire as a human to, I don’t know, “get giggy”, for all intensive purposes…

Erika Kristen: (Bizarre laughter)

Aaron: That’s the phrase that felt somewhat best! But I felt “get giggy” worked quite nice. The whole “I Cannot Be Loved” its more sort of ‘I don’t need to be loved’ you know I can still be extraordinarily passionate without there necessarily being love.

Erika Kristen: And for the last one, “To Remain Tombless”

Aaron: Yea, we don’t write happy songs do we? (Laughs)

Erika Kristen: No you don’t! But we appreciate that sometimes. Everything doesn’t need to be happy.

Aaron: I think, this is more a fantastic song where it doesn’t have a story per say. As in, a start, a middle and an end. Its kind of fantastical like a lot of thing I write, about fantasy. It’s like growing old and being with something until you are very old. I guess passing away together. That would be I think, for me, that would be the only way to go. Or to be the first one in a relationship to die obviously wouldn’t affect you a great deal but to be left behind like that would be such an immensely tragic moment. Again, you hear stories of people where people would have been married for sixty years and one of them dies and the other dies less than a month later. And it has to be from a broken heart. You can’t think it could be anything else. Your life would’ve changed completely if the person you’ve loved for so long was taken from you. Your heart just gives in, there’s nothing else for it, then off you go.

Erika Kristen: Can you relate to this on a personal level…

Aaron: Well, I am 84! (Laughter)

Erika Kristen: You know what I mean…

Aaron: Well, I can relate to a lot of the lyrics I write. But there are some that are influenced by movies, books, other musicians, other people’s stories. I quite like reading diaries from people who fought in the First or Second World War.

Erika Kristen: Really?

Aaron: You know, although you would never imagine that reading MY DYING BRIDE’s lyrics. I take those moments of deep stress and anxiety; where you can imagine someone under fire, relentlessly. They’re sitting in some mud in the pouring rain, in a forging country, thousands of miles away from the person they love. But they still find the time to write a love letter which I think is a fantastic thing. I mean who writes love letters these days! Under fire?! I think people who can do things like that , I think, are really, really interesting. There are moments in MY DYING BRIDE’s music where I’ve read something from some guy who’s been shot at and he’s got one leg but he still has a moment for the person he loves. I just think that’s really cool. I may take that small idea and build it up to be something completely different and use it for MY DYING BRIDE. Again, the seed was planted by some old 80-year-old diary. I don’t know, then I’ve blown it up into some huge gothic tree. And, um, that’s what I do.

Erika Kristen: And um, you have a very strong vocal range, have you had any lessons at all?

Aaron: Umm, no I’ve never had any lessons. But I think I’m getting better. Again, after sixteen years you would hope to get better. In saying that, when you’ve done a lot a death metal vocals like I have, you would also imagine that the voice may not be as strong as it was. But I think it’s as strong as it’s ever been. And I never really sung properly. I’ve vocalized in many different ways but I’ve never really sang a song. (Thinking) I’ve never really tried. On this album, there was a day when there was only myself and Max, the engineer in the studio. And I thought I’m going to have a go at me singing something and the only person who can laugh, is Max! (Laughter) I can tolerate one person laughing and saying that was ridicules. And so I just belched out a few lines and Max was like, we’ve got to keep going down this road because it’s fantastic. I was just blown away. I just thought okay, that really filled me with such confidence. And when the rest of the guys came back they listened to it and they said it’s just fantastic. We’ve never heard you sing like that, please continue. And I felt fantastic really and hopefully the future holds many more moments like that for me.

Erika Kristen: I hope so! It sounds as though it came though on the album.

Aaron: The trick is singing them in a live situation. You need a lot of confidence to do it in the studio; you need even more to do it in front of thousands of people. I think, we’ve only done two shows airing the new material. I think I was a little wobbly on the first show but the second show, was actually in Istanbul in Turkey, it was fantastic! I loved doing it, the fans loved it. And we had a great time there.

Aaron Stainthorpe of My Dying Bride (Photo: Kelema Béata ) Erika Kristen: Are there any touring plans in the near future or is it too early to tell?

Aaron: There’s nothing concrete but we’ve asked our promoter if we can get to the States because we were there several years ago with Ronnie James Dio and it was fantastic and we always wanted to come back. But, record sales for us there are not so great. Which that dictates to the promoters who they sign and who they don’t. So it’s difficult for a venue owner to bring MY DYING BRIDE over. There’s six in the band plus the crew, there’s ten people. Who’s going to fly ten people to the States for a few shows?! When the audiences may not be so great. So we have mentioned a package with perhaps Paradise Lost and Cradle of Filth. You know we’re trying! We have told people, our promoter what we would like and he’s going to be talking to Peaceville and the Cradle of Filth people. I think it would be a great package. But we are working on different ideas.

Erika Kristen: Wonderful! As long as there’s some hope that you are coming back to the States…

Aaron: Oh, there is always hope.

Erika Kristen: Okay, so I just got turned on to your artwork. And can I say I’m in lust with it.

Aaron: (Laughs shyly) All right.

Erika Kristen: So could you explain your artwork to your fanbase and our readership?

Aaron: Umm, most of my artwork are visual interpretations of my lyrical style. Some nights, I only write the lyrics when I’m feeling depressed or angry or particularly low. And some evenings if I don’t feel especially poetical, I’ll then become more of a traditional artist, get the paints out. Sketch things or take the camera, even in the middle of the night. I’ll just go wondering around the streets and the fields and take photos of things and manipulate them in Photoshop. Or use original media. I’ll do anything in order to take what’s going on in my brain out of my brain and put it somewhere else. Because I only create the things I do when I’m feeling really, really bad. So that’s reflected in the lyrics and my art. Which is why all the artwork is particularly dark like the lyrics. But it’s quite cathartic for me because afterwards I actually feel like a burden has been lifted. I feel really quite refreshed. Um, so the artwork is surreal in places because everybody’s mind is a surreal place to be! So, it’s difficult to explain individual images, they are snapshots of what was in my brain at that particular moment in time.

Erika Kristen: Are you displayed anywhere? Are they in galleries?

Aaron: No, but they are on my website.

Erika Kristen: What website is that?

Aaron: It’s www.azzron.com. They are by my own admittance some extremely naive images which were done several years ago but I leave them there. Almost to be mocked because again they were snapshots of how I felt at that time. And even today I may look back on some of the things I’ve created and think what on earth… what was going on in my mind at that moment. And I’m tempted to delete a lot of the things I’ve done but I don’t as crap as some of them are, I feel almost like they’re my children. I’ve created them. Though they may not be necessarily what I’ve hoped for, I still cherish them to a degree and I can’t delete them.

Erika Kristen: Good! As you shouldn’t. It’s all a progression. So, I know you guys have had video troubles in the past but are there any video treatments in the works presently?

Aaron: well, we did a video for the single “Deeper Down”. I say ‘we’ did it we were unavailable so we asked a guy from Sweden or Norway, I can’t remember which, to do it. For us, it doesn’t feel like a MY DYING BRIDE video although it has some visual interesting moments and it’s quite bleak, as you would imagine. It has really very little to do with the band as we had almost no input. However, with “I Cannot Be Loved” I pretty much wrote and directed most of that. I helped with a lot of the camera shoots and I picked all the locations. That one, when it comes out will be my baby! (Laughter) If you hate it, I’m afraid I’m the one to point the finger at!

Erika Kristen: All right. Now are your past videos on DVD, some of your uncut videos?

Aaron: Yeah, we have the two DVDs for “Darkest Eyes” which is mostly a live show from Poland but also features our first five or six videos. And the second DVD is called “Cinema Arta” which again features a live show more recently and the last few videos we shot. And there’s actually an exclusive video on “Cinema Arta” for “The Blue Lotus” which was never aired. So go out and buy it now kids.

Erika Kristen: Oh, yes definitely! Winding down, if he could commission another band to cover a My Dying Bride song, who would do it and which song would it be?

Aaron: That’s a good question! I’m a big fan of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. I think it would be quite wonderful. I think it be great if Nick would sing “The Raven and The Rose”. Because that was influenced by his book And the Ass Saw the Angel so I think that would be a quirky thing and also the song, our version is quite aggressive. I’d like to hear them do it in a more restrained manner. And because it’s linked to his book, it would give it a good little twist. I think it’s nice to have bands doing new material or imaging doing new material who aren’t really part of the genre. I’d love Dead Can Dance to cover one of songs but I wouldn’t have a clue as to which one they could do. We’ll stick with Nick Cave and “The Raven and The Rose”

Erika Kristen: Being a front man yourself, who in your opinion is the epitome of a good front man?

Aaron: Now that varies depending on the band. I’ve seen some bands who I love and the front man is just dull. And I’ve seen some bands that I’m just not interest in, Mötley Crüe. But not just the frontman but the whole band are just rockin’ and full of enthusiasm. And they’re rockin and they now how to do it! (Laughter) even though the music never mean much to me. To me, I’m in a world of my own so I’m not sure. I have no real control over the things I do or say. I almost never acknowledge the crowd. I don’t talk between songs. Now for some people, they’ll think he’s a shit frontman. They want that feedback, they want that repoure with the lead singer. They want me to tell them stories and I just don’t do that. I can’t do that. I’m locked in my own little dark world. And I try not acknowledge anyone in the audience, that’s all. We often get people saying before the show, people who meet us, you know, could you dedicate a song to me. (Laughter) You’re joking! That’s simply not going to happen. On stage, I am a man possessed. And I’m tormented. The rest of the guys have to steer clear of me because I’m falling about all over the place. I’m screaming and I’m in agony and I really don’t want to be there. And they have to kind of like watch out where they’re standing because I’m kind of unpredictable. That’s funny after the shows as well they’ll all be talking backstage and they’ll be say ‘Wow, did you see the girl in the front row, man?! She looks fine!!!’ (Hysterical laughter) and I’ll just be saying ‘Nope, I simply did not see anybody. I think I see the audience but I simply don’t acknowledge them.

Erika Kristen: What would complete you as a musician first and then as a person?

Aaron: I think on the musical front would be a better vocal range and I think practice makes perfect in that area. You know, I’m not going to be Mariah Carey or Frank Sanatra, people who can sing all kinds of notes. But I think there’s a bit more dimension yet to be discovered. And so, to become a better singer would complete me as a member of MY DYING BRIDE. On a personal level, I don’t think I can be complete. Although I think children might hit the spot. I don’t have any children and I often wondered what it would be like to have a small me running around… covered in shit (Laughter) and grass and candy and screaming with sticky finger prints covered all over the wall. I think that would be quite nice.

Erika Kristen: Ahhh, that’s nice. What’s the one thing that people wouldn’t know about you that you wouldn’t mind sharing?

Aaron: I have a nerdy obsession with Aston Martin Motor Cars. (Laughs)

Erika Kristen: Really?! To what extent?

Aaron: Oh, very nerdy! You know, I’m not a huge automotive fan but I remember when I was younger, hearing this enormous roar coming up the road behind me and I turned around and there was this enormous vehicle! And it was the most outrageous looking car I had ever seen and I was hooked from that moment onwards. I’m actually a member of the Aston Martin Motor Owners Club! (Laughter)

Erika Kristen: No way! That’s so cool!

Aaron: It’s total Nerdom! I guess it’s that whole hand crafted thing. When I see something that’s been passionately crafted and created by skilled people, I appreciate that. And most particularly the earlier Aston’s were all hand beaten; these people didn’t have proper tools or anything. Every car was slightly different because it was made by different guys using weird wooden hammers and strange little jigs and I see them as being well crafted individual pieces as opposed to just cars. So that’s why I’m kind of attracted to them.

Erika Kristen: Thank you for sharing that!

Aaron: Oh, no problem.

Erika Kristen: What would you like the music community to remember about My Dying Bride?

Aaron: Umm, I think that we did put heart and soul into everything we did. And again, not just the music, the whole visual thing. We try not to let area slip. We try to make sure the photographs, the lyrics, the style always looks hard worked… it’s effort. We made a big effort with sweat and blood and tears for this band and I think that’s the thing I would like to be remembered for. We’re hard working people and we don’t settle for anything less than perfection. It’s hard to find but we keep searching for it.

Erika Kristen: Always search for it. So, what does the next year hold in store for My Dying Bride?

Aaron: Well, we will be doing obviously some promotional touring for this album. As I said, the second single “I Cannot Be Loved” will be released at some point but I don’t have a date for that. And there is actually talk of creating some kind of classical music album. Bringing Martin back. And we have a couple of cellists who are interested in working with us too. This is very much in its infancy. We were toying with the idea of taking some of our earlier riffs and kind of putting them all together, in some sort of symphonic manner. Not every song but you might take riff #2 from “Turn Loose the Swans” and marry it with riff #3 from “The Cry of Mankind”. Something like that but I think ultimately, if you did the whole album in that single style, it may be a bit too much. So we’re looking at a sort of Dead Can Dance twist as well. It will be MY DYING BRIDE material and the arrangements but not, songs, if you know what I mean. It’s taking lots of different riffs, mixing them all up and off we go. If you can imagine, I don’t know, the song “Vast Choirs” instead of going to riff #2 which you would expect to hear it may go off onto “The Trash of Naked Limbs”. But we’ve got to work on that yet.

Erika Kristen: Ahh, man just thinking about it is too exciting…

Aaron: Well it’s a long way off yet but it’s certainly a project we’re looking at working on.

Erika Kristen: And then finally, any special messages for your fans?

Aaron: We apologize for one thing for not being back to The States in such a long time. But there’s very little we can do about that. But yeah, we’re still going strong and we’re still here. We still have a lot of fans who appreciate the things that we do and we’re going to continue doing this despite, you know, some people saying ‘Why don’t you write more radio friendly songs.” You’ve been at this for so long “Where’s you fortune?” We didn’t create MY DYING BRIDE to make a fortune. We created it because we needed an artist outlet to hone our thoughts. And that’s what we still do now. We don’t really care if the record sells. It’s nice if it does but it won’t prevent us from doing the next album, and the next album and the next one after that.

Erika Kristen: THANK YOU!

We'd like to thank Aaron for this morbidly fascinating interview and to his camp for setting it up!