Paradise Lost

By Francisco Jfm on Dec 12, 2009 in Exclusive Interviews | 0 comments

Paradise Lost just released a new album, “Faith Divides Us – Death Unites Us” and RIFF went to Madrid, Spain, for an exclusive interview with Greg Mackintosh about the band’s new work.

When did you arrive to Madrid?

Yesterday… yesterday evening.

Have you seen anything around here? Or you’re just here to work?

Well, we went to a restaurant and a bar… and we can’t believe you can still smoke in bares here… ‘Cause it’s something we don’t have in the UK for a long time, as a non-smoker I found it quite bizarre!

It’s been two years since your last studio album, what do you think about this new work, can you tell us about this new material?

It’s quite more live sounding I suppose; it’s down to the producer really…. It’s a lot heavier, quite down tuned. But we didn’t want to do a heavy album just for the sacary, you know?! We wanted to be very special sounding, and lot’s of different dynamics going on, still having good melodies and song structures and dynamics. It’s kind of a more extreme version of the In Requiem.

The conception of this album was it harder or easier than the previous ones?

I would say probably harder. Because we were very very meticulous about the song written, I mean… we’re not the kind of band that can write 40 songs and then go to studio and pick the best 10. We kind of take the best ideas and develop them into songs, so when we’re at the studio we record the 10 tracks for the album, but before that every track can have 30 different versions ‘cause we’re very kind of critics about our own material. We like to cover every angle before we commit to a song.

Is there any special message you would like to transmit?

Not really… it’s rumblings about life and death, and everything in between! The title is very atheist, we are atheists, but… we’re not preaching to anyone, it’s just our opinion… there’s song religion cover in there, but also many other things… life in general, problems and whatever. But we thought it was quite interesting to have music and hard work that is inspired by religious ideals mixed with the atheist title… we thought it would be funny, kind of an irony.

My next question was about the album title… why this specific title?

Well, we knew it would be quite provocative, but also thought that it looks good. We never had such a long hyphened title before and we thought it would be interesting. It was originally just a song title, but then we thought that it would be a very provocative album title, especially when it’s so contradictory with the content.

What about your new drummer…

Yes, we have Adrian Erlandsson, he’s originally from Sweden but he lived in London for the last 10 years. We’re already friends with him before he joined the band, and it was a guy called Jeff Walker from the band Carcass, well he was drumming in another band Jeff’s in, and he told Adrian we still were looking for a full-time drummer, and he called me and came for an audition and joined us. He’s been in bands like Cradle of Filth and At the Gates, The Haunted before…

So it was an easy process to select him…

Yah, we already knew him… I already knew he was a nice guy and a good drummer; but as part of being a good drummer, it’s even more important that you can get on with a person especially if you’re going to live with him on a tour bus for months. He´s the same age as us, he’s from a similar music background, got a similar sense of humor… the only difference is that he’s Swedish, but he’s accent is kind of amusement for us.

You have Peter Damin playing the studio album, and now you have Adrian Erlandsson playing with you live… don’t you think it may sound different, heavier?

Well, it’s hard to say that yet, but we’re going to start playing in September. Hrr, Adrian joined the band 2 days before we record this album, we were already committed with Peter doing the album, I think Adrian is more metal drummer than our previous one or Peter Damin, but that seems to be the direction we’re moving in, so… he’s a very versatile drummer, I don’t think this will be a problem for him.

Why do you have such instability with drummers?

Hmm, that’s the million dollar question!! It’s just a typical spinal tap, something that we have no control of… Hopefully Adrian will stay with us for a long time, as long he doesn’t die in a gardening accident or something like that

Interviewer: Vera Gaspar
Cameras: Francisco Monteiro
Text: Vera Gaspar
Video-Editing: Francisco Monteiro

By: Francisco Jfm