Paradise Lost @ Download 2007

United Kingdom | by Ross Baker18 June 2007

Virtual Festivals: How are you?
Both: “Fantastic.”

VF: You managed to squeeze three eras of Paradise Lost in just 30 minutes, how has it been playing newer stuff like ‘In Requiem’ compared with say the older ‘Draconian Times’?
Gregor Mackintosh: “It’s suddenly dead easy because they sit alongside each other very well and for us to play them together is very exciting; its great for us and hopefully it is for people who have seen us 90 times.  Songs like ‘Gothic’ which we play when we have a long set sits perfectly alongside our new stuff.  At the end of the day it’s the same guys that have written it.”

VF: ‘In Requiem’ is your most hard hitting album compared to your work with the keyboards and female vocalists say on ‘Symbol of Life’.  Are there any plans to bring the keyboard and female vocals back into the live show?
GM:  “When we do the song ‘Gothic’ we bring in a female vocalist but female vocals are a pretty dull trodden ground now, but if the designs are there to do it in the future then we’ll do it.”
 
Nick Holmes: “As far as the live thing goes, the less people to deal with the better, like another guy on a keyboard.  And we don't need some girl who's going to make us all frustrated on tour and stuff.”

VF: Are you frustrated on tour? 
NH: “I’m always frustrated, I’m frustrated full stop.”
 
VF: How do you feel your career has been going compared with other bands such as Dimmu Borgir who started around the same sort of time as you? At one point you all had very similar sounds.    GM:  “It's weird because we know a lot of them very well and they’re the same guys who used to go to the same sort of nightclubs that we used to go to.  It’s hard to comment about the music because it’s us and it’s them.” 

NH: “We just think about them being nice guys, it doesn’t matter what band you’re in.”

GM “When we all get together we talk about the predestination of Halifax town centre. I don’t know, that's them, and that’s us, they're still doing it, and we're still doing it.

NH: “We don’t get together to talk about the state of gothic metal in the new millennium.”

VF: What’s the state of gothic metal now?                                                                                   NH: “Now?  It’s massively broad, anyone form My Chemical Romance to us, it’s linked through…”

GM: “Eyeliner.”

NH: “Yeah style more then music.  When we first labelled it gothic metal it was more about the feel of the music and now it has become more of a stylised thing.  It’s all about the romantic side of it, we were never to do with anything like that, we were all about the dark side of it.”

GM: “Gothic music has always been the fashion.”

NH: “Obviously.” [Nick points at Greg]

GM: [Laughs] “Obviously.  Gothic metal without the fashion I have no interest in.”

VF: Is there anybody you want to see on this year’s bill?
GM: “We haven’t actually seen anything.  We only just arrived this morning, but I want to see Maiden.  I can’t believe I’m 37 and I’ve never seen Iron Maiden.  It’s criminal.  I will watch a bit but I won’t stay because I want to get out before the traffic gets bad. [Laughs]  But everyone else will have that idea as well.  I wanted to see Manson, now I might not get the chance.”