We'll never write a happy song

It has been over two years now since the "Draconian Times" album came out, why did it take so long to release this new album because in the past you released an album every year...

We toured a lot longer this time to promote "Draconian Times", going to places we've never been before, like Australia, Japan, South America and Mexico. So that took a lot of time... And when we finished that, we just had enough really... So we decided we needed some time out, not even hearing any music, because we were sick of each other as well... So we went our own separate ways for a couple of months. Everyone did their own thing. I build a home studio, Aaron went skydiving, and everyone just did their own thing... So I went writing songs in my home-studio, a lot of keyboard oriented stuff, not really for Paradise Lost but messing around on my own. And when we came back together to do the new album, I suggested using some of the stuff I had done, and we went ahead with it. We didn't really sit down and said "let's do it this or that way", but it just worked out this way...

You get credits for all the music that is released by Paradise Lost, so when you take your material to the band it is a finished song?

More or less, yeah. Well, most of the material on this album was put together using samples and loops, I would put it on DAT tape and take it to the rehearsal-room and then we would play along with it and see what happened...

Has this song writing style changed over the years?

No, this has been the way that we've been doing things since the beginning. I doing the music and Nick doing the lyrics. All the other albums were written on guitars and this one wasn't, so that's probably why it sounds a bit different that our previous material.

What is the thought behind the album cover and the title?

"One Second" is when you become aware of your own mortality. When you get older, you start wondering 'where did that time go?' and it seems like five minutes since we started this band and we were all sixteen and doing our stuff. And when you're really old you'll probably feel the same and wonder where all the time did go... So that old lady on the cover is looking back on her life and is thinking it all was over in just one second...

In the CD-booklet there is a photograph next to every song. Did you pick those yourself to fit with the songs, or did you say to someone to go ahead and see what you come up with?

In the past we've been known to have kind of overblown, big, gothic covers and titles, so we thought to change that to strip it all down to black and white imagery, something more striking than the usual stuff that we do... So we wanted to go with images that didn't exactly tune totally with the songs, but to have the same feel as the songs... We didn't pick the photos ourselves, but we did pick the persons to do the photos and then we give them an idea of what we want. So when they return we say yes or no, give them some more ideas and they come back again...

As Paradise Lost gets bigger and bigger, is there something that keeps you back from incorporating different ideas into the music because there is that much at stake?

No, not really... Well, maybe we did on "Draconian Times"... People expected more of a change on "Draconian Times" to be honest but it turned out to be more of an extension of the "Icon" album... So with this album we thought 'let's do everything we want to do'... We more or less pretended to be a brand new band and just did what we wanted to do, and this is what we came up with.

But you're now financially dependent on the band, so that hasn't changed from when you did your first album, when you weren't.

Well, I think a lot of people start a band with the wrong ideas... 'Because we want to make a lot of money we'll get in a band'... We didn't start off like that, but simply because of the mutual love for the same kind of music... We only do things because we want them to... But having said that, I know a lot of people who are in this industry who purely do it for the cash... I couldn't, because that would mess with my head too much... It's not worth it...

I was wondering how much control do you have over what the labels releases of the band, like the "Say Just Words" single was released in a couple of different versions with different bonus tracks...

That's just formatting... That has nothing to do with us. It is something that pisses me off a bit, but every band gets that done to them...

In the past that happened to you with the "Gothic EP" that was released on Peaceville?

Well, I wasn't really pissed off about that, it's just that you were friends with somebody and they suddenly do things to cash in on what you are doing... But I don't like formatting, but it's just something that happens...

And of the "Draconian Times" album, there was a special edition with the bonus live-CD and the extra booklet...

Oh, but I do like that one.. I think the packaging for that one is fantastic... And I think that was worth the money for the people who were buying it.

You have been going now for nearly ten years since your first demos, how do you look back on that period, and would you change some things?

I wouldn't change anything... Ok, when I listen to certain songs I hear things that make me think 'that is terrible', but... But I still think that a lot of what we've done is relevant. We wouldn't be doing what we are doing today if we hadn't start where we started and did what did... For me, a lot of bands come up each year, and play the big festivals and be big for a year and be gone the next... I feel that they miss the appreciation for what they do... We started off playing small clubs in England with bands like Extreme Noise Terror and bands like that because that was all there was around, and no-one knew what to make of us because we were playing really really slow and everyone else was playing ultra fast, and we travelled around Europe in little vans and done the whole bit, and that gives you a lot of appreciation for what you've got now.

And is there never a feeling of wanting to get back to those small clubs and...

There is no wanting to get back to sleeping in vans, and sleeping rough and sleeping under vans... We're too old for that now...

Ok, but in the 'luxury' of the way you are touring now, but in a small club with a maximum capacity of say 100 people... I think there is a big difference from that and the venues you are playing now most of the time...

Yeah, but you still get the same buzz from it... It depends... If you like what you are playing and everyone else likes what you are playing, it's the same kind of buzz you are getting. It doesn't matter if it's 100 people or on a big festival where you're maybe playing 70.000 people or something... But I don't particularly like festivals...

But you headlined the Dynamo Festival in 1995, in front of nearly 100.000 people...

Yeah, that was the best festival we've ever played. Just because it's dark makes a huge difference. The worst thing about festivals is that more often than not you are playing in the daylight and and it doesn't work for a band like us... It's a big buzz playing in front of that many people but I think that after the first 10-15 rows you don't see anything. It's all a lot of little dots and you don't see it... You lose your nerves as soon as you walk on the stage... Well, we still get nervous every night before we go on stage, we've been having that since the very beginning, and I feel that if you don't get nervous that there is something wrong, that you don't care anymore...

If you would be given the chance to do a Paradise Lost compilation album, which songs would you pick? Would you pick songs from the last couple of albums, or..?

It depends on what you are trying to do... Obviously I think that our new stuff is the best we've ever done, because we wouldn't have done it otherwise, but if I would try to give a good cross-section of what we've been doing over the years... Well, I didn't like anything off the first album, purely because of the sound of the album... I prefer our demos to the sound of our first album... When we did it, we didn't like how it turned out. That's why we did the remixing of some songs, for the "In Dub 12"", and I love that one, and we would put that on the compilation album... And off the "Gothic" album I like "Shattered", "Eternal" and "Gothic"... "Shades Of God" was a weird album. That was an 'in between album' for us...

From the change from being a death metal band to...?

We didn't know what to do! So we just did what we did... I think when we did "As I Die" for that album, we thought... Well, I was the only one that actually liked that song, but everyone else thought it was terrible... So I didn't really know what to do with it... So when everyone else thought it was good as well, I thought 'that's the way forward for us'... So that's why we did the album "Icon" which found us carrying off after where we were after "As I Die", and obviously "Draconian Times" being the extension of "Icon"... But we felt we had to start again with this album ...

The reason why you weren't sure about "As I Die", was that also the reason why it wasn't on the LP?

The thing was, since I was the only one that liked "As I Die", and nobody in the band liked it, and so we released the LP without it... But I still wanted to use the song, so we released it as a single, and when everyone else seemed to like it, we released it as a bonus track on the LP as well... It was really popular and everyone liked it, so it turned out well...

What are your touring plans for this album? Is it going to be the entire world again as you did on the "Draconian Times" tour, or a smaller tour this time?

Well, we didn't go to America on the last album, we thought that we would never ever go back to America after we've been there once, but the response from there was so good that we will probably go back this time... But we're just started on this tour, and afterwards we'll probably go to Japan, and do a few dates in America, and then we'll just see what happens... I don't want to go crazy again touring for this album... We'll do it as long as we feel we can do it... But we're very enthusiastic about it, we refound our love for doing this again, towards the end of touring for "Draconian Times" we just lost it, but fortunately doing the album and now doing this tour again we got back into the entire thing...

After recording the new album, did you have any doubt on how the fans would react to this new album?

That's Nick's job really... He worries... He's the one that's our center balance... I want to try all kinds of mad things and he's the one that says 'you don't need to do that if you can do this' and that balances things out...

Well, because I heard a lot of people going really bezerk after hearing the album and went like "Oh my god! They have gone totally Oasis!"...

Well, we hadn't had that one before... I don't think it's an easy album, but then again, it wasn't an easy album to write either. We spend a year writing it basically and that's every day for a year... So it wasn't easy to write and I don't expect people to get into it overnight... But I don't accept people saying that we've sold out because we just haven't! It has the same kind of feeling in our songs that we've had since Day One... Of course in a different way... We'll never write a happy song, because I don't like happy songs...