Exclusive Interview: CRADLE OF FILTH front man Dani Filth talks books, vampires, horror and comedy

Say what you will about Britain’s Cradle of Filth, but one thing you cannot ever criticize is its members’ candidness. Ask them any question at all, and you are guaranteed to receive a response that is colorful, tinged with humor, and above all, brutally honest.

Front man Dani Filth recently released his debut into the world of literature with The Gospel of Filth (hard cover available online now, with the trade paperback being released in February 2010). The book is a 500-page monolith that discusses everything from art, literature and history to the occult, movies, and music, all tied together as they relate to the inspiration behind the Cradle of Filth monstrosity.

Read on as we sit down with Dani and discuss the inner workings of the book, humor, the Twilight phenomenon, horror films, and how he spent his Halloween this year.

Why and how exactly did you come to the decision to sit down and begin (and complete) this long, arduous journey of penning a book?

The original idea was something that Gavin Baddeley dreamed up. He thought it would work with Cradle because of the imagery and the subject matter we'd embraced as a band over the years. The final product is actually ten times the amount we'd first envisaged, as the beast just kept getting bigger and more in-depth as time slathered on.

Did you attack it with the same fervor as you do your music, or was it a different kind of commitment? And did it bring back any of the agonies of your journalist days?

Of course, it was just a very different animal to create between Gavin and myself. His was nearly continuous, whilst I had tours and albums to break it up with. There was an awful amount of research to be had for a book this gargantuan and involved; even the proofreading took absolute weeks.

Do you think The Gospel of Filth helps to re-place the mysterious veil that CoF had abandoned, or do you see this as holding a mirror up to the world, showing everyone that there is a little “Filth” in all of us?

I don't think we've lost that mysterious veil, I just think that people have more of their own perceptions of us lot now. Everybody has an opinion on this band and some people have been jaded by time and exposure.

That said, I also agree with the 'mirror' thing. If nothing, this book reveals that there has always been a deep fascination with all things dark, taboo and occult, from the lowliest mind to the heights of Kings and scholars, and that it's man's nature to wander from the path given him, and to sometimes relish it's darker corners and delights.

As well, were you ever bothered by the demystification of the band, or do you now see yourself as a different, more evolved kind of monster?

We're a much different hand-reared hydra now and more evolved in every way. The only thing that ever bothered me was having to pander to the press, playing their silly games to get the story out there, like always being around for Halloween and posturing in graveyards. I've always wanted to 'get there', but not at the cost of my soul.

Did The Gospel of Filth provide you with any conscious (or subconscious) closure on the past 15 years of trials, tribulations, mirth and mayhem of the band’s career? 

I must admit it was a huge relief when the book was finished, because it drifted a good two years over deadline. This was mainly due to sourcing and researching the massive content, and the subsequent months that went into making it work - not only as the most comprehensive overview of the dark-side ever published, but also on a much smaller, more intimate scale, as it seeks to makes connections with the ideologies of our albums, whose themes are spring-boarded forth, from each chapter. For example "Cruelty... and the Beast's" main crux is serial killer chic, "The Principle of Evil Made Flesh" - the femme fatale, "Damnation and a Day" - Satanism, and so on and so off.

Something that really shines through in the book, as well as the band’s lyrics, is a sincere tongue-in-cheek brand of humor (I still chuckle when I misread the title “Gods Peed on the Devil’s Thunder”). Does the focus on humor have anything to do with your being a father to a young child, or is it part of the deeply rooted Monty Pythonian history of Britain?

I think the self-deprecating humor and sarcasm is a British trait all the way, it's in our sticky genes and from these, it has bled into everything, from fatherhood to our best-known comedies. It is strange that Monty Python is widely regarded as our funniest comedy ever, as it so evidently isn’t; it's just become more of a familiar institution than anything.

Enjoying yourself in the field of work you do is the whole point of doing it. Sometimes our twisted humor as a band does shine through, but I think this is only because of our love for what we do, and hopefully it never detracts musically. We would never, never, never make a comedy album. Comedy metal sucks big fat rock.

Since the book (and the band) discusses the lust, fantasy, and fascination of the world of vampires in one chapter, I am wondering, how do you feel about this phenomenon called Twilight and its stranglehold on teenage girls and the media? Does the uncontested acceptance of its bend on the traditional vampire mythos bother you at all?

Not really. The Twilight phenomenon speaks to the adolescent, as Dracula once connected with the likes of young Victorian women, and as the successful spate of Anne Rice novels did to teenagers in the seventies and eighties. It's the good old-fashioned shadow of awakening sexual awareness and the mysterious danger it courts, spreading its virile, vampiric wings.

Have your wife and child yet been lured into the ‘Twilight Hypnosis?’ And have you ever attempted to read the books or see the movie?

My daughter Luna is sailing the perimeters of this whirlpool at the moment. It's more an American thing I think, as it's so far closer to your culture than ours. It's obvious that Interview with the Vampire would happen for the current age's hot-blooded teens and to an extent I quite like it. Vampires are far preferable in all their guises to high school musicals and Hannah Montana!

Now that you have tackled non-fiction, do you have any aspirations to compose an actual memoir or move on to full-blown fiction?

Maybe some full blown fiction when I start to look even more ridiculous on stage and have to put away the battle-dress, but in the meantime I've been writing poetry for a few years and am hoping to publish it, lovingly illustrated, and now that The Gospel... is clear, hopefully I can now start my valiant quest for a publisher.

Have you seen any recent horror movies that you felt did the genre justice, or has Hollywood completely forgotten how to make “good” horror?

Recent movies that I thought do the genre real justice are films like Martyrs, Inside, Mum And Dad, District 9, Storm Warning, Eden Lake, The Descent, Let The Right One In, Switchblade Romance, Dorian Gray (for a bit of horror pomp), Antichrist, Frontiere(s), and Dead Snow to maim but a few. Most of them are very gory and gritty and as far away from the Gothic horror I love as one can stretch. But they all retain at least one thing in common; that they are not, in any way, shape or form, Hollywood fare.

Has CoF bowed out of the horror soundtrack circuit, or are you biding your time for the right opportunity? It seems like more and more, especially with the Saw series, like labels are using movie soundtracks to shill their own product, rather than invoke some of the energy of the movie they are supposed to be promoting.

We're actually in the process of creating our own soundtrack, which we are intending to set to various, augmented, horror classics from the early black and white period. This will be fully orchestrated and comprised of various interpretations from some of our earlier albums, which at times have mirrored the dark Gothicism of the films already mentioned. The whole package is going to be a sensory experience.

Have you made any moves to connect with the recently re-activated Hammer Films Studios to perhaps provide some music, or even physically appear?

I actually gave up on Hammer the first time they clawed their way out of the proverbial grave and staged an official anniversary. The t-shirt imprint we were running at the time ('Vamperotica') had quite a few fingers in oh so many pies, and, seeing as their great 'comeback' merchandising empire stretched to a solitary line of fridge-magnets, I decided to design a range of shirts from their film-posters on their behalf, and offered them a great distribution deal all over the world. They didn't even both to politely say no and then start using my ideas elsewhere.... they just didn't bother! Fullstop. With anything.

And I think the same thing will happen again, probably with their upcoming films, if they don't get someone right behind the marketing and PR who absolutely loves everything that Hammer used to stand for in the glory days.

Why the hell should they use anyone like us, who have been championing their cause throughout the Horror, Goth and Metal scenes for the last fifteen years? LOL! God, I bet the new films even lack the buxom wenches of yesteryear, too!

How is Halloween celebrated in the UK these days? Is it similar or different to the typical American aesthetic of trick-or-treating and partying?

Halloween isn't celebrated as much as it is in the US, which is a shame as there are twenty times more dead people on this tiny isle than are living on your entire continent, so we're possibly more qualified! It has been growing in popularity of late, especially with the supermarkets, which now flood aisle upon aisle with cheap novelty goods, thus mimicking your good selves.

I actually spent this Halloween/Anniversary with my wife in Edinburgh, which was amazing; full of pubs, castles, gobbledygooks and haggis. We went to the Edinburgh Dungeons (think an interactive torture chamber walk-through with monsters and hidden effects), an underground ghost-hunt beneath the royal mile and had our fare share of visiting centuries old pubs to wine and dine. Normally I would listen to spooky soundtracks or the Misfits, but this year was pretty much dominated by the sublime wheezing squeal of bagpipes!