PARADISE LOST: Interview with Aaron Aedy

Against Magazine had the chance to interview the very nice and talkative Aaron Aedy from Paradise Lost just a few moments before their concert in Vagos Open Air. From their soon to be played Bulgarian show with an orchestra, going through the recording of their “heavy” new album and reminiscing about all eras of the band including the “Host” phase, we’ve discussed everything related to Paradise Lost’s now 26 year-old career over the course of the very spirited chat we had with the rhythm guitarist and founding member of the band.

Photo by Carlos Miranda

Hello Aaron! From what I’ve seen in the last days you guys are planning to do a show on the 20th of September in Bulgaria with the Plovdiv Philarmonic Orchestra…
Yeah, and a choir as well now. They’ve got a choir as well, so it’s going to be quite exciting. I’m nerve wrecking (laughs). You don’t wanna mess up when there’s real professional musicians playing in the orchestra! You just have to be so careful. Excited and nervous at the same time.

You’ve already incorporated orchestral elements in the past in your music, but this is the first time you’re going to play with an orchestra. Where did the idea came to do this kind of concert?
The guy that’s organizing the concert, he approached I think it was Nick via e-mail, and then Nick went to our management and talked about it. The guy has been really into the idea for a while, and he’s tried to get a hold of us. He managed to get a hold of Nick and it was like, yeah…cool idea. Why not? So, I’m looking forward to it. It’s in a beautiful set, a big room like an amphitheater as well. It’s got all the recipe, the ingredients to be such a lovely show. Fingers crossed up for any mistakes as well (laughs). But no, we’ll rehearse well for it!

So, what other type of bands bridging an orchestra and metal do you feel were a success and became a blueprint for this kind of fusion?
A few bands over the years might have had just a violin player, a string or a horn, but nothing at this extent. Obviously, Metallica did the S&M show which was a huge production. We wanted to avoid it for a long time, I don’t know why really, but it’s almost just like, there was a time where all of a sudden everyone was doin’ it and we were “We don’t wanna do it, we don’t wanna do it”, because everyone was doin’ it. But then when the guy actually approached us, his enthusiasm for it and how much he was into it, he probably sold it to us more than anything. He really made you want to do it almost, because he was so enthusiastic about it. So, why not, you know?

Is this just a one-off?
Yes, it’s just a one off.

Are you planning to eventually do a DVD release, a live album?
We’re talking about both, a DVD or a live album, we’re not sure which are we doing yet. It would be nice to do a DVD in such a nice setting, so we’ll see.

One thing most Paradise Lost fans might want to hear about is the recording of the new album. You guys are now in the middle of the recording process…
Yeah, we’ve got about two thirds of the album written, so we probably need another four songs or something. We’ve got seven or eight songs now and it’s sounding great! Nick has added a little bit more growl again into it as well. Not like he used to when he was a kid, just with a bit more of aggression, but yeah, it’s sounding great because he’s changing between the different styles there’s to him, to help accent choruses. It’s [being] pretty exciting, so at the moment, we’re thinking about recording in November or December. It will be out in the Spring hopefully, if we get it finished. We’re not going to record it until we’ve got the last songs, and we’re quite busy until October. I think Greg’s got some Vallenfyre stuff to do, so hopefully we’re going to record it until the end of the year, so it can be out on the Spring, with a bit of luck.

And you’re going to play a new song from that record in this show (in Bulgaria)…
Yeah, one, we’re going to play a new one.

Photo by Carlos Miranda

When can we expect to hear that new song?
I guess it will be all over on YouTube the day after the show (laughs). Not obviously with the recording quality or sound but I suppose that’s when it’s going to be released. I mean, you play a song live nowadays, you’ve released it, because everybody films it. Most of the time it sounds absolutely awful, but you can still hear what’s it about. Like I’ve said, if we do a video or a live album of the show, then I suppose it’s out then. I don’t know if we’re going to the original version as part of the new album as well, the version we’ve got already without the orchestra. Whether we’ll keep it exclusive for that show yet, I don’t know.

Going back to the question of the new album. You were talking about Nick doing growls, kinda going a little bit back to what he did a few years ago…
Yeah, it’s different now because Nick has more of an idea of melody now, of a lot more he’s learned over the years. So, it’s not like every time, but if a part of the song demands things with a bit more aggression he does it. Not all the time, but he does it. He can go quite into it. We did “Rotting Misery” on the 25th anniversary tour and he was loving it. Hrrrrrrr [Imitating Growl] (laughs).

Will the music reflect that as well? A fusion between the your new style and the Paradise Lost sound of the first records?
We never really discuss it until we finish the album, because even when you’re half way through you don’t know what the rest of the album’s going to be like. We don’t sit around in a big table and form a master plan before we write an album. It’s just whatever happens you know. But it’s still a heavy album by the songs we’ve got so far, typically Paradise Lost basically, but we haven’t gone on too much of a different direction. It’s different to the last one, but it’s still heavy.

You’ve just celebrated your 25th birthday as a band recently. In light of this, I would like to talk about some of what most consider to be pivotal points in your career. Speaking about the first phase, “Gothic” was the album where you’ve laid the groundwork for what you would be, “Icon” showed the band progressing over that sound and “Draconian Times” is one of your most recognized albums, where you’ve established your identity, one I’m always listening to. What were your goals and ambitions while recording these albums? Yeah, it’s a great album. When we did the tour, we played the “Draconian Times” album in it’s entirety. That was brilliant, because one of the songs we’ve never played it live and songs like “Shades of God” which I’ve been wanting to play live again for years, getting to play that live again was fantastic as well. I think that’s what made “Tragic Idol” in a way more of a classic Paradise Lost album because we enjoyed rediscovering our own past.

I think that in the first album [Lost Paradise] we were almost a band that should still be doing demos, rather than doing an album, because we went in the studio and we didn’t know how to record guitars. We were amateurs, really amateurs, but it’s still a classic album. There’s some great songs on there. But on “Gothic” we found more of a direction for ourselves. We blended the Doom Metal and Goth together, which kinda defined us over the years. When we did our first album, there weren’t many bands that sounded like us, and then as a few bands started having a similar sort of thing, if someone starts sounding like us, we change. That’s what we’ve always done, and in “Gothic” we just wanted to do something a bit different, also with the female vocals. We’re Celtic Frost fans, they’ve done it as well and just [wanted to] put our slamp on it really. “Icon” was back to a bit more metal as well. It’s got loads of classic songs in it and that was like the framework for “Draconian Times”. A lot of our albums seem to come in pairs really, it’s like “Icon” and “Draconian Times” belong together, “One Second” and “Host” belong together. “Believe in Nothing” and “Symbol of Life” kind of belong together, so they’re almost coming in pairs. We do one album which might be a bit different, then there’s a natural partner to it, like a progression of what we did with that album that comes after it, and then we want to do something else.

The first tour we did for the “Icon” album, we supported Sepultura on their “Chaos A.D.” tour, that was in like October, November and December 1993, and Sepultura was like “pfeeewww”…they were literally taking off, they were like riding a really big wave. I watched them most nights and they were phenomenal. One of the best metal bands live at that point, they were unbeatable. And then we did our own “Icon” tour after, because that tour was so successful, people liked “Icon” and a lot of people liked Sepultura, it was like a really cool tour to do for both of us at the time. The “Icon” tour did really well at that time, but once “Draconian Times” came out it sort of took another step up and we were touring that for about two years solidly, a lot of touring. When we got at the end of pretty much four years of touring “Icon” and “Draconian Times” we were a little burned out, and that’s why “One Second” is a little bit different, because we wanted to do something different and keep the music fresh for ourselves really. That’s why we write music. It’s for our pleasure. We’re just lucky that some people like it and we can go around playing it you know? Very lucky. But we’ve always made music for own pleasure first. It’s the main reason we started and the main reason we continue, but the day we don’t enjoy it, we’ll just stop.

The fact is, in the last couple of albums, maybe it’s when we all got into our forties, I think we really started to feel humble and appreciative of how lucky we are, how fortunate we are to be offered the chance to go around the world and play our music, share it with people and I think we’re enjoying it now more than ever because we really appreciate how fortunate we are to be in this position after so many years as well, so it’s really cool in that way. We’re loving it more than ever now, but don’t worry about it, we’re not in a hurry to quit just yet (laughs), because it’s just how Nick always says…”What are we going to do? We’re unemployable…”. Nobody’s gonna give us a job (laughs). So, we’ll probably do it until we get our pension…and maybe beyond.

Keep on going guys, don’t stop! So, we covered the first phase of your career, and now I want to talk with you about the middle phase. Let’s talk about “Host”, which is now 15 years old. It represented this big change in your sound back then. You tried to bridge the gap between electronic and rock music in someways…
Yeah, I think the thing that shocks people the most…Well, we moved to EMI, but you know what? EMI was shocked when they got the album. They wanted a heavy album, but they’ve trusted in us. They said “go write your album”, and then we gave them “Host”, and they went like…”We expected something heavier”. That was the first line they’ve said when they heard “Host”, so it’s not EMI’s fault at all, but we just wanted to do something different and it’s a combination of trying something completely different and short hair at the same time. If we would’ve still had long hair and done it, I think a lot of people might have been a bit more forgiving. I think it was like EMI, short hair, electronic, all at once it was like too much for a lot of people. But actually, lots of Paradise Lost fans think “Host” is their favorite album. In my opinion it’s the most miserable album we’ve ever made. It’s a really dark album. In that regard it’s the doomiest album we’ve ever done and it’s a great album. For me, as a guitar player, it was quite exciting because a lot of the sounds there which people think are keyboards are me doing the sounds on a guitar. Greg came down and he was sort of more interested in making sure the keyboards all sounded right, but in the studio I’ve said “if I can make it sound like that but on the guitar, can I do it?”, and they said “go for it”. So, I was experimenting with effects more than I have had, because normally I just record all the rhythms, but it was interesting in that regard because I’ve never played with sound as much as I had during that period. There’s so many different facets to us (…) I mean…bands that sort of felt they couldn’t try [this], they thought “oh, wow, somebody’s gone in that direction”, and eve though there’s no other band that sounds like us, we were the first to incorporate more electronics from our scene, but we were the ones who took the punch in the face and everyone else just sort of did better than us with it.

It’s just one of those things…we needed to do something different or else we would have split up. Sometimes you have to throw yourself a curve ball to find out where you want to be afterwards. But I still think that’s a great album, there are some great songs on that album. We’re playing “So Much Is Lost”. It’s back in the set, which is quite good because it’s a bit heavier live obviously. It’s a good song to play live.

Photo by Carlos Miranda

You had some criticism back then, but how do you think fans now, from a distance of 15 years look at that album?
The most common thing I hear is “I didn’t knew what to think of ‘Host’ back at the time, but I’ve listened to it recently, and now I love it.”. That’s what you get now. Some people just think that now that we’ve gone heavy again it’s ok to like that one. I think people felt they were losing their band, I mean, I do it with bands I like because it becomes very personal and then when they change you go like “Noooooo…what are you doing???? Please don’t change that…”. I thought it with some bands. In one album, I absolutely love them and then when the next album is nothing like it, I go like “Why have you done this to me???”. You know, I’m a fan of music like people are fans of my band, we’re all very much like that, so I can understand why people were shocked. But going back and revisiting it people seem to accept it a lot more really. They actually allowed themselves to listen to it properly without a prejudice and enjoy it for what it is…a lovely depressing piece of music.

Let’s hope some people who read this might have the curiosity to listen to it again…
Yeah, we’ve got one guy who’s an American fan and he wanted to offer us loads of money just to play the whole of the “Host” album.

Really? Why didn’t you go for it?
We do have some integrity (laughs). We tried our best to shoot it over the years a few times but, I don’t know…if it feels right we’ll do it one time. Not because somebody just planted a load of money in front of us (laughs). But we’ve always done what we wanted. Record companies have always trusted us. We never had a record company going “you must do this” or “I want you to be heavy, more poppy, more fast songs…”. We’ve never had that, we’ve been very lucky. With Peaceville, Music for Nations, EMI, Sony BMG and now Century Media. Century Media makes you feel like you’re part of a family in the record label like we were with Music for Nations, it was very much the same. They’ve got people who actually really enjoy your music and wanna help promote your band and work with your band, because they like the music, it makes a big difference. We really did have some nice people working with us on Sony BMG under EMI, but it was people in other countries. We would go into Norway, and we wouldn’t have any interviews because EMI Norway couldn’t be bothered, that was the only problem. But inside Germany and England, there would be people there who would want to work with you and help you, EMI would be wanting to with the whole record company, but they flogged the goods out for you. But then you’ve got some other countries and they couldn’t be asked.

Now talking about your most recent phase, “Faith Divides Us – Death Unites Us” and “Tragic Idol” which represent a return from Paradise Lost to its earlier sounds. What were the inspirations at that time for making those records?
I think it was Paradise Lost doing a Paradise Lost record, because in some of the other albums, and even up to “Symbol of Life”, I think we were still trying to find what we wanted to do. I think it came down to the end of it by the time we got to “Paradise Lost” when Jeff joined on drums, we kind of decided that we are a metal band that likes Goth music. We’ve got two guitar players, let’s rock basically! “In Requiem” actually, [it’s also a] great record…when we play something of that record it always goes down pretty well. There’s some really good songs on it, on the two albums that Jeff did. But you know, “Faith Divides Us”, the song “Faith Divides Us” itself is one of my favorite Paradise Lost songs of all time, I love playing it live, such a great song. Between that and the new album, in both of them, we’ve got a little bit of the fire back in our belly, like “C’mooon!!!”, and those two albums have been like that really. “Tragic Idol” has been probably the most best sounding album we’ve ever had. Sonically it’s the best sounding one I think. I mean, it’s hard to qualify really, but when we finished “Tragic Idol” I’ve said “Good fucking record”. You know, you’re pleased with yourself, but now we’ve got to top it , that’s an unfortunate thing (laughs). It’s always the hardest thing. But, over the last four albums, I’ve really enjoyed the fact that we’ve been again a guitar band. ‘Cause that’s what we’re best at, we’ve got two guitar players, let’s play guitars. I have a lot of fun doin’ it. Playing live is my favorite thing, I love playing live. All the earpods and those things are annoying, but once you get there, you get on stage…can’t beat that feeling. Unless they’re throwing bananas at you and saying you’re shit and they’re going “he’s not so good!” (laughs)…But in general you get on stage…I’m there to have a good time…I play live because I want to enjoy myself, and if the audience enjoy themselves as well, it makes me enjoy it even more and then it’s like “Hey…c’mon let’s go!!!”. You can’t replace that. There will be years when I’m old and I won’t be able to headbang anymore, and I’ll be like [reminiscing] “Yeeaah, that was great!”

The Stones are still doin’ it man…
Yeah, I know!! I think…the weird thing is, we’ve never thought we would get to ten years, never mind 25 years, 26 and a half years. You can’t really predict how long things go on. You just follow your heart as long as you enjoy it.

You guys have done some re-recordings for the compilation “Tragic Illusion 25” which were “Gothic” and “Our Saviour”. “Our Saviour” was a request from Adrian [Erlandsson], he wanted to play that song…
Yeah, yeah yeah…You know years ago, it was after the Kerrang awards one year and Adrian was still in Cradle of Filth at the time. There was this hotel where all the bands did the drinking after called the Columbia and it was like, they were there, we were there, there were loads of bands there, mainly our friends, and Adrian was absolutely drunk as hell and he got on his knees in front of Nick and he went “Wheeeere is yoooour God noooooow?” (laughs). Nick just thought he was taking the piss…he was like “Fuck Off”…I remember Adrian doing it, and I thought there was going to be a fight because Nick really thought he was taking the piss. We were all a little bit drunk…Fucking brilliant (laughs). All of this because he loved the first album when he was growing as well. At The Gates were a Peaceville band as well so we all knew each other’s stuff. But with Adrian, once he got in the band, every time we rehearsed he was like “Our Saviour?”, “Can we do anything of the first album?”. He wanted to play it so when we were doing “Rotting Misery” live he enjoyed that as well, but with “Our Saviour” he was thrilled. It’s mainly because of Adrian that we’ve did that to be fair.

Still talking about those songs, do you guys ever thought about re-recording one of the earlier albums like “Gothic”?
It’s good to do the odd song, but I think a lot of the time it isn’t good to revisit stuff. I think they’re about a time and a place. Playing them live, recording live versions or maybe the odd one like “Our Saviour”, they were a lot of fun to do because we just went into the studio and recorded it almost punk style, quick, didn’t spent ages monkeying about it or getting it super accurate, it was into it to do a quick recording and that was it. I think it was fun do to it like that. You could do it with some songs, but recording whole albums…I don’t know because it’s like giving birth to a child and then replacing that child with another child if you know what I mean. They’re very much about a time and a place. Each album is the best album we thought we could do at the time. When we did the first album [Lost Paradise] we were all like 18, 19 years old and angry metal mad teenagers. As you get older you’re never gonna be quite that same person, but it’s nice to play the odd ones and playing them live definitely. There’s still some songs…you can’t play them all. There’s so many songs now, but there’s still some songs I would love to play again hopefully. Everyone’s more open to playing different songs occasionally on different tours and we might introduce a couple of different ones on the next album tour. But there’s always certain songs which people hope or expect to hear when you play live. If you don’t play them, they get really annoyed, but there’s always so many you can play and then you’ve got to drop some out that people love. It’s a balance all the time. We do try to swap some around and then throw the odd weird one in that we haven’t played for years. That’s always good to do, like “Sweetness” or something like that we put in sometimes. It’s nice to add these ones because we are all better players than we were back then.

It would be interesting to see how you would re-interpret those albums with the experience and recording wisdom you’ve gained over the years.
Yeah, that’s why it was fun to do those two tracks. We played “Gothic” a few times live anyway before that. But yeah, some of the first album…we haven’t played anything off the first album for like 23 years, and it’s nice to go back to it. We nearly did “Frozen Illusion” because we really fancied doing “Frozen Illusion” as well. There’s loads of songs on “Shades of God” we haven’t played for years like “The Word Made Flesh” which would be good to do again. There’s too many. The thing is that it’ll be some songs that I like and then Nick wants some other songs and Greg wants some other as well. We’ve always been a democracy, we’ve always been very democratic. That’s one the the reasons why after all these years, four out of five are still the original, because we were friends before then. I’ve known Greg since I was 11 years old, he was in the next classroom to me when we were at school. Nick I’ve known since I was twelve, we used to go out together when we were kids, you know, it’s friends. Friendship first.

…and forever!
Yeah, I hope…unless we get a little bit cheeky. (laughs) No, it will be forever, I mean, the good thing is we’ve known each other so long and so well that we know when somebody needs an arm around them or attention or help or other times when somebody wants to be left alone, we know each other so well…that’s why it still works. Friends first, love what we are doing and then the band happens.

Photo by Carlos Miranda

That’s what makes up for great bands really. Last questions Aaron, you were talking about the choosing of the set lists, so for this concert that you’re going to do in Bulgaria, what can we expect from the setlist?
I think we’re doing eight songs with the orchestra and then we’re doing a bit of a normal set as well. I don’t know if we’re going to do the orchestra first or second, we were just talking about it yesterday. I think Nick definitely wants to do the orchestra first, so he’s not worried about it (laughs) because then we do our normal set, relax and go mental, so we might do it that way around. There’s one song we’ve never played live, but there’s a couple in there that are obvious choices. We’ll try to do something a bit obscure that we haven’t perhaps done on live albums before, so we’re trying to make it a little bit different as well, so it’s not just all the usual suspects. There’s a couple of odd ones and the new one as well.

You guys are one of the pioneering bands of the UK’s Doom scene which goes back to 1990 with other of your colleagues bands like My Dying Bride and Anathema, you guys should know each other…
Yeah, I used to drink with Aaron as the lead singer from My Dying Bride, before either of us were in bands. We used to go to the same nightclub, and our first two gigs were at that nightclub. So I’ve known them for a long time and the first ever gig we did, which I think was June 26th in 1988, we’d only been going for three and a half months and we got hired to do like thirty minutes of music, so we played some songs twice and we attempted to do a Sodom cover that none of us had learned, so it only lasted about thirty seconds (laughs) and then Nick slagged off the audience for five minutes…it was brilliant! But in that gig we were playing with a band called Acid Reign, and the guitarist, Gaz from Cathedral, we’ve known Gaz since that first gig as well. But with the My Dying Bride guys, most of them got drunk in the same nightclub, and Anathema, one of their first gigs was supporting us in Liverpool and they were called Pagan Angel at the time so, we’ve all known each other for years now, it’s just like that with the Napalm Death guys as well, we all have been mates forever. When we get to festivals and we’re all there it’s like a heavy metal social club, a big party! The festival season is great just for bumping into your friends!

So with more than 20 years having gone by, how do you look at all of what you collectively achieved in terms of the influence you had in the development of Doom and Gothic Metal, being all from the same country?
I mean, we’ve never thought about it. When people in bands mention you as an inspiration for either picking up their first guitar or starting their own band, it’s even better if they don’t sound anything like [us], because they were inspired to make their own music. It’s really flattering and humbling actually because we never really thought of ourselves like that really, we just make music for our own pleasure. But some people in bands a lot bigger than we are have said some very nice things about [us], like they’ve picked up the guitar because they loved the “Gothic” album. It’s really humbling actually and it’s the best compliment you can have. Somebody wants to make their own music after hearing us is the best compliment you can have in the world really, it’s very humbling.

Thank you very much for this interview Aaron!
My pleasure!

Originally published on Against Magazine on August 27, 2014.