First of all congratulations for the new album Symbols Of Life. It's great to see Paradise Lost back to the roots, although the vocals could have been more aggressive…
You think so ?
Yes I do because I am a big fan of your older stuff such as the Gothic era and Icon and Draconian Times…
Yeah, but we just don’t wanna do the same thing over and over you know what I mean
Yes, unfortunately I know… How have been the reactions so far ?
Probably better than I expected to be honest. I mean I know it’s probably the best thing we have done for a while, but we really didn’t know until we came on this tour how it would really be received whether the sales were good. We didn’t know how people would react, but nearly every show except for a couple on the tour for about four weeks have been sold out. We’ve been surprised by that though.
Have you heard any complaints about the new album ? I mean some people that might have been disappointed with Symbol Of Life because they discovered the band with Host and Believe In Nothing ?
There are some people that like Host and Believe in Nothing but they haven’t said they’re disappointed with the new album. It’s a very strong album you know.
And what about yourself ? Are you fully satisfied with this new album ?
Yes definitely. You know all the things that we realized about Believe In Nothing was a compromise for EMI. I didn’t like doing that. I mean I didn’t like to compromise with the record label. They got so involved with the production side and stuff, so on this one we told the record company to stay away. We wanted to do it our way.
Two tracks on the Erased MCD I Can Hate You and Deus. Any other leftover songs ?
Oh yeah we got more stuff from the recordings that we did.
For future releases ?
We don’t know. I don’t know. See how we feel but possibly. At the time that we did it I think the ones that are on the album are the best tracks. We don’t wanna release anything that we don’t think is good enough.
How is going to be the show like tonight ? I mean what about the set list ?
Obviously there’s quite a few tracks from the new album because that’s the Symbol Of Life tour, but we kinda mix it with two or three tracks from every record apart from Gothic and Lost Paradise because vocally it just doesn’t fit the same. This tour that we’re doing is a little bit more aggressive than the last couple of tours.
I was hoping to get the chance to listen to songs from the Gothic album, but since you’re saying you will not, I can just ask you if you still listen to that album sometimes ?
I don’t really listen to it. I mean last time I heard it was maybe, I don’t know, I have probably heard it in the last year at some point. I don’t really listen to it, I mean I don’t really go back in time. When we were touring in America before this tour, we jammed Eternal and things like that. We still like to do it now and again. But not really live because Nick’s voice just doesn’t fit anymore.
I understand that they don’t fit anymore, so why just don't you rerecord songs such as Gothic or Eternal (songs requested by the fans at every show) in some new version with clean vocals for B-sides for instance ?
That would be interesting for long times fans, but I just think that period in history should be left alone. I hate when bands I like drag out the past…
You mean you don’t like when Iron Maiden play Hallowed Be Thy Name ?
I never liked Iron Maiden !
Ok I am sorry…. How did you end up recording a Bronski Beat's cover ?
It was a joke… I mean everytime we do a new record we discuss whether we want to do a cover version or not and this time we didn’t want to do any but then we did the Dead Can Dance and we thought it was really good and then we thought we wanted to do a second with a faster pace but we couldn’t find anything and I suggested the Bronski Beat because the tune is a good tune.
You have recorded a lot of covers (Sisters of Mercy, Bronski Beat, Dead Can Dance), then why don't you release a full album of covers such as Metallica or Six Feet Under ?
I don’t know because I never really thought of it… we only do covers that we think we can do in our style because I wanted to do Dead Can Dance’s Xavier for years and years and years but we never thought we could do it justice, we never thought we could do it in our style and make it as good as the original, but in a different way. This time we just thought our version was as good as theirs but in a different version. If we find enough songs that we thought we could do real justice to them then possibly, I don’t know…
And what about a live album ? I mean there has been some live stuff released so far (Draconian Times 2CD tour edition and on Reflections - best of album), but there has been no official full live album ?
I don’t know. I think it would be interesting eventually to do a live album that is taken from shows all over the years rather than just one show because then it shows the evolution in the lives. We have recorded some very good live recordings from shows over the years, the Icon tour and every other tour, so maybe.
What’s the story behind Sweetness ? I mean why isn’t the song on Icon ?
What we did is we toured Icon with Sepultura across Europe and in the backstage rooms on various venues I wrote Sweetness and when we got back from this tour we decided to do an EP and we added Sweetness among live recordings as a taste to the new album.
Finally, how do you like Switzerland ? Have you ever visited the Swiss Riviera before ?
I have been to Switzerland a lot over the years but I have never ever looked around before this tour. I mean we were in Zürich yesterday and I walked around the whole city, I went to the lake.
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