Cradle of Filth issue update

Cradle of Filth frontman Dani Filth has issued the following update:

"Dear noble fiends and fiendesses, sons and daughters of Lilith and all-round decent, slightly morbid folk; Dani here writing from our elongated big blue tour-bus on the fourth from last date of the second leg of the Filthfest out here in Europe with Moonspell, Turisas and Dead Shape Figure in support.

Firstly I must apologise for the substantial delay in posting a blog here on the website, but we have been so busy of late that a sabbatical was in order for a few weeks at least, culminating in a snowboarding holiday in Slovenia and a booze and bowling fuelled family Easter weekend shortly before embarking on our present campaign. Don't ask.

Those of you who might have seen us in the past few weeks (and in the coming days at least) will be aware that due to aforementioned teaching commitments, both Rosie Smith and Charles Hedger have been temporarily replaced by Ashley Ellyllon (formerly of US band Abigail Williams) and James Mcilroy (formerly of the Nymphetamine Cradle line-up) for this tour and possibly further. I can't really say much more than they are integrating brilliantly and the band is going from strength to strength because of them.

Indeed we've had a good spat of shows on this tour and the weather has been stunning, inspiring us to visit the older parts of Ljubljana, Zagreb, Clermont-Ferrand, and Madrid to view the sights. There have been some ups and downs as you can probably imagine, the cancellation in Minsk being one of the greater disappointments, as well as several badly advertised shows and long Eastern European drives, but all in all I think everyone has had a really good time on this tour. I was joking with Fernando from Moonspell that we might as well get married seeing the amount of times we've played together over the years. Thankfully he didn't agree, though he is a nice-looking tall, dark mediterranean sexpot and all that.

Both Dead Shape Figure and Turisas have been fantastic supports on this tour (as I've been enjoying watching all of the bands playing, skulking in the shadowy wings of the stage like the phantom), the latter sounding like a fuelled up Slayer or The Haunted and Turisas coming across like a full on Viking raiding party, with the emphasis on ' 'king party'! And Moonspell, along with a 'best of' set list, have been playing better than I think I've ever seen them, and I've seen them quite a few bloody times by now!

We have also been filmed for the last week for a possible forthcoming documentary, which has actually been rather pleasant, seeing as the good weather and subsequent lightheartedness have warmed our cockles to the intrusive nature of a rogue cameraman with often probing questions. Still it didn't stop us flinging a few 'fuck-off-out-of-it's' in his general direction when filmed getting in or out of bed or the shower.

Also the 'Crewdle Of Filth' have been exemplary throughout as per and it has come with a sullen heart to hear that G (real name Jean-Francois Labrecque) our drum tech for the last five years, will be retiring after the Australian leg due to family commitments and quite possibly a need to escape.

As for the Mexican/US/Canadian tour recently undertaken, well, again that was a runaway success with a lot of very memorable shows and some very interesting moments had to boot. As you can imagine, much of the first part of the tour was steeped in huge amounts of snowfall (especially in Wisconsin and Canada, though Mexico was sultry), right up until the tour was divided by a Finnish festival cancellation, which meant I could luckily fly home for Luna's tenth birthday whilst the rest of the troop spent their five days off in the warmer spell of San Francisco.

Subsequent to some misguided belief that we cancelled the show for our own benefit, I can tell you that both this concert and the one in Germany several weeks ago were pulled by the promoter when contracts and guarantees were not upheld. Both shows we were raring to play and in the case of the Tomahawk festival, all the band and crew were packed and rehearsed and all waiting to be flown from their respective haunts.

The same goes for the Belarus show of last Monday. Unfortunately the border guards held us up for so long that we had to turn back from the show as we weren't even going to arrive at the venue until at least eleven at night! An impossible situation all round and to all the fans that suffered the cancellation, we humbly and dutifully apologise. A lot of time had been spent organising visas and documentation for our visit to your country and it was extremely frustrating for the whole package of bands to be left hanging on the flagrant and often paltry whims of immigration.

Anyhoo, back to the US tour.
It was excellent! The line up of ourselves, Satyricon and Septic Flesh complimented each other very well and bar one shortened set in Houston due to illness, the rest of the shows were a triumph of twisted metal. My favourites shows would have to have been those in Arizona, Texas, Norfolk, Toronto and New York (despite succumbing to the customary end-of-tour Bronchitis spell and having to see yet another specialist doctor, the first being to have my ear drum drained by having it cut open!). I even got the chance to go snow-boarding on a few occasions in Canada with Scottish Steve (our dungeon Master) and Daniel Paine (our sound engineer but also known as Doctor Paine), which was very therapeutic during the course of a lengthy tour (obviously it wouldn't have been had I gone and broken my bloody neck, which seemed on the cards at one point when the lights on the mountain inadvertently went out).

After the US tour we had a few weeks off but this was obviously punctuated with a lot of preparation for the next few outings, press, holidays, catching up on bills, rehearsing and even indulging in the odd bout of writing. I had to pop up to Andy Sneap's studio in Derbyshire to re-edit The Death Of Love for a future video release (this is now finished and looking very cinematic)) and used the time to finish a track off from the 'Godspeed' sessions, the working title of which remains Beast Of Extermination, with engineer Doug Cook, but I also managed to indulge in another of my great loves with my wife and daughter... theme parks with stupidly dangerous rides, though I dare-say a night on our European tour bus hammering through the Romanian countryside would scare the living be-jesus out of most folks!

Godspeed On The Devil's Thunder...
Dani Filth

Read More News

Tags:  Cradle of Filth, Dani Filth, Roadrunner Records  

jason    June 18, 2009