I N T E R V I E W

Interview Aaron Aedy

Faith Divided Us - Death United Us is your last album, it was coming out in September 2009. Fourth month later, what are your feelings about it?

We absolutely loving play the new album live, it's sound great, we have a very good review, everywhere the reactions are being wonderful to the new album, as the songs live the new album is played very well so it's... No, I am loving it!

For you, Is it a big success or just another album?

No, no! Other album sounds very well but this album is the best we had made for a quarter while.

Because you have made many many albums! So…

Yes, yes! In March , 22 years than Paradise Lost exist !

Some fans find that this album returning to Paradise Lost beginnings. What is your feeling about that? Is it really your goal with this album?

The thing we are thinking about when we write the new album is being Requiem album, when we played this album live it is really worm and quiet. I don't know where we caught the energy from the last album live and when we recorded the new album we want that guitars were a lot deeper, but in general it's... I don’t know it's... We have got two guitars players and it's nice to come back to riffing !

Paradise Lost has take some different way in his history. For the future, what is the musical direction of the band?

We never think about the future. I think we finished touring and we see how we feel. We never had a big plan or big idea, we make an album and we touring for a years or two. Then we think about the next record, it's never planed! If we try to plane that too much, I think that it's sound like it being planned, you know! When we do an album different of the others that is the result of touring, we needed to do something different to make it interesting for us again. The reason why we start this band it's to make music for fun, for ourselves and we don't want to lose enjoying playing music. So we have changed in the past, it will just to keep it fresh for ourselves really. The new album is to remember why we start and why we enjoyed that when we are teenagers... I don't know , I don't know, it's long time ago! (laugh)

Even if you didn't planed the future of Paradise Lost, maybe a new album in few months or years?

Not in the few months, no! We gonna spend this year touring and we start again in February the next year. I think it keeps a long time before we are released, we certainly touring all the next year. Maybe start writing a new album at the end of this year, maybe. I think it must be recorded in 2011.

Now it is the tour for Faith Divided Us-Death United Us, this date in Paris closed the tour for 2009!

I really enjoyed playing here. Perfect to finish and it's sold out, it's the more magical! And you know, it's my birthday, I'm 40 years old today!

Really? So, happy birthday!

Playing here is a perfect birthday present for me.

In February 2010 you start with a tour in Australia ?

Yes! We didn't play in Australia since 1995, so fourteen years! It's only a short trip, but very tiredly, getting up flying every morning. But it make a long time, I really want to go back in Australia!

In some days it's 2010 , few words about 2009 ?The show, the place, the country, the fans ? Is it a good or a bad year ?

As a musician and for the band, I think 2009 has been an excellent year. We have done an album with extremely happiness and for the tour all has gone very well too so it's a good year for Paradise Lost!

It is a question that I particularly like to put: can you say what the amazing or incredible concert you have ever made?

Maybe, I think the day when we played at the Dynamo Festival (Dynamo Open Air, Holland) in 1995, and there was hundred and fourteen thousand people , it was like... How can I say?! I didn't have seen the crowd, I waited on stage and it just started to get's dark, when we became playing I heard the crowd "haaaaaaa", all this people screaming! The emotion was rising, I had the biggest smile that I never had. It was amazing to play before hundred and fourteen thousand people, it's much fun! The concerts in Athens in Greece are always great they sing so loud, crazy! It's great when you are playing and you heard "hoooo hoooo hoooo". I don't know, too many specials moment, but the Dynamo Festival, I can't never forget it!

Paradise Lost looks to have a serious problem with their drummers! Because, only the drummers, have changed since 1998. It must be a stupid question but is it a personnel problem or a musical problem?

No, no! Matt (Matthew Archer) the first drummer left the band just to do something else... Lee (Lee Morris) was in the band for eleven years, he was quite, so we shacked him because he was enjoyed anymore on tour and it's make the relationship in the band very difficult but he left 'cause of family reasons, his wife had a child.

The band has more than twenty years! Did you find that the fans are always the same or Paradise Lost has a new generation of fans?

It's a mixture really!

I see very young people in the front door! I am very surprise!

Yes, we played last night in Cognac, and there was a group of people just in front of the scene, they must been fourteen years old, but it was nice, this new generation that trusts into the music. There are too, people than we see since more than fifteen years, it's like some friends because I seen them so often! It's a mixture, with the new album I think that some people discovered the band and checked us in concert!

Played in Paris is always for many bands a very important thing, what is the story of Paradise Lost with Paris and the French fans?

The first time we played in Paris was in 1999, we played in a small place called The Gibus but it was the first time here since we played in Bataclan, The Locomotive which now is closed and here (Elysée Montmartre) many time. And it's always being good, generally we organize two weeks in France because we like France and we played in very small town but it was really good fun!

It's really strange that you played in Cognac because it's a small city and we can thinking that there is no many fans to make a concert! What about this concert ?

Yes, but it was full yesterday! Three hundred people and it was really, really good! I think that there was some Paradise Lost and heavy metal fan, but we have too people for who it’s the first metal concert, so new fans (laugh), I have enjoyed that!

You record some song with an orchestra; this must be an idea for the future. When an entire album?

It would be nice. We didn't actually with concerts of the tour, have the time to meet the orchestra which with we have recorded but it could be pretty cool. We always use orchestra in our music, so maybe some days!

To close this interview, what are your good resolutions for the New Year?

I have got few resolutions! Tidy my music studio home, it's a mess! I promise my wife I'm gonna be a lot clean in my house. I really just want to keep enjoying playing with the band!