MY DYING BRIDE needs no specific introductions! With a new and very successful album in their luggages, we had the opportunity of hearing some thoughts from one of the most melancholic, yet successful British bands in Doom/Death Metal. So, let’s see what their singer and main lyricist, Aaron Stainthorpe, has to tell us…

– Greetings from Greece and thank you for your time… Your new album “The Ghost of Orion” is out there… Are you satisfied with the outcome and the reactions of the metal community till now?

Aaron: Yeah definitely! I think this is one of the best albums we’ve done. The production sounds amazing and Andrew’s musicianship, you know, his guitar playing and his songwriting is at the peak! He’s never been better and I think everybody in the album is great! They have raised the bar to another level now so the music is way better than everything we’ve done before, I think that… and before it was released some of the journalists got their copies and I did interviews with those guys and they seemed to like it and then after the release we got a lot of amazing feedbacks from the fans and they seemed to like it as well so that’s good! I think overall we are very pleased with it and its still going well you know even during lockdown, people are still able to order online and I’m still doing interview! I’m doing interviews since January the 3rd, so I did a lot of interviews but that’s great because it shows that a lot of people still are interested in talking about MY DYING BRIDE and the new album.

– Can you tell us a few words concerning the recordings of “The Ghost of Orion”? How much time did you spend in the studio and how did you feel recording the successor of a great album like “Feel the Misery”? Why did it take you 5 years to release a new album?

Aaron: Well it always takes us at least two or three years because when you finish a new album you generally go on the road to promote it, doing gigs and tours, then you take some time off and begin writing the next album which is how things are developing. Then of course, my daughter got very sick and I ,kind of, left the band as I wanted to focus my life on her so the band took a break as well because nobody knew what was going to happen. When things started to get a bit more positive regarding my daughter, Andrew began writing the new album with Shaun and they progressed quite nicely… In all this time Nuclear Blast, our new record label, they didn’t give us a deadline, so we could take as long as we would like with the new album which was great. So those guys wrote it without me and then they recorded it and then when I felt it was time to go back into the studio, I did the vocals right at the end but I didn’t really get involved with the actual songwriting. Those guys did it all that because I was still in the hospital with my daughter and when it was time to do the vocals, I listened to it and I wrote the lyrics and I dealt with the vocals and it took a long time in the studio because we wanted it to be perfect… so we would create what we needed to create and we would go home and listen to it for a week and if we wanted to make changes, we could go back and change it. We don’t normally have that luxury! Normally, when you go to the studio, you record the songs and you get out of there and you give it to the record label. Now, because we had more time we spent more time, making sure it was as good as we could possibly do it and I think the results turned out really good actually! I think the production is magnificent, we got some guests musicians helping us, the vocals were quite challenging to do because I double tracked them, triple tracked them and I was singing outside my comfort zone a little bit and that was quite tricky… but I think we worked hard with this album  and I think that, because the work we put in was so dedicated and you can hear how genuine the sound is and how good the songs are, because it was made by people who generally and really love the artwork… you know we love creating music, we do what we are doing for thirty years and is not easy you know, you would think that just writing another album would be easy because we’ve done it many times before but it’s not. It’s harder because every new album should be better than the last album therefore it becomes harder and harder each time. So, it’s not easy but it’s a challenge, it’s a challenge that we like.

– MY DYING BRIDE songs are really “dark”. This pervading mood characterizes also your new record. Is this an expression of your personality, or is it just the way you get inspired or perhaps more experential… thinking of your daughter’s recent health issues and how you dealt with them… Hopefully, she ‘s far better now…

Aaron: No! When you write, you write about things that you know about and I had some bad experiences in the last few years  so eventually some of these experiences will end up in MY DYING BRIDE somewhere, whether it’s lyrics or artwork. This time it was lyrics and I didn’t want to fill this album with personal dark stories about my daughter because the whole album would have been even darker and it would have been an album I would never want to listen to and one we would never play live. I just get inspiration from reading books and even just going for a walk…you know we are having a lovely countryside here and when I go out for a walk and I think of an idea and I write it down so when I get back I’m trying to write the lyrics regarding that thought and that little walk. Sometimes the words I write don’t end up being used for MY DYING BRIDE, they just go to my short of book of poetry and I store all these things because I think it’s interesting to have all these words captured and one day I hope that I will release a book with all the unused lyrics and my poems… yet, the album is pretty dark, you are right, it’s pretty dark but then, when you look all our albums are pretty dark you know, this is the kind of thing that we like to create and  the next album will be pretty dark! It’s just what we do!!!it’s MY DYING BRIDE!

– You talked about your previous and your future albums. Comparing “The Ghost Of Orion” with your previous albums, which differences would you like to point out?

Aaron: Well, I think the production stands out as a big difference. We’ve enjoyed all our production in the past but this one has gone to a new level. Mark, the engineer and producer, really gave us the best sound we’ve ever had. The guitars sound incredible, you know, it’s really, really heavy. Everything is very clean as well, you can here every instrument coming through beautifully, very well engineered. I think because we are older, we are better songwriters now, thus the songwriting is better…. People, the fans, will always argue… “Turn Loose The Swans” is the best album, other people think it’s “The Angel And The Dark River” and I had an interview yesterday with a guy who was thinking that the best album is “The Line Of Deathless Kings” so everybody has their own favorites… Andrew told me that in a part there are thirteen guitars playing and that’s incredible! So, the production is better, I am singing better, Andrew is playing better, we are all better than we used to, because we are getting older and the more you practice something, the better you become. So I think we are better songwriters now and that’s why I prefer this album to some of the ones in the past.

– You are almost 30 years in the music industry. In your opinion, which is/was the best period for the band? The most creative, the most challenging, the most promising?

Aaron: Well, I think when we did the tour with IRON MAIDEN, that was really good! That was in 1995 I think. It was a good time because we had to travel around and play in huge venues that we’ve never been to before and IRON MAIDEN were lovely people, obviously they were pulling big crowds and that was a bit scary because performing in front of someone else’s audience, some of the fans hate this and some of the fans thought that we were quite interesting, but it was a great tour, because it was a good time… We were on our third album and it was selling very well and we were on a MAIDEN tour, we played football on the IRON MAIDEN football team you know we had a great time back then and we thought that the world is our oyster, the sky is the limit, we can do anything now, because some people say, when you tour with IRON MAIDEN and release the “Angel And The Dark River” that should have been the time MY DYING BRIDE made it big, but you have to remember the music we write is very dark and is very difficult for, I guess, normal people to understand and so, instead of writing a commercial album, straight after the IRON MAIDEN tour and try to make money from the MAIDEN fans, we just went back and we did what we normally do. We wrote a very dark, disturbing album, which a lot of people, do not understand why we do this. We do it because it’s the same as why does a painter paint, why does a sculpture sculpt. Why do we do this??? It’s just in our blood, it’s what we like to do and we will always continue to do while we are still able to do it. So the IRON MAIDEN tour and the following tour as well, we toured America with Ronnie James Dio and that was amazing as well, two legendary metal acts and we got to play with them one year after the other, so that was a great period, 1995 – 96, absolutely wonderful.

– When you started, you had a lot of traditional Death Metal elements. Since then, your sound has evolved quite a bit into what is now. What caused those changes and where do you go from here?

Aaron: We never know! We never know! You just evolve over time and you just write something and you don’t know what it’s gonna be. When I write lyrics, I don’t know really know if this is gonna be an aggressive song or a very slow song or just vocals and piano or vocals and violin! We don’t know! We don’t really plan the songs that way! We write and our ideas kinda grow. We don’t know what our next album is gonna be! There might be more death metal vocals in the next album or maybe no death metal vocals on the next album… there might be more violin, or maybe no violin, it could be fast, it could be slow… We just don’t know, because we don’t think that far ahead when we sit down writing the next album, we will just write what we feel! And if Andrew writes a really aggressive riff and the drums are pretty quick then I might do some death metal vocals, but if there will be nothing like that, then I will do no death metal vocals, so we really don’t plan it! You just evolve, you just go with the feel and you know when the feeling is right and you know when you hear a song that yeah, there’s gonna be some death metal vocals in this section definitely and it just happens, you just do it. We certainly don’t plan it. I have no idea what the next album is gonna sound like, so it’s quite exciting really.

– You are using new-multi vocal styles and this can be more accessible to newcomers. For someone who has been your fan since the beginning, this can take some time to adjust. With which way do you decide if the lyrics require a spoken way, clean singing or growling, so, is it the lyrics or the music that actually guide you when you decide the way you gonna sing?

Aaron: Well, it’s both those things really, because, if you hear a very slow, mournfull riff then I might just do some talking over it or maybe some whispering but it’s probably not gonna be Death Metal vocals, because you need something really aggressive for that kind of thing. I have no idea what kind of music Andrew is gonna come up with next time around. Sometimes I will say “Andrew, let’s do a really aggressive song” you know, when you look at some other songs we’ve done in the past, or for some of our EPs, there are some really brutal Death Metal songs there, which people don’t expect from MY DYING BRIDE and sometimes we get that feeling, we look to each other and say, let’s go for it. A 100% Death Metal song from the start to the finish and it’s great to do that some times and in other times, like I said, you just do some simple talking with just a piano and that works as well! Like I’ve mentioned before, we don’t plan it, we just go with the flow and if I feel the urge to do Death Metal vocals, then I’ll do it and some times I’ve gone to the studio and I’ve done Death Metal vocals and it just doesn’t quite work! From home to the studio, just didn’t quite work! There are songs recorded with Death Metal vocals, changed back to clear vocals, cause the feeling wasn’t quite right, so, anything happens really! I don’t know what’s coming next, neither the fans, nor Andrew so it is a surprise for all of us!

– It will be a happy surprise, no matter what! (Laughs)

Yeah, I really hope so! (Laughs)

– Something about your new label. For many years you were signed in Peaceville Records and recorded at the Academy Studios. What kept you in this long partnership? And what made you move to a bigger name, Nuclear Blast. Are you happy with your new label? Do they facilitate MY DYING BRIDE open new roads in front of them?

Aaron: Yeah, we moved from Peaceville to Nuclear Blast because we felt that our music needed a bigger audience. Peaceville did a fantastic work for a very long period of around twenty years. We love those guys, we still talk and are friends with them (I just got an email by them today), but we felt we were being kept at the same level with Peaceville for many years and we believed that we could go up another level but they couldn’t take us there. We needed a bigger label. So when the contract with Peaceville ended, we searched for another deal and luckily for us Nuclear Blast came up with the best deal so we signed with them and we said goodbye to our friends in Peaceville. This is our first release with Nuclear Blast and they’ve been absolutely amazing because we signed a contract with them before my daughter got sick and they really supported me and my family all the way through her illness. They’ve sent her gifts, they never pushed for an album and they never said anything at all about doing an album. They were just concerned with what we were going through so they were really supportive and when we delivered the album, they said it was amazing and one of the best things they’ve ever heard and they did all the work by arranging all these interviews, the promotion and the press. It was really fantastic so it seems that it was probably the right decision to move to Nuclear Blast and we are hoping that in the future being in that big of a label it might allow us to travel to places like Australia and Japan where we have never been… it would be good for us to travel at those places with another Nuclear Blast band and go as a kind of a package tour or maybe a couple of Nuclear Blast bands and if we all travel together, it is more cost effective and that might allow us to go to even more places around the world so I think signing with Nuclear Blast was a good decision. So far so good.

– How much did CELTIC FROST influence your band in the beginning? How did they affect Aaron and the band and are they still an influence for you as they were back at your early years?

Aaron: I was listening to CELTIC FROST and they really inspired me to want to create music because I looked at the artwork and I thought that the artwork at their covers was great.  I loved the name CELTIC FROST, the song titles were very unusual and the lyrics were very unusual and I liked the fact that they were really heavy and very distorted and I just thought that all of their image, the whole package was very well put together. All of these different traits made me want to be in a band and by imagining CELTIC FROST I just wanted to be part of that movement, part of the same thing they were doing. I wanted to do something like them and I wanted to write down dark, interesting lyrics with a deeper meaning not just usual Heavy Metal lyrics. But instead of going down the so dark, occult path that CELTIC FROST were going down, I chose a more emotional and passionate path with a big heart and a broken heart but it was still the whole imagery that I liked to in CELTIC FROST. I met Tom a few years later and he is a lovely guy, we both enjoy each other’s music so that’s nice.They are not so much of an influence these days but  they certainly were right back at the early days that formed MY DYING BRIDE. CELTIC FROST played a big part back then.

– A friend of mine saw you live with SENTENCED as a support group in the “Like Gods Of The Sun” tour in Rome, back in the far 1996 … Before playing “A Kiss To Remember” you said that “we all hide a vampire in our hearts”. With Gothic Metal’s burst in the mid 90’s, how do you consider “Gothic” as an expression then and now and what bands would you characterize as the most important from the gothic genre in general?

Aaron: Some Gothic fans don’t like MY DYING BRIDE so much because they think we are too Metal. Gothic music is quite a big zone room with lots of zones as well. We kinda like it because we appeal to some Death Metal fans, some Doom Metal fans and some Gothic fans and we are very lucky that we played in many festivals with all kinds of those fans .I really like the “Gothic” side of things, I like the darkness, I like some of the imagery and vampires are definitely cool. I don’t think we have an openly vampire style song but there is a song on our new album, “To Outlive The Gods” which is kind of about two vampires, short of, if you want and they feel that their love is so powerful that they can outlive the Gods. Nothing can touch them due to the power of their love. I’ve touched slightly a very few vampire images in the past and I will probably do it again in the future and I might also write a complete vampire song  because I find it very intriguing. It’s kind of sexy and metalheads and Goths love that imagery as well. I want to write more songs concerned with the local area as there are lots of old folktales in all the villages around here and I’d like to portray them more like we did with the massive “The Barghest O’Whitby”which is kind of a story from the north part of Yorkshire where I’m from. I would like to do some more vampire songs and more local folklore stuff. We are lucky we’ve touched audience from different zones.

(Some clacking started sounding and Aaron explained me what was it)

Aaron: The neighbors are clacking, I don’t know if you can hear the neighbors.

– Yeap, I can hear them and I was wondering what those bells are.

Aaron: It’s because at 8 o’clock every Thursday, the whole country stands at their doorstep and shouts and claps and rings bells for all the doctors and nurses who are facing the coronavirus. (Interview was taking place during the quarantine).

– That’s great, that’s absolutely great

Aaron: Yeah! I can hear my daughter is out there as well, she has a great metal pan and a wooden spoon and she’s beating that.

– Perhaps that’s one of the good images we will keep in mind when the virus will be away from us anymore.

Aaron: Yeah I think so… yeah…

– What can you recall from your live shows and appearances in Greece? I had the luck to enjoy you live, almost 20 years ago at Rodon Club, so what are your memories from our country?

Aaron: Yeah it’s been wonderful you know! We’ve done the Athens and Thessaloniki shows a few times and we are hoping to come back! We were supposed to have one show programmed, at a festival with HELLOWEEN in November this year… Hopefully, if the virus is moved a little bit we might still be able to play that show, we might be coming there in November… I love Greece and the Greek Islands, I must have been there ten times for vacations and one of my greatest, oldest friends, Thanasis, is in Crete, so  I was there for his Cretan wedding a few months ago, by the end of last year actually, and it was wonderful as our family loves Greece you know… we’ve been there so many times, it’s just so perfect… the islands and the water is great, the food is incredible and we just absolutely love it. We are hoping to play in the “Over The Wall” Festival in Crete but I don’t know what happened with that festival really… but we still keep working on it and trying to do a few more gigs there because it is a wonderful place to play live and the fans have been absolutely wonderful to us for many, many years.

-After the wedding, did they start to shoot around or they didn’t? (Laughs)

Aaron: No, not this time (laughs)! I was little worried about that! The bride is from Crete and I don’t really remember where Thanasis was living before moving to Greece to be close to her family… but they didn’t shoot around this time! We had a great time though, dancing and enjoying ourselves!

– Which brings us to our last question. After a great album, closer to your roots, what are your plans for the future? What should we expect from MY DYING BRIDE? And finally, what would you like to say to your Greek fans and the readers of THEGALLERY.GR worldwide?

Aaron: Well, we have got another record coming, an EP. The artwork is finished, the songs are already recorded, because when we were into the studio doing the “Ghost Of Orion”, we recorded eleven pieces of music, eight of them went on “Orion” and the other three are coming on as an EP later this year. There is no release day yet, but it’s pretty much finished and we are just waiting for Nuclear Blast to give us a release day, so there is more coming, if you liked the “Ghost Of Orion”, you should like the new EP as well. We should have been playing some live shows but, now nobody is playing live shows unfortunately and like I said, we might be coming to Greece in November unless the virus is still hanging around and if not, then we will always return there… It’s not far away, beautiful people, beautiful food… I might keep talking about the food cause it’s amazing (laughs), so yeah, we will always come back, we love Greece for years and like i mentioned, even before MY DYING BRIDE formed, my friend Thanasis and me started writing to each other through fanzines, so he knew me even before MY DYING BRIDE, and we’ve remained friends and brothers all these years… like forty years… and that’s just incredible, so my heart is in Greece so, we will always come back there.

– Thank you so very much… I’ve already told you that the Greek audience loves MY DYING BRIDE and we will always expect you to come back.

Aaron: Lovely to hear that, that’s fantastic. Cheers, see you soon!

Interview: Fanouris Exintavelonis
Cover Artwork:
Design & Editing: Nikos Manousis
Date: May 6th, 2020
External Link:MY DYING BRIDE –
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