Dani Filth: Being In Cradle Of Filth Is A 'Lifestyle', Not Just 'A Musical Choice'

It’s been five long years since Suffolk extreme metal band Cradle Of Filth toured in Australia, but fans can hail their return this September.

The band will play five shows across the country with Moldovan metal band Infected Rain—led by the incomparable Lena Scissorhands—in tow.

The Australian Invasion tour begins on Tuesday, 24 September, at Metropolis Fremantle before they head to The Gov in Adelaide (Wednesday, 25 September), Melbourne’s Northcote Theatre (Friday, 27 September), The Metro in Sydney (Saturday, 28 September), and ends at The Triffid in Brisbane on Sunday, 29 September.

As for what they’re bringing to Australia this time around, Cradle Of Filth have released another LP and a live album since they last played down under, 2021’s Existence Is Futile and last year’s live album, Trouble And Their Double Lives.

They last toured Australia in September 2019 on their Lustmord And Tourgasm run, which saw them play the seminal 1998 album Cruelty And The Beast in its filthy entirety. Their 2018 Australian tour was in support of 2017’s excellent Cryptoriana - The Seductiveness Of Decay.

“We've always been really appreciative of being able to travel to the other side of the world,” inimitable vocalist Dani Filth tells The Music over Zoom on a day off from the studio recording Cradle Of Filth’s 14th album.

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“I mean, obviously, Australia isn't somewhere you could just pop over to at the weekend—unless you’re rich [laughs], but we've always had a good relationship with Australia and always had a fantastic time there.

“I’m really looking forward to coming back,” he adds, revealing that one of his best friends is Australian and currently lives in Perth. So, the tour means more than just travelling and playing a bunch of shows. “We've got a live record, and our previous album, Existence Is Futile, under our belt since the last time we came out [and we have] a new album that won't see the light of day until next year. But, yeah, we've been busy in the interim.”

Upon revisiting Existence Is Futile—and by extension, Trouble And Their Double Lives—Cradle Of Filth sound stronger and more energised than they have any right to on their thirteenth LP and second-ever live album.

From Screaming Like “An Untrained X-Man” To Discovering New Energy

Even Filth, with his unmistakable, versatile vocal range, sounds better than any longtime fan can believe after decades of performing extreme vocals and admitting that he shredded his abilities by screaming like “an untrained X-Man” in the early years. Is Ribena—yep, the fruit drink—his secret? Previous keyboardist Lindsay Schoolcraft pointed to a hot, “diluted” version of Ribena being Filth’s “favourite thing” in a 2019 episode of Bus Invaders on YouTube.

Filth responds with a laugh—looking nowhere near as frightening as Cradle Of Filth music videos suggest: “Yes, yes, that's totally my secret. I don't know why I got hooked on Ribena. That’s such a weird thing... It was something a singing tutor suggested to me back in the day, and I kind of got fixated on it.

“I don't know if I would say it [the band] was re-energised,” Filth continues, referring to recent line-up changes that include the departure of “interim” keyboardist and backing singer Annabelle Iratni and guitarist Richard Shaw, the latter of whom played on 2015’s Hammer Of The Witches, Cryptoriana, and Existence Is Futile.

“Sadly, we parted ways with Richard Shaw, who slipped into a family life and needed to be at home with his newly born son, [but] we still keep in contact with him.

“No bridges have burnt there, but we've got fabulous replacements in the form of Donny [Burbage], who's literally like the American equivalent of Richard in every aspect, even the songwriting, and a fantastic keyboardist / female vocalist in the form of Zoë [Marie Federoff].” Filth adds that the band’s upcoming, delayed fourteenth album is a “testament to their hard work” as well as “their integration into Cradle and what we stand for. The whole writing process on the new album sounds wonderful.”

Working With Pop Music Royalty

It's worth noting that fans have been waiting a while for the new Cradle Of Filth album, but delays have come from an unexpected place: their teased, highly anticipated collaboration with megastar Ed Sheeran, which Filth reveals will likely feature as a deluxe track on their forthcoming album rather than the main LP.

“The promotion for this [new album] won't start until next year, and albeit that we are nearing the combination of, like, writing it, that doesn't necessarily mean that's the end of the album,” Filth reveals, as he and his bandmates are continually “dipping our toes back into it” with fresh ideas.

“It's not 100% set in stone, but we're loving it,” Filth says. “We've got a few more songs, and we've also got a song that we did with a rather famous person that we're having to re-juggle around because of the fact that he is taking a sort of a year out for music making, and so we've got to be very careful when we release so and so.

“His interaction with us was originally going to be on the album—it's recorded; it's all done. It was done a year ago, but it very well may see the light of day on the special edition instead, [so] that we don't delay the release of our album by another year.”

Another song set to appear on the album somewhere (at the time of writing) is a cover, and it couldn’t be further away from extreme metal.

“I'm not sure if it's going on the album or whether it's going to go on a special edition, but it's an Ultravox cover called The Voice,” Filth shares, admitting that he prefers covering non-metal songs (like Midnight Oil’s Beds Are Burning with Devilment and Bam Margera, a song he “really loved growing up”) and participating in wacky collaborations, like with Bring Me The Horizon.

He explains, “We don't go for metal covers because metal covers are too obvious. I mean, we've done plenty of them, [like] Alison Hell, Mr Crowley, Hallowed Be Thy Name, etc etc. We've done loads of covers, but the best ones are the ones that are totally, you know, it's a great song, but it's not particularly metal, but you can hear the metal in it, so you can twist and repatriate it to your own style.”

Discussing the album delays in the Cradle Of Filth universe, Filth says, “The [COVID-19] pandemic put everybody back, you know. It put the release of Existence Is Futile back by a year and put everything else back by two years. Everybody's been in the same boat. So, you know, we've got a good excuse [laughs].”

As if dealing with the challenges of COVID-19-induced delays for their latest albums wasn't enough, Filth admits that putting together the tracklist for Trouble And Their Double Lives was “difficult.” How does a band that’s been around since 1991 with 13 albums and four EPs, tours regularly, and was ambitious enough to include two new songs (She Is A Fire and Demon Prince Regent) whittle down a tracklist to just 16 songs?

“We initially had so many songs, and then we had to evaluate,” Filth tells. “We've only done one live album before [2002’s Live Bait For The Dead]; we don't want to go overboard and repeat what we did on that. But we've also [released] a lot more records since then, so it was a real battle to choose tracks, and it had to balance out.”

He adds, “Of course, we were being overly ambitious by wanting to put two new songs on there with accompanying videos. So, it was a bit of a labour of love, but I think it's a very fair representation of where we are as a band, musically, [and] aesthetically.”

Being In Cradle Of Filth Is A ‘Lifestyle’

Despite the band’s incredible innovation and enjoyment of where they’re at—enjoying a peak over 30 years down the road is no mean feat—Filth has been open about the hardships artists in this day and age face, namely Spotify payments.

Last year, Filth blasted Spotify and described the company’s decision-makers as “the biggest criminals in the world”.

In an interview with Rock Hard Greece, the vocalist got candid about what a successful-on-the-outside band actually makes from streaming services. “I think we had 25, 26 million plays last year,” he said, “and I think personally I got about 20 pounds, which is less than an hourly work rate.”

He tells The Music nearly a year after that interview, “I mean, obviously, the music industry is impossible to circumnavigate at the present, with royalties being literally next to nothing, and nobody's really getting paid unless, of course, there's some more government interventions in regard to music streaming platforms, which pay the bands nothing, literally nothing. I've been very vocal about that.

“So, yes, it's getting harder, but we're just very much into what we do. We always have been because it traverses not only the music but a lifestyle, a life code and a lifestyle we adhere to. So, it crosses into everything else we love, whether it's literature, movies… anything from the creative font pertains to Cradle Of Filth. We're very lucky in that respect, that it covers a wider area. It's a lifestyle choice rather than just a musical choice. We love it; that's what keeps us going.”

He adds, “I’m a very selfish person in the respect that if I don't like doing anything, I’m just like, nah. I taught my daughter the same thing at school. She was absolutely amazing. She went to university; she got straight A's, you know. But there were some things [where she struggled], and she said, ‘Dad, I'm not very good at this’. And I was like, rather than being supportive and saying, ‘Well, you know, knuckle down, you'll get better at German’, I just said, ‘Fuck it off, concentrate on the things you are good at’.

“If you don't like something, you're never going to be amazing at it because your heart's not into it,” Filth reveals. When he gets into something—like a new album—Filth gets fixated to the point where he resembles “one of those mad scientists whose wife has to feed them under the door of the laboratory because he never comes out.” That experience, he believes, is the key to making it as an authentic band.

He offers some sage guidance for up-and-coming bands, “Your heart and soul have gotta be into something. That’s the way you have to be. If you're not, if you're not the mad scientist being fed under the door, then don't come calling… This is the sort of advice I give to people starting a band, where they always say, ‘I've just started a band; do you have any good advice?’”

He commonly responds, “You’ve got to be 1,000% into it. If you've got a drummer who's like, ‘Oh, I don't think I can make it this weekend because I want to go to the cinema with my girlfriend,’ then don't even bother starting. You've got to have 100% commitment. And that commitment doesn't come out of hate; the commitment comes out of total love for the subject.”

Cradle Of Filth will tour Australia this September with special guests Infected Rain. Tickets are available now via Metropolis Touring and The Phoenix.