We'll be right back. Yeah, so new album. That's exciting. Screaming of the Valkyries. Great stuff from what I've heard so far. Thank you. Yeah, and you've got a new keyboardist and vocalist, Zoe, and the fans seem to really like her. Yeah, well, I mean, she comes to prominence in our latest single, White Helleball. It's showcased there. What's there not to like? And, yeah, she's obviously very well.
Entwined in our band now. Yeah. I mean, that's, I saw like the video and there was all the comments were like, Oh, Zoe, we love her. She married, she married our other guitarist. Oh really? Yeah. We went to the wedding in Arizona at the beginning of the year. It was incredible. Oh, I'm in Arizona now. Was it in Sedona or which part of Arizona? It was in Tucson. Tucson. Okay. Yeah, that's a nice spot. Yeah. And you'll be down here on tour, I saw.
Yeah, absolutely. Do you like touring the US? I mean, it's hard to get those permits and stuff from what I understand. Oh my God, yeah. I mean, I had a bit of a... Well, no, I didn't. Everybody has to like literally... Like I apply and everybody's in my retinue. So I'm like the main guy. So all the emphasis is on me when I go to the embassy. And I turned up at the embassy about three weeks ago and I'd forgotten some of the paperwork.
Because I had to get up super early. I had something to do the night before I wasn't going to go to a hotel. I had to get up super early. And just in my blind, I'm fucking tired. Yeah, I inadvertently... Forgot some paperwork, but they were really lovely about it at the embassy and it wasn't a problem. But even up until about a week and a few days ago.
I was still waiting for my passport to be returned. And even though they said, don't worry, it's all fine. Send the relevant paperwork the next day and we'll get it sorted. I was still looking, oh no. And it wasn't cheap and it's not cheap. And then they announced like a day later that the Americans got to, or you guys got to pay the equivalent of the cost of an Esther to visit England nowadays. And it's.
to the tune of 10 pounds now ours is like to the tune of you know like tens of thousands and yours is 10 pounds but um it's worthwhile because um my favorite thing about touring the us is um Doing all those gigs on the off days between Walmarts. Yeah. I mean, you just mentioned the cost. Like I've heard that from several bands that.
they won't come here because they're like, we'll lose money if we come here, which is like, it's crazy. I heard that like 20,000 or something. It's crazy numbers to come. It is when you consider if you're bringing a crew with you as well, it does get a lot. And I think that's something that Trump. in his infinite wisdom will address at some point, because obviously he wants people, and I think it's been mentioned, not just me just throwing it out there.
But obviously, once people come to America, not be frightened away because they just can't afford to. Yeah, it's a money thing. I mean, it's like, I know they want to get money, but it's like, if people can't afford it, they're not going to come. I don't know. It's like, I would think they would have to lower that. you'd want bands to come in because they're going to come here. They're going to spend money. So yeah, I don't know.
Yeah. If you're Iron Maiden, yeah, you can charge them 20 grand because they're Iron Maiden. But for some of the smaller bands, club bands, theater bands, like it might not make sense. So then they're not going to come at all. No, some of those bands buy on or just self-finance, you know, the tour. So anyway, yeah, that's the deal. Does it help? Because you're co-headlining with a...
with the dying fetus. Does that help to have other... I literally thought you were going to say, because you're co-headlining with America's sweethearts. No, because the tour is called North American Chaos and Carnage Tour. But I had to look, I was like, wait, who are the headlines? And then it's like, there's a bunch of opening bands too. It's, it's good. It's a good package. Yeah, absolutely. Neighbor of Ascaris, um, Flesh God Apocalypse.
Corpse pile, undeath. And I know this. I don't know. I know this. Who's the other one? Vomit forth. Yes. That's, that's what I've got in front of me as well. Yeah. That's exciting. I remembered stuff. Yeah. Are you, and you guys are the, are you your co-headlining? So do you switch off with dying fetus or who like closes the show? We actually decided that, um, and, uh, I, I took this from a line from, um, uh, interview with, um, White Snake, David Coverdale.
When questioned why he was supporting Def Leppard and not doing the flip-flop, he said it so I could be in a bubble bath by the time they go on stage. And I just picture myself luxuriating in a bubble bath while they're going on. that'll help me through. Yeah. That's, that's an interesting picture for sure. Yeah. Get, get, get in, get out. And then, yeah, cause sometimes like you guys are just rushed so much. It's like, you don't really even get to.
enjoy the city you're in you don't get to like see it and tour or whatever i mean you're just working the whole time yeah yeah yeah and i i love funny enough i know it seems boring to a lot of people but i love The days off in America, even if it's like Midwest and you just stop at a hotel and the only other thing is literally a Walmart and it's probably over like a mile walk and nobody walks in America. So that's a walk of shame already.
Like people are looking, oh my God, people are walking. They've got to be from Europe. So yeah, even that. Unless you have the carts. If you have the motorized cart, that's okay. You can drive that around. Yeah, that's true. So, yeah, even those days with just, you know, like some Olive Garden there, Walmart there, a mile walk and a hotel. I love those as well. There's something very charming about it all.
Yeah, I had some friends from Europe that said they loved the fast food in America because they don't have as many options in Europe. So they come here and they're like, oh, there's all these different kinds of fast food places where in Europe there's just a handful, right? Or there's less. There's plenty of fast food places in Europe. Yeah, there's plenty. Those people are obviously wanting more.
They wanted more. Yeah, they wanted more. But so, yeah, with your album, I'm guessing this is not going to be in Walmart or like would they censor it because you got the topless woman? Do you even have to worry about censorship anymore? Because I'm assuming everyone either buys it digitally. I think she's going to be.
It's like a chimerical looking cover. So she's formulated lots of different things, like an obtuse Statue of Liberty. So I'm not sure if she's even got a breast or if it's just a... A mixture of things that make it look like a breast. Okay, you're going to have a hard time convincing that to those brick-and-mortar stores, though. But does anyone even buy? Everyone probably orders it online directly from you, I would hope.
Well, I don't know. I think Amazon is probably the best thing. People buying records nowadays would be a good thing overall, really. Well, yeah, and yours is cool because it's like there's all these different options. You get the huge vinyl. And I think the coolest one is the CD that comes in the wooden coffin. That's awesome. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There was a blood splatter vinyl as well with the blood.
moves with it and i was like how's that gonna apparently it's all you know balanced perfectly it's a thing of gravity because i was thinking when it slops around it's going to speed up a bit yeah that is cool do you think the fans Do you think they get it right in terms of, cause now you can at least see with Spotify and stuff, which songs they liked the most. Do you agree with like, when you look at your Spotify.
top songs like do you think that those are the best songs you think some of your best songs go under the radar a little bit well i think they're governed by also what you release as singles and for this album we've released three thus far malicious um malicious malignant perfection uh to live deliciously and last week white hellebore um and they're a good cross-section of the album
You know, there's a fast song. There's a really heavy song. There's one that's slightly more, you know, sort of gothically inclined and sing along. But they might necessarily be one of our favorites. We've had to hold some back that are like eight minutes, eight and a half minutes. And, you know, that's doubling the video length, which means, you know, I'll do that. So nobody knows what that means.
Right. Well, is there any I couldn't tell because I mean, I'm not 100 percent sure, but it doesn't look like there's any covers.
on this album did you record any covers because you guys have been famous for some of the covers you've done like of both metal bands and then like i think you did one of shakespeare's sister just some crazy covers yeah yeah well we do we've done crazy covers so we've also did um undertaken crazy collaborations as well let's say crazy you know just it's pretty crazy i think that's pretty yeah i don't know pretty normal um twisted was another one
Bring Me the Horizon. Claudio Simonetti, who's the guy who wrote for Dario Argento. Yeah, just weird. I like the juxtaposition and the marriage of opposites, and I think it's more of a challenge.
um because you could easily get i mean much as i love george um george from cannibal corpse but it's just of the same ilk do you know what i mean yeah no i agree i like the juxtaposition that's a good word for it it's kind of like chicken and waffles if you ever had that like it sounds disgusting we have the argument about that's awful
Chicken and waffles. It's a bit dry, isn't it? You could have something on that. That's what you get the syrup for, yeah. It's disgusting, but it's good. So one of the singles, Malignant Perfection, you mentioned that one. The drumming on that. Pardon? The drumming on that by Martin is insane. Did you speed that up? I mean, he's going so fast. It sounds like the tape is sped up. No, no, don't speed up. He's just like the Duracell bunny.
yeah he's like classically trained right like he went to like music school and stuff he's really smart absolutely yeah yeah but uh i think the drums which he excels at is uh his second choice after piano yeah because Patiently he contributes to the writing of like keyboards and their ilk. Right. I was going to say he's writing to like.
I just feel like that's an underrated thing in metal is the drumming. I feel like that is just the physical act of how they do that. I'm always so amazed. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that's a great song. Awesome video. And that's about the... Female, what is it? The female deification of evil? Well, of Samhain. I mean, Halloween or Hallow's Eve, Samhain. Obviously, celebration of when.
When the. How would I put it? The otherworldly collides, you know, it's the thinnest point of the year. And it's supposed to everybody knows what Halloween is about. So, yeah. The video is about a personification of a woman that entices, in this instance, children trick-or-treating and invites them into this sort of, I don't know, playhouse.
circus of derangement um there are a few occult leanings and um metaphors and meanings in the video as well but i just like that ideology of making something very cinematic um i'm loathe to keep doing lyric videos i know nowadays it's it's a must because everybody wants loads of things out there and it's obviously you know cheaper but i do i do like indulging and we've made sure that all three of our videos are very cinematic and got cool stories and look amazing um yeah thus far as well
I think we've got another one coming as well. Oh, really? Yeah. The White Hellebore video, that is really cool too. And is that an ode to the... Somebody was commenting that it was an ode to the...
filmed The Autopsy of Jane Doe. I don't know if you've ever seen that movie. It's kind of a cool movie. I have seen it. No, it wasn't. It was an idea that was penned by the director who was... interested in exploring who this white hellebore character was and then portrayed her as a as a film starlet you know who had had obviously attributed her fame and fortune to her alliance with dark forces. Like she'd made a pact, basically. Yeah. How deep down? Well, Lady Gaga was obviously done.
I said, obviously, like Lady Gaga's done. Well, that was the rumor, yeah. So how deep down the rabbit hole do you go? with that shit because i find that stuff the occult and it's so fascinating just to read about it and learn about the history and and all i know jimmy page was really into it too well yeah i do have quite extensive library on the subject and i do live in a very
The haunted part of the world is Suffolk in England, where I live. And this is the area in which the Witchfinder General Matthew Hopkins used to specialise. So there's... Plenty of monuments around here to witch burnings and Catholic burnings and Protestant burnings as well. They love burning people during the Middle Ages.
That was obviously something that got me really interested in it, in the occult and everything. And that field of expertise from an early age was just living in an environment that just, you know. It was very Halloween-y, full stop. If you imagine the quintessential English village, that's kind of where we are in England. Yeah, that history is – so I can't wait to go to Europe one day. And I know you mentioned –
Possibly you guys might film a video in Romania and want to like, maybe like a, it was like Dracula's castle or something similar. Yes, absolutely. There's plans afoot for that. Yeah, I can't really speak too much. We've got loads of plans. Obviously, the Ed Sheeran thing came to fruition, but you wouldn't endanger that.
before you know announcing it and the same with a few other things it's not just the fact that you know um you want to jinx it because you know terrible jinxer but obviously you don't want to go telling everything everybody one thing they all get excited and it gets around on the internet and then you're not doing it at all because it was just a flight of fancy when you were talking about it right
I try and play my cards as close to my chest as possible. There are some big things happening with the band. One of them actually is a collaboration with the fashion brand Vetteman, who are like a huge fashion brand. And they're doing like a dark sort of underground vibe thing at the moment. And they're doing a whole capsule of Cradle.
merchandise, which is interesting and very unusual as well. Talk about juxtapositions. That's probably one of the biggest ones there. So people could buy clothes that you're going to be wearing? No, no, no. Basically, it's like fashion house. um interpretations of cradle merch it was it was um debuted at a big parisian fashion show uh last september um and then i guess what they do is they showcase the
A few items. And if the buyers like it, then they do a whole capsule. And that's what they're doing. Okay. Are you going to bring back the masturbating nun t-shirt that says Jesus is a cunt? Is that one included? I think we're actually bringing that back in a different color scheme for the dying fetus run, actually. It might even be glow in the dark.
Wow. Do you see a lot of people wearing those shirts? Like you got to have, my friend said he had that shirt. I was like, that's a ballsy shirt to wear. It is a ballsy shirt. Yeah. I mean, I think people buy it for the, just for the fact that. the knowledge that they own it yeah well i think it wouldn't be uh i don't think it's inappropriate to wear it to a metal show i think it's ballsy to maybe wear it to like a walmart or something but yeah it's uh
That's a cool shirt. You guys got some cool. I've been pulled up on less in Walmart. I once had a shirt. And it was when we were headlining the B-Stage American Oz Festival. And I had a shirt at the time that said Deserter on it, which was a brand in England for something. I can't remember what it was, but it said Deserter.
And that was the only thing it said. It was sort of like an army fatigue type shirt. And it's women in a wheelchair that had veterans stickers everywhere and, you know, flags hanging off. of a trolley cart had such a go at me in the middle of the of the thing for my son born in you know two and he's giving us all this shit about a deserter as if like
Fuck. Yeah. You like that controversy, though. Some of that stuff is good. It stirs up interest in the band. Well, we actually got arrested at the Vatican for wearing that shirt. Actually, that shirt was the lesser of two evils because the other evil was the fact that our old...
His thing was to dress up as a priest, and it's illegal in Italy, which we didn't know, and even more so in the Vatican, which has its own... laws meaning it could just make you disappear and we were arrested at gunpoint well machine gunpoint oh shit yeah and uh obviously one of us wearing a jesus cunt shirt didn't go down a treat but he That paled in comparison. We had no idea that the other one was far worse. So what is the fine for that or the punishment?
We got off because one of the people that was screaming at us suddenly realised, and he could speak broken English, he was a bit of a metalhead. So he knew who we were and he knew that we had Napalm Death supporting us. I think the other band was, and we were playing the other side of Rome and there was about 2,000 people there. And I think he sort of persuaded the others that, you know, if they arrested us, kept us overnight or whatever.
There's going to be a bit of a riot the other side and it was best to, you know, bygones be bygones and just apologize. I don't know how we got out of there, but I'm grateful that we did. What were you doing in the Vatican? Just like on a tour? Like just, just walking. kerang magazine turned up and they wanted to take us for a photo shoot oh okay the show was like on the outskirts of the city yeah
So they took us into the city. It was a Sunday and it was moderately deserted. And it's obviously so many cool things to look at in Rome, but we were past the Vatican. the big square and there was very little people there. So we just hopped out and did it before we'd get away with it. Yeah. That's a fascinating place. The Vatican. I heard like the, they have these archives underneath and like,
People don't really, they don't, it's like secret. Like they won't show that to the public and who knows what's under there. Like there's all these rumors. And they're one of the richest nations in the world. And they've, yeah, like say, governable by their own. laws. It's like an interim state. So it's another country. Totally. Yeah, that's crazy. So is there any plans for anything crazy on this tour? Or is there any surprises that we haven't revealed yet? No, not really.
We do some headline shows afterwards. I mean, it's going to be a great build, a great festival. I've heard lots of good things. Obviously, we did some research. I think it's fifth or sixth, maybe even seventh year. Yeah, amazing lineup, great bands, great visuals. When we get back from that, we go and do a bunch of summer European festivals, including Download in the UK.
We link those with headline shows when the votes are in support. And then we go to South America, but that's not actually announced yet. Oh, okay. That's exciting. Do you like playing those big festivals? You mentioned OzFest. I mean, the OzFest you did was a crazy lineup. It was like Ozzy, Marilyn Manson, Korn, Disturbed. Have you played with every big metal band of all time?
The majority of them, yeah, in some form or another. By that I mean, you know, if you're playing Metallica, you know, you're probably going to be considerably down the bill or on another stage. But yeah, most bands. Yeah. Do you have a good relationship with some of those guys? Because I know you grew up like a big Iron Maiden fan and Priest and all that stuff. Yeah, I took over Bruce's show on a few occasions. I've been a special guest. Well, you know, a guest.
for the show on a few occasions as well um yeah it's a few few people in you know in other bands i do get on very well with Yeah. And then do you feel like you're I mean, because obviously you've got this tour with a lot of bands. Do you feel like that's now your role to kind of be the mentor to younger bands and kind of help up and coming black metal bands?
I don't know. I mean, I know quite a few people on this tour anyway. No, that sounds awful like being a mentor. You know, it feels like I should just pull a... a chair up by the fire, light my pipe, you know, put the slippers on and start reciting a story for big open book lever tome. Yeah. I don't know about that.
Yeah. Well, what do you think about the state of black metal today? Because there's not as many new black metal bands. I mean, there's there's kind of like this other I don't know what it's been called. I think there's a lot of them. I just don't think that there's anything risen to prominence because it's lost some of its... I don't know, obviously when it first started out, the second wave, it was governed by...
the press of fire, you know, church burnings and murders. And it was all very mysterious back then. We didn't have the internet to find out, you know, who's going out with who and, you know. Count Krishnak's mum and dad, what are their names? You know, it was a lot more mysterious. And I think that aided and abetted it. And now you've got all these crossover bands as well, doing like Deathcore.
Whatever else there is. It kind of thins the herd. But there's a lot of good stuff out there. Arkless is really good. Worm Witch. uh dom heid's guards dodd heims guard's last record was fantastic craft amazing i mean it's loads and loads of bands honestly um I just, again, I think it's just you need to know where to look. And I think it's getting more and more creative. But yeah, it could do with some of the bigger bands like the Emperors or the Dimmus, Satyricons and the such forth.
releasing albums as well as us. I mean, we just did. Yeah. And so do you like some of the twists on the black metal that. I mean, some of the guys like have the look, like you look at a band like Ghost, like they look like they'd be black metal, but they don't sound black metal at all. No, I mean, I really loved Ghost when they first started out. I mean, I do.
Still like them. I just think they got a little bit too pantomime for my liking. I was actually at that show they filmed for the right here right now. Or one of the two shows, at least, in LA. And it was fantastic. I must give them that. But I did think it relied on too many cover versions. But, yeah, I think...
There are a lot of good bands out at the moment. And yes, you're right. There's some stuff that crosses over into other territories, like Zee Lanarda, for example, if anybody's actually heard of them. No, I got a lot of homework. All these bands are listing. I got to go check all this stuff out. You still listen to a lot of new music, obviously. Well, I do. A lot more older music, yeah.
um soundtracks as well as well as metal um but yeah i try and be as current as possible but not for the sake of it just it's as and when i enjoy music yeah What about horror movies? Is there anything new that you've discovered there that you want to tell my audience about? Let me think. I don't know. I've seen a lot of horror movies of late. I like the substance everybody does. I saw the other one that was very similar to that. Can't remember the name of it now.
One that's similar to that? That's interesting. Yeah, kind of. It's a bit like Jennifer's Body. I saw it the other day and I can't remember the bloody title of it. It's essentially about people who are robots. Companion. I think it's called Companion. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think I saw that. With the girl? Yes, who just discovered that she's like sort of sex bot, really. Yeah, it was kind of like a step forward in lives kind of thing.
Yeah, for the guy that was in The Boys. Yeah, that was good. Yeah, there is a lot. It's almost hard to find all these movies. There are so many different streaming platforms and stuff. The Monkey was good. Yeah. Terrifier 3 obviously was amazing. Nosferatu was pretty good. There was an Irish film that came out last year called Oddity that was super scary.
Really liked it. I've seen that on, I've seen like a lot of people talk about that. I don't think I've seen it. So it is good. Yeah, it is. It's yeah, it actually is the premise. If you would read about it. But it's actually scared the shit out of me, and films rarely do that. There's some very terrifying moments. Wow, I'll have to check that out. Well, the new album, I think it comes out in like three days, right? Actually, it comes out next Friday, the 21st.
Oh, okay. The 24th. Why did I think three is there? Oh, maybe there's another single coming out in a couple of days. Maybe. Yeah. Cause he's got malignant perfection is out white hellebore. And then. To Live Deliciously. That sounds like it's weird to say. It's catchy, though. It gets in your head. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that was the kind of mandate of writing this record was it doesn't matter if it's extreme metal.
heavy metal whatever metal um we wanted to write a catchy record and um not deliver anything with you know we didn't want to deliver i know you mentioned about uh singles Sorry, cover versions. But we didn't want to release a special edition with extra stuff. Because if we write songs, we don't go, well, this song isn't as good as that one.
Leave that for the special edition. Everything's, you know, like children. We love each and every one of them. And the last record, we wrote two more songs for a special edition. And everybody was raving about the album. But the main complaint. the only complaint really was the people said that it was two songs too long and it's like so this time we just went you know we're just going to write the album and that's it that's what you get
Okay. Well, yeah, I love it so far. I can't wait to hear the rest. And yeah, I look forward to maybe catching this tour that you're coming through Phoenix. Like I said, playing the Van Buren and a bunch of other cities. Great venue. Yeah. Very cool. I love that place. Well, thank you so much for doing this. Anything else to promote? No, I'm good. Okay. All right. Thanks, Danny. Yeah. Thanks so much. Take care. All right. You too. Bye-bye. Goodbye. From the rockers to the wise men