PARADISE LOST

Greg spoke to me from Music For Nation's New York offices during a recent promotional visit, to fill us in on the latest happenings...

What inspired you to choose Sank to produce One Second?

Well, we were kind of looking for a new angle on it, because we approached the whole songwriting thing in a different way and we wanted to turn the whole thing around a little bit. We needed someone who would have a fresh outlook on our music, who wasn’t biased by anything that we’d done before. We had heard some of the stuff he had done with Killing Joke. We just liked some of the sounds that he got and the way he could mix the basic rock production with the programming side and make it work, because a lot of bands do that kind of thing and it doesn’t really gel and sounds a bit artificial. So, we decided to use him and it worked out well because I think he’s done a good job for us.

What was the most challenging song to write for this album?

Each song was different... “One Second,” the track, was the quickest track, purely because it is the same bassline all the way through and we just build on it an instrument at a time. I probably got that done in one day, whereas a track like “Mercy” or “This Cold Life” has been re-written and re-written and re-written because we were just never happy. “This Cold Life” was probably the hardest because, even when we’d recorded it all, done everything and got right down to the mixing stage and we actually mixed the track, we said, ‘This isn’t working. Let’s either scrap the song or go re-write it quickly.’ So I went away, shut myself in the studio for 2 days while some of the other tracks were being mixed, re-wrote it and it fit into the album then, so we decided to use it.

Is that a tough decision, whether to invest the time to re-write a song or just scrap it?

It just depends whether you think it has got potential or not. It could have easily been scrapped. There’s a limited edition [digipack] of the album with a track called “I Despair” on it, which was actually going to be on the album, but when it was mixed -- we like an album to have a definite style, a definite middle and end, if you know what I mean. It’s got to run smoothly and have a certain feel about it and the track “I Despair” didn’t really fit into the album. But we still wanted to use it on something, so we did a limited edition run and put it about 2 minutes after the last track.

It is a hard decision to make, though. With all the best intentions in the world, you can write a song that sounds great at the rehearsal room, sounds great on the demo, then you get in the studio and it just doesn’t work. It’s happened a few times.

One Second effectively incorporates electronics into the Paradise Lost sound. Is that something you expect to continue on future releases?

It’s difficult to say, it depends on the song. This is the first time that I’ve written music like this, because it’s always been written more guitar-oriented. On this album, I just had to try out using samplers and keyboards to write a song and it worked really well, so we thought, ‘Let’s write the whole album like that.’ It just depends on how that tune you come up with in the first place works. I mean, we might not use electronics at all on one song, and another song might be completely programmed. The week before I came out here on this promo tour, I went into the studio with Nick and we did a couple tracks that are going to be on the B-side for the single of “One Second” in Europe, and they were totally programmed. The only real thing on there is a few guitar parts and Nick’s vocals. But, having said that, the next track we do might not have any [electronics] on it. We don’t want to tie ourselves down to one particular thing.

How are the electronic elements being handled for the live shows?

That’s a good question... (laughs) We had all this planned really, really well: we had loops and things on ADAT, so it could be mixed in with the music and our drummer would play to a click track and we were going to trigger some other samples off. We’ve done two shows so far, two festivals in Europe, trying to use this stuff. The first show went really well and the second show, all the equipment went haywire, so it was like, back to the drawing board. So when we actually go out touring, we’re going to have to have a keyboard/technician who can handle all that side of it without having to worry about it. Needless to say, these are teething problems when you’re new to this kind of thing and I can’t see any problems when we actually get out doing it.

In the past, Paradise Lost has utilized female backing vocals to fill out the sound. Did that not seem appropriate for this album?

The female vocal thing came about really because we were into stuff like Dead Can Dance and Nick’s singing wasn’t the most tuneful singing in our early days (laughs), and this was a way of getting some tune in there and having atmosphere at the same time. So, it seemed like a good idea at the time, but now, Nick’s vocals have obviously evolved a lot and Lee, our drummer, handles a lot of the backing vocals. We’re not ruling out using female vocals again, but we have a lot of tune in the vocals anyway, so there’s not a need to use them.

The digipack version of One Second is beautifully packaged. Was that whole thing your idea or the label’s?

Mainly our idea. When we first went to record the album, we were thinking of artwork ideas and we were planning on the whole overblown goth thing again, like on the last album and the one before. But then we thought, let’s strip it all down. This is a much more real album: let’s do the same with the artwork and the title and everything. Instead of a really overblown title we thought, yeah, just One Second. It’s kind of a reflective, aware of your mortality type title, and we wanted to reflect that in the artwork. Instead of all these overblown, colorful images, we’re going to really strip it down and use some really stark, monochrome, burnt-out, stunning images, because sometimes that can work better. And inside we relayed a picture for more or less each song as well.

I’m very pleased with the packaging. Since we’ve done all the overblown goth stuff, a lot of other bands have done it in Europe as well, and we just want to be on our own little island. It would be very easy to become a parody of ourselves.

With the last album shipping over a million copies worldwide, was there any additional pressure when it came to recording One Second?

Um, it wasn’t when we were recording One Second, it was probably after we’d finished recording and started the promotion trips around Europe and wherever. That’s when you start to feel the pressure, because not everyone is going to like your new album that liked the last one, you can’t please everyone, and you have to take the rough with the smooth. Fortunately, we’ve gained a lot more backing with this album, but we have lost a bit. There are die-hards out there who say, ‘You’ve sold out,’ or whatever. ‘There’s not enough guitars on there.’ To me, that’s really narrow-sighted, you know. It would have been very easy to do another Draconian Times, an exact replica, and sell exactly the same number of copies to the same people, but we haven’t opted for that. We decided to do something where we don’t know who is going to buy it, which, to me, is the opposite of selling out.

The video for “Say Just Words” seems to rely heavily on symbolism. Could you explain the concepts behind the video a bit?

That video, as much as being made of the name of the band as the song. The ‘paradise lost’ thing is being played on a little bit, and also the ‘say just words.’ Because ‘words’ is in the title and it’s about people who, if you have nothing good to say, don’t say anything at all. It’s kind of a reasonably cynical song. We just wanted something to relay words, but not be too obvious, so we thought we’d go for more of the symbolism, what words were like 1000 years ago or something and try and tie that into it. With the twins in it, it’s like the dark side of your character and the lighter side.

Having said that, the video was a million times better before MTV got their hands on it and completely snipped out all the good bits. If you’re a huge band, you can have lesbians masturbating in it, you can have anything you want, but a band at our level, you’ve go to be very careful. You can spend $100,000 on a video and have them turn around and say, ‘You can see this girl’s underwear so we’re not going to show it.’ You have to bring them into the last stages of editing and say, ‘Well, what do we have to do?’ The director of the video was quite angry, really, because all the stuff he thought was good was taken out. Videos, to me, almost never turn out how you imagine them. My favorite video we ever did, “Forever Failure,” never got shown anywhere because it was deemed ‘too depressing,’ but I thought it was brilliant. So you have to do these fairly throw-away, pop videos just to get shown, which is really sad. We’re doing a video for “One Second” in a couple of weeks and we’ve got a really big budget for it this time, and we’re going to bring MTV in from the start, so we know what we can get away with from the start.

Is there a chance you’ll ever release a videotape with all the un-edited videos?

That’s not such a bad idea, I hadn’t really given it much thought. There probably are a lot of people out there who would like to see all the good bits. It’s an interesting idea...

Seems like MTV is the only real outlet for videos and, if you don’t do what they want, oh well -- you don’t get shown.

There’s no outlet at all in America, really, other than regional cable shows. I think European MTV is fast catching up with American MTV and becoming this really narrow-sighted, R&B type station and that’s all it is. Fortunately, with our “Say Just Words” video, it got a decent amount of rotation, but that was purely because we’d sold well there and they had to play it. It’s bad that you have to go that way around. There’s a lot of bands out there that maybe don’t sell too many at all, but they do a really good song, really good video and it still doesn’t get played. It’s a necessary evil, the video. We didn’t start a band to make videos. It’s just part of the music business in the 90s, you have to have a game-show host personality, you have to be a model, you can’t just be a musician anymore, which is kinda sad, but that’s progression...

Have you guys toured the States before?

We did something years and years ago. In ‘91, we did a tour with Morbid Angel, which was an absolute disaster, it just didn’t mix at all. People who liked our stuff wouldn’t like Morbid Angel and vice versa and it didn’t work out at all. We haven’t toured since mainly due to circumstance. Draconian Times, our last album, came out on Relativity and, shortly after it came out, they sacked the entire staff. But with this one, we’ve planned it a lot better and we’re already planning to come over and play. It’s looking like January and we’re going to come in and do a few dates to get the buzz going first, to prove that we can pull it off live. We’re going to do like ten shows, East Coast major cities, and then try to get on a decent tour and get further afield.

Paradise Lost has played a number of countries off the usual beaten tour path, such as Israel and Poland. Any memorable experiences from these excursions?

When you go to places like that, it’s quite an eye-opener. The first time we went to Israel, it was quite a culture shock. We went to the old city of Jerusalem, with the markets like something off of Indiana Jones, you know. We went to the Wailing Wall and this female journalist came with us and all of a sudden these guards ran over, machine-guns to her head, arm up the back on the floor, and it was because she was a woman and was in the wrong area. The Dead Sea was cool, though. I can’t swim, so it was fantastic. I’m just there, floating along and, oh, whose feet are those in front of me?, they’re mine.

The first time we went to Estonia and played a gig there, I’ve never seen such a great crowd but such disrespect from the organizers and the security towards them. We did a video for the song “True Belief” from the Icon album, which was footage from that gig, and you can see just how security treated kids. We’ve got a picture there of this girl and she’s just crying because somebody from her family was up front, dancing about to our music and one of the security just hit him over the head with an iron bar and threw him over a ten-foot fence. It just opens your eyes in some of these places.

It seems like there is more of a thriving metal scene in Europe these days compared to the US. Would you agree?

Not necessarily. In certain countries, there are certain groups of people that will always buy certain records. For instance, in Germany, Manowar will always sell like, I don’t know, 50,000 copies or whatever. They will never sell any more, never sell any less. They could release an album in 20 years time and still sell it. Very loyal fans. If somebody becomes a fan of a band, they will stick with that band.

In Britain, rock is a bit of a dirty word right now, same as it is in America probably, but I can see it turning around a little bit. There’s a lot of bands that are getting really big that are more commercial who are giving nods to some of the more seminal rock bands as an influence, so I can see it turning around a little bit.