mtv.com : 09.22.2006
Frontman
says Thornography is
'like Slayer meets Napalm Death in a vat of
acid.'
Cradle of Filth
After Cradle of Filth recorded all the material for their new album,
Thornography, Dani "Filth" Davey ran into a major obstacle: He could
growl and scream as well as ever, but no matter how hard he tried to
hit a pitch or sing a passage, he sounded completely tone-deaf.
Discouraged and depressed, he started drinking heavily, but that
only made him feel sicker than ever. He saw doctors, vocal coaches
and dieticians, all to no avail. Davey was starting to think he was
suffering a mental breakdown until the band's producer, Rob Caggiano,
recommended a homeopathist who had cured Caggiano's life-threatening
stomach parasite when he was working with Bleeding Through.
"The first thing the doctor told me was that I was going to die if I
carried on with my lifestyle," Davey said. "Then he found that I
have this weird disease called candida, which sits down low in your
system so it's hard to detect, then acts as a springboard for other
illnesses."
The doctor also determined that Davey was allergic to alcohol — more
than a minor inconvenience for a touring musician with a strong
appetite for beer. "I had to take 49 tablets made of plants for six
months, and I had to limit my diet to rice cakes and mineral water."
At first, Davey ignored the prescribed treatment and started
drinking heavily again. After that spell, he decided to follow his
doctor's advice — but promised to reward himself for his efforts. "I
said, 'If I get over this, I'm going to [drink again] and eat loads
of cake.' And I did. And now I can just live my life. I've decided
that I'm keeping to this diet and once a week, I'm going to splurge
and have sugar or something bad."
While he desperately missed not being able to eat and drink like a
normal heathen, Davey soon regained his health, and with it, his
voice. So he flew to Millbrook Studio in upstate New York and easily
recorded all the vocals for the album. "We did it [near] Alfred
Hitchcock's estate, so you can imagine how excellent the vibe there
was," Davey said.
He named the album Thornography due to the ever-present religious
overtones of the disc, and also because the implied imagery reminded
him of his ordeal. The LP drops October 17.
"Thornography implies a self-hurt," Davey explained. "Mankind's will
to hurt God. It's like being an alcoholic and knowing you're not
supposed to drink but you enjoy it so much so you do it anyway.
Everything on the record has got a religious edge to it in a good or
bad way. And it's not overtly satanic because sometimes you find
that the darker stuff in life exists within the people who wield the
power, who are supposedly in the light."
Sonically, Thornography strays little from Cradle of Filth's
established brand of symphonic metal. Tempos vary from the slow,
cinematic chug of "Rise of the Pentagram" (which features a spoken
introduction by Doug Bradley, who plays Pinhead in the "Hellraiser"
films) to the hellfire blaze "I Am the Thorn."
"Much of this album is traditional Cradle of Filth, just better,"
Davey said. "It's like Slayer meets Napalm Death in a vat of acid."
