Latest / HEAVY Music Interviews / Beyond The Mortal Realm With ANDREW CRAIGHAN From MY DYING BRIDE

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Beyond The Mortal Realm With ANDREW CRAIGHAN From MY DYING BRIDE · HEAVY Music Interviews

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  Yeah. My name is Andrew. I play guitar for a heavy metal band
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  or do metal band called My Dying Bride. We're from England and we're basically
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  doing this interviewing in hope to bring some or shed some light on the fact
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  that we've got a new album coming out called Immortal Binding, which I think
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  is our fourteenth or fifteenth. We've done so many we no longer can count.
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  Hello, everybody heardful here. Thanks for joining us today. Mane my
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  pleasure. So My Dying Bride release, you're fifteenth. Apparently I've been told
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  a fifteenth and latest album on Mortal Binding on April the nine eighth, mate,
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  So that's not too far away, now, How do you feel about
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  it? To be fair, it's I'm quite relaxed. I'm a little bit
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  apprehensive because we kind of I certainly I don't do a lot of social media,
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  so I don't see a lot of the reactions that's happened to it,
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  and we didn't do we didn't send the album out to a lot sort of
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  friends and fans and that kind of thing, so I don't really know.
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  I'm relatively confident that I've got, you know, we've created something that's okay.
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  So there's a little bit of apprehension on that because I don't really know
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  what people are going to think. Also, I'm relieved is probably the word,
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  because it was it's to get an album right. I don't think you
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  ever really get on them right. You finish them when you run out of
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  money type of thing. But and hope they're right enough. So it's been
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  hard work, you know what I means. There's been a lot of hard
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  work and a lot of sort of blood, sweat and beards and all that
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  kind of thing. So I'm just so it's kind of like it's dead space,
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  if you know what I mean, where you sat with a pregnant pause
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  the Brides. It's quite literally you've got this strange time where you can't say
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  anything about it because you don't want to over sell it. You can't push
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  it out, and you can't send it out. You're certainly not allowed to
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  do that. So you just sat waiting, you know, thinking what's what's
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  next, what's next? And like I said, Evan, it's soon April
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  the nineteenth's not so far away now, so we'll soon see. Yeah,
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  So could you tell us a bit more about the album from a musical point
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  of view and what you were going for with them. Yes, on this
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  one we actually had a direction for a change. Normally we just let them
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  flow. We know what and if anybody who knows My Dying Bride, they
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  kind of know what we're about and what we've always sort of been about.
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  But on this one we stayed within the realms of My Dying Bride. We
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  decided very early on we wanted big riffs. We like the idea of some
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  big, chunky rifts back in and we like the idea of not necessary cannibal
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  corpse style ferocity, but something that showed its teeth a little bit for us
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  anyway, and dressed some of the songs accordingly. It's still got the sort
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  of somber elegance we like and that kind of thing, but we deliberately made
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  it. We tried to write riffs like old school riffs and go back to
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  basics. We didn't bring in any extra musicians and no extra vocalists time.
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  We just kept very much the band of rock and roll band. But we
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  did try and deliberately write some riffs that will allow death metal vocals to shine.
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  And I also think we got away with that that was I played fore
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  and got moment. It's not covered in death metal, but there's plenty plenty
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  on it, and because I know people like that and we sometimes forget.
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  So I think we had a small plan. It wasn't much. I stuck
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  to it, and I think we got there. Cool. So today you've
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  released the singles the Second of Three Bells and Born with Him. So we're
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  just saying that they're a good sonic representation of what to expect from the album
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  overall, or they just just just a portion. Born with Him is closer
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  to the rest of the album. I think Second of three Bells is part
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  of the dynamics. If you to think it's all like that, you'd be
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  mistaken it when you get to hear it. But if you were to say
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  which one represents it closer, it's it's less delicate than the Second of three
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  Bells throughout is punchier throughout. I think, so it kind of it's a
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  fair balance, I suppose. But if I had to really choose which I
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  know that wasn't the question really thorn with him. But even that, I
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  mean, that doesn't represent the Apocalyptis, and it certainly doesn't record, you
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  know, sort of really represent her dominion and the way that one riles rolls
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  out so tricky, it's a good indicator. I mean, if you like
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  those two, I'm fairly sure you're going to like the rest. If you
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  dislike those two, you're probably not going to like the album. Now I'm
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  more a binding follows on from twenty twenties The Ghost of Oriyan Mate. So
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  what's changed with My Dying brand side My Dying Bride between those two albums.
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  Well, we the main difference is having a stable lineup. We brought Neil
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  Blanchett in on guitar. He plays in a local band called Valafar. It's
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  a death metal band with sort of Viking esque touches to everyone and then and
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  Neil's known We've known Neil since since our demo, so we're talking thirty odd
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  years. So he came in on Your Tie. Is very similar to me
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  in the way he approaches things. He likes big massive riffs, is not
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  a VIRTUALSA player, is not interested in that. He just wants it to
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  sound heaviestp If we can say that word, you can swear, you can
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  swear. So it was it was a good fit all right sense that so
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  he was. He is a good fit and he's a good guy as well,
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  So I mean that really helps. Then having we've we've always had drummer
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  problems, we just seem I mean, I actually joke that we call ourselves
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  spinal Bride sometimes or my dying tap, depending on which version you prefer,
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  because the drummers come and go and we can't force people to turn up.
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  You know, lives, well, we're all we've all got different prayerities now
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  that we're all fifty, or most of us are fifty, so you appreciate
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  lives different anyway. So that the short version is we've got Dan Mullins back
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  on drums, and I love the guy, I really do. He lives
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  literally just down the road from me here, so he's uh, he's back
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  on drums, plays a sterly, you know performance throughout the entire album,
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  absolutely brilliant, and he's back and I hope for good, you know that
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  kind of thing. And it just made life so so much easier because on
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  Ghost of Oriyan it was fragmented. I had to write a lot of it
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  myself, which I can do, but I don't enjoy with this we wrote
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  as a band. We went to rehearsal, and we played loud two or
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  three times a week, and you know, it's full Marshal Stacks, blasting
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  the fuck out of everything. And we wrote the songs back to front,
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  up and down, took them apart, put them back together for over a
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  year, probably close on eighteen months, and when we'd finished, we reckon.
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  We had them in the orders that they worked the best in and so
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  on, and we pulled rifts we weren't absolutely sure and made sure blah blah
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  blah blah blah. We really practiced this out. We really practiced out,
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  and I think that's the main difference, Whereas the other one was cold and
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  insult and dark from within as because we were having a rough ride. This
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  one's a joyous if you were, if you can, it's a joyous sort
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  of expedition, this time into the realms of doom. And it doesn't sound
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  like it much, but inside of us, we were loving this. That's
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  all the matters. Yeah, we liked it. So you know, as
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  you mentioned before, my this is going to be your fifteenth album. So
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  do you find it it's easier or harder to come up with new material and
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  fresh sharing material? The more You're right. It feels harder when you start
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  you work. I mean so immediately for this example, I'm try and say
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  that this way, we immediately try not to record the last album, which
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  I think is a very much a bad thing that all bands will say that,
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  you know, the very conscious of the last album and try not to
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  do that to keep it fresh. But then as soon as you say that
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  to yourself, you think, well, we need to do something different.
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  And then as soon as you say that, you think we can't wander off.
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  We've got to stay within the realms of who we are. But then
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  so once you get that little panic attack out of the way, you find
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  yourself writing just as you always did, and you're It amazes me. I
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  don't know if this is the same for other musicians. I haven't really spoken
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  about this, but you can can still because they come from nowhere. The
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  rifts, you don't know where they come from. You set your gear up,
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  you start playing, and then the appear and you knows, I don't
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  know how it happens. They just do, and then you write harmony to
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  that, and then you change it and the harmony might become the main thing.
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  So it's down to a little bit of hard working, a little bit
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  of tenacity. But it does worry that you think, well, there's only
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  so many notes, there's only some breats on a guitar, and if you
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  stand there like that, you'll never pick a guitar up. You'll just be
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  defeated already. But the trick is a hopefully knowing enough about your own music
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  that you don't write the same if twice because we've tried that it don't work,
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  and then just having the sort of confidence that it's in there, just
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  you know, just let it flow type of thing and it shows up.
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  Use the force loop and all that. I'll speak writing mate, Like you're
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  well known as someone who's continually writing music, mate, So what what drives
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  that side of your personality? Like so many years into your career still,
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  I guess I have this desire, if you will, or this goal.
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  And it's not like I'm trying to create something that I don't think I can
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  I can actually create. I'm trying to create the pure you know, when
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  you hear a piece of music and it's so absolutely either phenomenally joyous or phenomenally
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  you know, melancholic, or just in the moment in the essence, it's
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  just angelic almost, and it's recorded correctly, it's sank correctly, and it
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  might not be you know, it could. There's even moments when de Side
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  do this, so it doesn't have to be anything sort of orchestrated or de
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  Side can do this our appointment outlet and I bumped into it once some years
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  ago, where I thought that is almost it was the twin harmony that I'm
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  going to use the word resonated because but it's a popular sort of term now,
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  but that's really what it did, resonate with whatever I was thinking,
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  whatever I was trying to achieve, And ever since then, I've been trying
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  to get it back. It was a sorry piece, it was a really
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  sad piece, and I didn't record it and I never I thought, fought
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  me, there's no way forgetting this, and I got sidetracked and then never
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  got there again, and it's ugged me as you can imagine. So the
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  drive is to find whatever that moment was, in essence and in and amongst
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  that. I just like heavy metal. I mean, I'm just I'm just
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  standard standard heavy metal. You know. Is it loud? Yes? Does
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  it have a distortion pedal? London? If yes, so that's good enough
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  for me. We're off, you know what I mean. That's but we
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  do it in my diningd riders in our version. So the drive is just
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  because I I like the sound of it all and I particularly like reverbs and
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  delays. I mean, if it was up to me, it sounded like
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  we were playing in a cavern on a holiday moon. Our producer Mark mark
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  mine, he won't allow all of that. Is constantly trying to stop as
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  ruining as on albums which we would give an half a chance. Your honesty
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  is refreshing. Rather, I love it like having such a creative mind,
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  mate, Like do you sort of like when you finished an album cycle,
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  like do you put it to bed and just move on to the next thing,
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  or do you sort of do you still I suppose the music still will
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  use the word resonating again, but does it still resonate with you going into
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  the next cycle, or like I said, do you just put it,
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  put it to bed and leave it behind? On this one, well,
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  what I normally do is I have a deliberately do like downtime. It's so
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  I'm doing that now. And to be fair that these interviews have proved useful
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  because it forces me not to think about picking up the guitar because we all
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  still work for a living. So when I come on from work, we're
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  busy with interviews now, so I can't pick the guitar up anyway, even
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  if I tried, so I won't. I probably won't pick the guitar up
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  for another couple of weeks, and I won't even attempt it because otherwise I'm
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  busy thinking about the riffs, and I'm busy thinking about something else instead of
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  relaxing and sort of enjoying, if you will, the hard work and the
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  fruits of all the other labors we've just done. So it's not that I
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  need the rest, you know, I'm fully capable of well. In fact,
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  we are sort of semi writing and EP, believe it or not.
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  On the back of everything I've just said, we are writing an EP.
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  So we've got two songs done which would not necessarily remnants of the album.
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  They just didn't make it onto the album, so too long, and we're
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  writing a third as we go. So but I don't immediately stop this album
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  and write another one because it would sound I think I have to give some
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  space now because the next album has to sound different to this, and my
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  writing right now sounds like this so oddly enough, by buying some time and
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  just leaving it for a couple of months and starting again, we'll get a
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  different version of of me, if you will, if that makes any sense,
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  and that and I mean, I mean, believe me. I'm in
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  no rush to sound of the album. The fucking hard work our year break
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  will do for me, you know, before the next one, or however
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  long it is. I mean, I don't even know what the normal What
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  is the normal gap between our albums? What does everybody else? People are
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  releasing Ship every six months or say like it's such as such a disposable world
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  like people, it's just the continual release of Ship these days, which I
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  can't handle it, Like I like to digest one music, you know,
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  and then yeah once once a year. That's too much. We couldn't do
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  that, man alive. I mean, we rehearse longer than that for this,
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  which is why it sounds so bloody good mate, all right, cool,
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  thank you? Yeah, well, I mean each other. I'm happy
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  with a big gap, maybe not far, who knows, Maybe we'll bring
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  it close to but it won't be one that's for sure. Well, however
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  long it is, mate, Your album I'm Moral Binding is out April ninety
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  eight. Then I had to listen before this interview made, and to be
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  honest, it's the first time I've listened to your music and it was it
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  was captivating, like it was atmospheric in parts, it was striking in parts
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  of it. There's so much going on there and it all comes together so
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  well. Mate, So it's a buddy good album. You should be out
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  of efforts. Well, thank you very much. I appreciate those comments,
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  especially from someone it's not awfully familiar. I mean, you've probably heard of
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  us, but just what we were up to, that's Those words mean a
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  lot from a new Welcome to the club, thanks Brady, Welcome to the
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  family, my friend. Right now, everyone, you take care of yourself
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  made like we say. I'm Model Binding is out April ninety eight. That
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  you guys have got heaps of shows and stuff coming up, which can be
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  found on your socials. But hopefully you make it out to this side of
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  the world soon and we get to catch up. Well we hope. So
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  we are thinking about it. Trust me, we get that we get asked
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  a lot, but you. You had very nat families in the past.
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  I mean, we are we get asked a lot, and we we do
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  try bend our minds and which obviously helps bend the will towards that because we
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  appreciate that. Muhm. Even though it's the dark side of the world,
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  it is still very much a heavy metal heaven, you know what I mean.
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  You're just like us, you know what I mean, except your weather's
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  better. Infinitely. Oh very nice. All right, brother, Will you
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  enjoyed the rest of you don't made? I hope you're waking up on the
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  right foot and we'll see if Thank you very much, appreciate