Hi Dani, we are going to talk about several things. There is a new live album ‘Trouble And Their Double Lives’, there are plans for a new album and so on. Let us start with something recent: you just did a co-headline tour with DevilDriver in the US. What can you tell about that?
Yes it was a double headline tour called ‘Double Trouble Live’. It was a tour for three and a half weeks in the States. That was the first part of it. There is a second leg approaching at the beginning of October, although that is not confirmed yet, but that is going to happen. There will be possibly a third leg next year, so we may bring the tour to Europe as well next year, due to the fact that it was really a family affair. Dez (Fafara, also singer in DevilDriver – Vera) from Coal Chamber is our manager, along with his wife Anastasia. We shared crew, we know the crew pretty well, so it is very much a family ran affair. Very relaxed. So it was a fantastic tour. It was our third since the pandemic.

A bit of activities again, that’s good, because the last time we talked, was for ‘Existence Is Futile’ and in 2021 you still could not tour. I think that is why you focused on a live album, isn’t it? It is the first live album in twenty years, so that is the next topic we are going to talk about now…
Yes, the pandemic ruined us. It didn’t afford us anything actually, just delayed everything about a year, which meant that our transition from Nuclear Blast to Napalm Records was delayed by a year. That gave us some downtime and the opportunity to release tracks that we recorded during the world tour that happened prior to the pandemic. So it was a very good choice in this respect and it was not planned as such a huge work as we went into it. Once we decided that it would be a very good option, fans started to demand and required a live album after such a long time. I believe the previous one was twenty years ago.

There are also two new songs on that release. Maybe we can shine a light on both of them…
Well, we decided with the onset of two new members in the band, that we would press ‘reset’ completely for writing a new album, just totally from scratch, no traces of previous members, so we didn’t want previous members having a hand in these songs. But these two songs were already written for the new album and it was best that they found a home on the live record and thus it aligns with Cradle Of Filth bringing the live songs from the past. So I think it brings an all-round package to combine it with the double live. Also those two new songs are the gateways to each side of the CD and also gateways to the album, because they are both also represented by videos.

Indeed and I think it was a very good idea how you presented it. The first video for ‘I Am The Fire’ is a normal one with actresses and gothic tinge, while the second one – for ‘Demon Prince Regent’ – is a live recording, so that’s a kind of link with the rest of the album let us say…
Yes absolutely. Actually the third video is going to be… they want a lyric video, but I hate lyric videos. I think it is a really, really poor excuse, a lyric video. Something like: ‘we need to promote something, but we cannot afford to do a proper video, okay let’s do a lyric video’. It never works, it is really boring, so we decided to do a film video – even though the band will not be in it – and do a live video for the second track.

What do you want to share with us about the transition from Nuclear Blast – a long time business partner – to Napalm Records?
Yes, we decided that we’d spend three albums – which was ten years. We originally signed to Nuclear Blast for three albums. It took us from 2014 to 2019 and actually 2021 – as I said that’s when the latest album for them was released. So we thought we had done our time with Nuclear Blast. A lot of people who worked for Nuclear Blast have left the label and had moved on. We heard a lot of great things about Napalm Records from our management and they have Jinjer and The 69 Eyes and other good bands on their roster. The support is really good, the people are really good, the press is really good, it seems like a no-brainer to make the switch and try something new, as none of us is getting any younger and we all were about to change and keeping things real and exciting.

Talking about the change of members… that’s nothing new within Cradle Of Filth, but I was a bit surprised that Annabelle Iratni is already gone, because during the former conversation you still had to introduce her…
Yes, it all started so well, it seemed so promising, but as it turned out she wasn’t right for the band. It was one of the few mistakes we made when bringing people on board. It really wasn’t working out with her, so our intuition was wrong. Unfortunately guitarist Rich Shaw also left, so we had two missing shoes in the band, and now we have two new great musicians in the band, which is over a year now. Donny (Burbage – Vera) and Zoe (Marie Federoff – Vera), they are both American, the reason for that is that we found ourselves in quite unpredictable times last year and we lost two people in the band. There wasn’t enough time to arrange work visas for our intended support tour with Danzig in the States. So in order to avoid complications, we decided to look for American people. It is not ideal, because of the travelling scenarios, but they are very compassionate with the band, they are great people, and they are working on the new album with us. Things are stable again although we have lost different people, but I guess that happens in every career. People come and go, people decide they got their things to do, they can’t stay in the band because it is not their thing or it is too much hard work, etcetera… for multitude reasons…

Next chapter is the new album. There is still work to be done, but I found out that this is the month (May) when you will enter the studio. Are you already in there?
No. Well, I am in the studio, because I am bringing final touches to the mix of the Ed Sheeran song, actually after this interview I have to rush over to the studio, but we actually fly to Las Vegas next Friday to play at the Sick New World festival and when we touch down on Monday – or at least Tuesday – I will stay for a couple of days in Las Vegas and it is my girlfriend’s 30^th anniversary. Martin starts drums – or at least setting up the drums and arranging sounds and stuff like that – on Monday for the new album. We will be working on that over the course of the Summer. We only have a handful of festivals this Summer, due to the band activities, but next year is a very, very busy year for Cradle, when we release the new album. So this year it is all about being creative, at least until September when we are due to go to Mexico and possibly South America and other than that, like I said, the second leg of the Double Trouble live and small shows.