INTERVIEW WITH NICK OF

BY KIKAZZ

Unfortunately, due to technical difficulties, the first twenty minutes of the interview somehow disappeared, the remaining material is very good, yet, unfortunately their is little talk about Cradle Of Filth's latest album. Hope you enjoy what's here!

KIKAZZ: Tell us about this fan of yours who's been busted by the cops for wearing the t-shirt.
NICK: Yeah, basically the t-shirt in question is the "Vestal Masturbation" shirt, it's got a nun on the front with 'er… breasts out and she's like…fuckin' herself basically, and on the back it's got the slogan "Jesus Is A Cunt", and we did a show back in London in June on a Friday night, and he (the fan) was going through the red light area of London, where all the pimps and the prostitutes and all that stuff's goin' on and the cops decided to arrest him, when there were drug dealers on the street and stuff. And he's gone to court over the design, and they found him guilty on a 200 year old law in England which comes under the obscenities law, something about profane representation, and his lawyers filed an appeal. It's going to go to Crown Court next month , and basically if he gets sent to prison well then there'll be a further inquiry which could mean Cradle of Filth going to Court, and possibly prison, and also a total ban in England on all our merchandise. If he wins the court appeal, they'll be forced by local councils to abolish the law. There's been quite a lot of controversy over here about it in the newspapers and stuff.

KIKAZZ: Have you been in contact with the chap in question at all?
NICK: Yeah, actually we were supposed to go down to his court appearance back in September but we were mixing the new album, and we were advised by his lawyers not to go down because it could jeopardise his case. We're off tour on December 14, so we're gonna go down to the Crown Court and offer our support. If we get any comebacks as an outcome of this case, we'll have to possibly look at legal advice ourselves.

KIKAZZ: What are you looking at here Nick, fines or jail, or what?
NICK: Because we've got more than one so called offensive t-shirt design, they'd probably come down pretty hard on us because, you've got to understand that England is very old fashioned in it's way of thinking and morals…

KIKAZZ: Yeah, we know about the video nasties and all that…
NICK: Yeah it's pretty fucked up.., and because of the fundamentalists in power over here they'll probably take a real dim view to the six of us and throw us in prison to set an example. If we don't get sent to prison we'll probably get heavy fines, y'know, thousands of pounds fines and a complete ban on all our merchandise…Including our cd's because they display similar images, what some people would call obscene anyway.

KIKAZZ: That is an unbelievable revelation Nicholas…
NICK: It's pretty fucked up man over here…

KIKAZZ: Is this a day to day thing that's hanging on the band's shoulders at the moment?
NICK: Not really, obviously our thoughts are going out to Rob (the fan) because we don't want him to go to prison. It's bullshit that in the 1990's you can be thrown in jail for wearing a t-shirt living in a so called civilised country. It's 1990 not 1812. We're not really thinking, oh shit we could be going to prison this time next year, all we're thinking about is the release of the album, we start rehearsing for the European tour on Saturday and looking at what's happening week to week with the band as opposed to what could happen.

KIKAZZ: And how do Music For Nations feel? They probably weren't bargaining on this kind of thing happening when they signed you.
NICK: Well, guess with all that's gone on in Norway with Emperor and Burzum and prison sentences and the like, I guess they see it as, well, they won't be in prison forever, and the sales will probably increase. I don't know really. I guess they'd see it as it could do the band a lot of good even though it's pretty fucked up they've gone to prison, y'know. Put it this way, I don't wanna go to prison even if it means selling a million albums.

KIKAZZ: Buddy, I wouldn't wanna go to prison,…for ANYTHING mate!
NICK: I don't wanna get raped man.

KIKAZZ: No, no, not at all. Back to the album, are you guys going to try cracking the U.S. market at all, seeing as you've got a much stronger label behind you now.
NICK: Yeah, we've got to get into the U.S. market. We did have a lot of problems with our old record company, Cacophonous, they didn't want to invest any money in us. They were quite happy with just selling records from our underground following, where as Music For Nations is a lot bigger, looking towards a worldwide market not strictly a European market . They're gonna try and get us out to Australia next year. We haven't toured the States as yet, we've been trying to, we were supposed to be doing a co-headline thing with Immortal, but Cacophonous fucked that up. And then we were supposed to touring with Morbid Angel and At The Gates over there, but it turned out Dissection went on that one so…and we were supposed to do the Milwaukee Metalfest and that fell through.

KIKAZZ: You haven't had much luck then have you?
NICK: No, but things are starting to go really well now though with MFN 100% support and stuff. They're totally dedicated to Cradle Of Filth, it's really cool.

KIKAZZ: What sort of videos do have coming up?
NICK: Next Friday we're going into MTV Headbangers Ball to play 4 songs off "Dusk" live and they're gonna film it for broadcast as kind of a taster for everyone because we haven't got a promo clip yet. In January we're gonna start work on the promo clip for "Funeral In Carpathia" . We're gonna make the MTV thing a bit special with some candelabras and female dancers and stuff.

KIKAZZ: Ooh, sensational. We want nipple.
NICK: HaHa. I don't think they'd show that over on the European one.

KIKAZZ: Maybe they'll show it France.
NICK: Yeah. Over in France I guess it's called art.

KIKAZZ: Who brought the full on Goth influence into the band originally Nick?
NICK: All of us really. We're all totally into the Hammer Horror films, and we like the Goth bands like Fields Of The Nefiliem and Sisters Of Mercy. I think Type O Negative's "Bloody Kisses" rules. I personally think they wimped out on the new one though.

KIKAZZ: And what's you're stage show like, is it the full on puffy shirts and make up trip Nick?
NICK: Oh yeah, totally. We want to express the theatrical side of Cradle Of Filth visually so we'll always bring some kind of light show with us, and we concentrate on certain colours like deep red and blue that you'd associate with a horror theatre production. We've got the ice machine, we've got the candelabras, we've also got a female dancer who comes on dressed in the wedding veil like on the cover of "The Principle Of Evil Made Flesh", and we just go for it. We can't take our two female backing vocalists on tour yet because of costs, but maybe next year. We are a six piece band after all.

KIKAZZ: Is it true there's no longer a Metal community based Radio show in England now? I know Bruce Dickinson did a show for a while didn't he?
NICK: He doesn't like Cradle man. And the other problem over here is that people in England seem to think that anything more than two years old is cheesy and a joke. In Europe they still love their traditional metal like ManOWar. But that's just the way England is, and it's the same with the promoters over here. Where as in Germany everyone's crazy for it.

KIKAZZ: I've asked this next question to a few other people like Vinnie Paul but you're actually from England so I should ask—what the hell has gone wrong with Kerrang magazine Nick?
NICK: I don't know man. There was another magazine over here called RAW and all of a sudden it just wiped it's hands clean of anything to do with metal and started doing features on bands like Blur and Oasis. I think Kerrang have just gone for an alternative market that's not really pop and not quite metal, I'd call it student music.

KIKAZZ: Yeah, it's a bit of a worry old Kerrang, when bands they used to love like Fates Warning get their back catalogue re-released and it now it gets slagged.
NICK: Yeah, also back in '84 or '85 when Celtic Frost's "Morbid Tales" came out they gave it one K and said this is bullshit noise, then 5 or 6 years later the same people are hailing it as such a godly album.