PARADISE LOST visited Greece just a few days ago and right before Thessaloniki’s show Metalpaths.com had a beautiful and interesting chat with Aaron Aedy! You can either watch a part of the interview at the video below or read the full chattering on the following text!
Aaron would like to apologize for the noise during the interview due to the drum’s soundcheck.
Hello Aaron and welcome at Metalpaths.com.
Thank you it’s always a pleasure to be here!
It’s been a year since we last show you (Paradise Lost) in this place (Principal Club Theater, Thessaloniki) where a lot of news have come for the band, your latest album “The Plague Within was out in June 2015. How do the crowds react to these songs when you perform them live on stage, at least, so far?
To be honest, we’ve recently just finished our 7 week European Tour, right before coming here, and the new material has been going down amazing! I mean we’re playing six songs of the new album, which we’ve never have done since the early days you know, so it’s been going really well. It’ s a lot fun playing “Beneath Broken Earth” live cause me and Greg are massive doom fans, but overall it’s being really well actually!
That’s nice! Do you think it kind of brings some old vibe to the shows?
I think there’s a good combination of what we’ve been in the past and what we’re doing now. I think the latest albums were getting heavier but the new one seems to combine them! It’s nice to having Nick growling again! To have that dynamic! You know the growling, and the clean singing as well! Once the singing that he did with Bloodbath it gave him more confidence to do it! He’s always been worried, in the past about the growling might affect or damage his voice, after clean singing came up, but he’s all more confident to it , so it sounds great! I’ve seen a lot of people coming back after the years on our shows. It’s been the most successful European tour for the past few years.
Nick and Greg, have been giving hinds about the new musical direction of the album before the album came out. None ever thought how far back on the early days the sound would be. There’s a lot of such comebacks in metal music nowadays. Do you think it’s done on purpose?
No, I have a theory about it actually! Mainly, cause I haven’t been writing the music! I think once I ran into my 40s I started to listen all the music I looked after when I was a teenager! I think anyone who is at about my age seems to do that as well! I’ve been re-buying re-mastered cds, all that stuff, Celtic Frost, Iron Maiden, Mercyful Fate etc. So, I listen to all that stuff that I liked by the time we made the band! I think a lot of people in their 40s revisit their youth, to a certain degree, you know! I think it gets you the thrill of that time on why you made a band in the first place! That combined with the feeling of after 25 years still managing to travel around the world, and some people still wanting to see us live, I think that combination drives you harder!
It seems that songs on “The Plague Within” point out their extremes! The song “Flesh From Bone” might be your fastest song while on the other hand “Beneath Broken Earth” might be your slowest one! How do you feel about those multi faced albums you’ve been through the years?
Well, next year we’re doing a couple of shows playing the “Gothic” album. I might get started in re-learning the album again! Remind my wife on how I looked like and then. It’s great going back! We re-recorded a couple of songs last year for an EP. It’s quite hard re-learning the first album, because we did not use digital tuner there so, they’re in tune between them, but they’re not quite in tune with the real tones (A or C or whatever). At least on Gothic album we got a digital tuning on that one but, yeah it really nice to go back.
I have a really old question of mine, whirling in my head, having read all your booklets, story etc. one could easily spot that you haven’t been getting credits on any other songs apart from some songs on the milestone release “Draconian Times”. Was this by chance or was this on purpose?
There’s always been things that I put on the music, but there’s not that lot of, to get credits for! The song on “draconian times” was a song I had written and it wasn’t even for Paradise Lost, but Greg liked it and he basically manipulated the song I wrote, that’s why I got credit for it! And then on the “Host” album, on one track, Greg said do whatever you want and then halfway to the song I wrote some e-bow lines. There’s always bits and pieces that I write, but not that much to get credit for.
Just a few days earlier, there was a live cd/dvd release “Symphony for the Lost” that came out! What are your memories from that night in Plovdiv?
Yeah, I’ve seen the final edit, but I’ve not seen the final product yet! Massively nervous for the rehearsals! When you play with an orchestra, I mean real musicians, you don’t want to be that one person who’s on wrong note! So, we were all really nervous about it! The idea of proper professionals! But then when we finished the orchestra set, the sense of relief! That was the other feeling I remember, because we were all like, whoa, thank god for that!!!It’ went well actually! It was quite an experience! The first rehearsal we had with the orchestra we were like wow! Then the other different think was having the people on the amphitheater on half round marble theater, that was something new! The fans were really enjoying it! If we’d do it again? Well, I don’t know…we’ve always used musicians on the albums. Who knows, you can never say, it was quite an experience! I mean the venue, was a 7th century Roman theater, and so I was excited to be able to perform there. The Mayor was a nice guy. He took us out for dinner! He approved everything, because he is a metal head himself!
Greg told me last year, just a few days after the show, that primary to the show he wasn’t that much enthusiastic about the whole think, and the idea of Paradise Lost on stage with a full orchestra behind them. What about you and the rest of the band? What’s your opinion on that matter?
Well, I always speak for myself. I was very excited about it and very nervous! I think I was a lucky one to be able to do that! I would to have done a few more songs, like “Faith Divides us..” with the orchestra would be great! But the thing was, there were songs that we would normally knew they had the arrangement and there were some that we would never have thought with an orchestra! But I think “Last Regret” went quite well! I dreamt it! It was a good life experience! Really cool!
You’ve also recently had a deal with ESP guitars for a 7string guitar! How it felt when you first got to use the 7string guitars for Paradise Lost?
Well, the first 7-string I used was a Mayones. I actually got the guitar delivered in the studio, and I hadn’t even played a 7 string before, which was weird! It was short of difficult because I got cramps in my arms! Because I record standing, and it was really weird getting to the lower strings! But now it’s really good! My friend Andy Sneap, he got me in contact with ESP, and a superb guy called Chris, very helpful! The neck is actually really designed for touring! I’ve both my Mayones and my ESP on tour with me! They’re both great!
Could you describe or maybe predict, the future of Paradise Lost, ten years from now?
I have no idea! Me headbanging with more back pain! It much more of it for the feeling of the moment with Paradise Lost. That’s why we got all these albums, with controversies! I don’t like to predict the future! I could drop dead tomorrow! It’s hard to say! If you had told me in 1988 that I’d be in Thessaloniki doing an interview 25 years later after 14 albums I’d laugh at you! It’s been absolutely unbelievable! The good thing is we are enjoying it now more than we ever had! The major reason we are like this, is that we make the music that we love! I can’t describe you what the vision was, when we finished the record December last year we were like kids! We were all like 17 year olds you know! That still tights us! We write music for ourselves! You think the bands are going on and on forever! There are so many bands to be heard! It really difficult to make your band stand out from the mass! That’s why I love these bands that are still going, because you can’t find any new bands that could do that same thing again! I start stretching 30-40 minutes before we go on stage, because otherwise I won’t be able to make it properly! And in the case of having a few drinks some day I have to do it.
Alright then. I have one more question, and we are finished! Can you pick for us one of your favorite songs from each album of yours?
Well, it’s between “Rotting Misery” and “Breeding Fear” from the first album(Lost Paradise). We’ve been playing “The Painless” from Gothic on this leg of the tour and I’m quite enjoying that! But I was like into the “Angel’s Tears” the only instrumental we’ve done! Looking forward into playing “Angel’s Tears “ on the Gothic Tour next year! Shades of god is between “Word made flesh” and “True belief”. “Icon” would be…
“True Belief” is on Icon…
Haha! Alright! Then I would say for Icon is “No Forgiveness”. Icon has got a lot of great songs actually!
“Icon” has none bad song actually!
Yeah! I think the “Embers Fire” is a really great one too! From Draconian Times I would choose “Shades of God”. I was really pleased when we did the Draconian times with the song “Shades of God” an album title from a past record. I think it was really cool! The thing with One Second is why we are not playing still all these stuff?? The first song of it I really like I don’t remember the title (One Second). There’s one song of that album I tried to get into set for this tour. When we all sit down and democratically pick the songs of the tour, I really liked to get “Disappear” into the set and from Host we were trying to get “Nothing Sacred” which is one of those that I partly wrote and I like the most. But some of them they just got a different flow and we’re trying to get the songs that way to get the set a flow! From Believe in Nothing I ‘d say “World Pretending” but the b-side called “Gone” which didn’t make it on the album, I love that song! On the demo version of that song we had a sample of a speech but then we found out that it was going to cost more than the whole album to use it so we never done that! That’s how it wasn’t on the album. Then goes Symbol of Life and “Pray Nightfall” absolutely! I’d love to have that one back on the set, but it’s not that important! We played “Isolate” one a couple of dates last year and that was fun! From Paradise Lost I’d pick “Don’t belong” and from In Requiem it would be between “The Enemy” and “Praise Lamented Shade”. I love playing “The Enemy” live so that pretty cool to have it on the set! From Faith Divides Us…Death Unites Us I’m picking “Faith Divides Us..”I love playing it live! There’s a lot of dispute about the album but the song is beautiful! I think it’s one of the best songs Greg has ever written to be honest, that’s why I like it! And then is Tragic Idol , I love the song “Tragic Idol”! I wished we played that one as well on this tour although “Honesty in Death” is a great song as well! That was also a great live song! And then the new one (The Plague Within) I like all of them! But “Beneath Broken Earth” was the one! I think the first one that Greg sent me was “No Hope In Sight” and when we put the title on it, I laughed, it was typical Paradise Lost – miserable! But “Beneath Broken Earth” I believe was something else! I think the video was really good as well! We did it on the roof of our rehearsal room! It’s like an attic performance video! We were sick of doing performance videos, but we thought of doing this performance video but not that very mental. It worked out really well, it suits the mood of the song quite perfectly so it’s “Beneath Broken Earth” from the new one!
Great! Thank you for your time! You can have the last words for this interview, you can say whatever you want!
I should say a very big “Thank you” to the Greek fans. You’ve been following us for many years! I believe it was September or October 1992 when we used to play on Rodon Club all the time back in the days! When I go out on clubs every now and then in clubs here in Greece and a song of ours goes to the speakers you always know all the lyrics! ”How cool is Greece??” Thank you very much!