Paradise Lost interview

interview by Jim Dalrymple

There are a lot of bands that belong to the Death, Doom and Gothic Metal genres, but none have the staying power of Paradise Lost. They are credited with with being the pioneers of all three genres of music and rightfully so.

Paradise Lost has been around for over 20 years, inventing and re-inventing the way music in the genres is played on CDs and performed live. With its new album, Faith Divides Us – Death Unites Us, just released, we sat down with Paradise Lost’s guitarist Greg Mackintosh.

What do you find different writing songs now as opposed to twenty years ago?

There’s not a hell of a lot difference, besides the old tape recorder I used to use. Now it’s a computer — I use it as a posh tape recorder really. Probably the biggest thing is that we understand the process of what we’re doing more now.

We’re more critical about what we put out. We’re really our own worst critics in a way – we tear everything apart until we hit on the right thing.

How do you write the songs?

We’re not the fastest songwriters in the world. I’d love to be one of these bands that can just write 30 songs, go into the studio and pick the best ones.

We come up with a concept for a song and if we like the concept, we go through twenty or thirty different versions of that one song before we’re happy with it. I suppose it’s probably better than putting shit out.

Do you think the amount of time you put into each song pays off in the end?

Especially with this new record, we put a lot of emphasis on just writing an album with no fillers, but also with no singles. It’s not as commercial an album as we’ve put out over the last few years. This one is a little darker than some of the previous ones, but as an album, it’s very strong.

If you take each track on its own, there is nothing there that’s particularly MTV friendly, but that was the intention. We didn’t want any singles — we didn’t even want the word “single” to enter our heads while we were writing because that taints your perception of what a record should be.

You guys have influenced a lot of bands. Who were your influences?

A lot of the influences I use now are the same as when I started, although they have become broader over the years. I guess the main few that remain today from the beginning are early [Black] Sabbath, and early Massacre, Hellhammer and stuff like that. You tend to mingle a lot of stuff together.

Do you think the fans of your earlier stuff will like this new album?

Well, that all depends. If they haven’t died of old age [laughter].

I’m sure they will. We never really have any expectations when it comes to records. We do our best and put it out. I’ve never claimed to understand what makes things popular and what doesn’t. I don’t think there is any kind of formula for that and I try not to think about it.

Are you going to tour?

We start off in a couple of weeks on a huge European tour and we come back around Christmas. We’re trying to build some interest in America, so hopefully in the new year we can get on a couple of good tours.

What’s your stage show like?

We have some new medieval stuff being added to our old stage setup, which really fits in with the new album. We’re also going to have some projection stuff that we’re planning at the moment. It should be pretty good.

How has your guitar playing evolved over the years?

I’m not heavily influenced by one style of guitar playing. I’ve never had a guitar hero, as such – I just pick up little bits of things I like from different guitar players. If I like a certain lick, I’ll pick that up and apply it wherever it might need to be. I don’t necessarily try to nail any one style because it just doesn’t interest me enough.

Over the last couple of years I’ve had a resurgence of my love for guitar playing. I have a 12-year-old son and he’s getting pretty good, but I can’t let him get better than me [laughter].

Do you write songs when you’re on the road or do you save that for when you’re home in your studio?

I really prefer to save it for when you’re home alone. When I’m on the road, it’s okay to come up with the odd riff here and there, and document it, but I find if you try to write any solid material it ends up being too near to what you’re playing every night.

I’d rather get back from the tour, take stock and then begin like we’ve never written anything before.

That’s got to be a difficult thing to do considering how long you’ve been writing music.

You’ve got to do that, otherwise I don’t think you can write with any passion or honesty because you’re trying not to repeat yourself.


You mentioned that you use the computer – what specifically are you using?

I use a Mac and Logic 8. I find songwriting into Logic is much more intuitive than Pro Tools. Pro Tools is great for editing audio once you’ve got it, but for songwriting, Logic is as quick as a tape machine. That’s what’s important, to keep it spontaneous.

It can affect your songwriting in a negative way because of the copy and paste thing. Fortunately I got myself out of that. Now I just use it as a piece of blank paper and try not to do any copy and paste if I can help it.

Faith Divides Us (Death Unites Us) is available now in iTunes. Learn more about Paradise Lost at ParadiseLost.co.uk.