On A Mortal Binding, Creative Chemistry and Writing Long Songs, a Conversation with Andrew Craighan of My Dying Bride
There's no band like My Dying Bride out there.
Even the bands often cited as similar like Paradise Lost or Katatonia have completely different creative and musical paradigms. I’ve been a fan of their demanding and immersive brand of Gothic Doom since I was a teenager and I found few other bands that can elicit such a precise mood with their music. They’ve been somewhat of an enigma to me, but a quite fun and productive one.
So, I jumped on the chance to discuss My Dying Bride’s new record A Mortal Binding with their guitarist and cofounder Andrew Craighan. I really liked the record and we’ve discussed it through and through, but what I really wanted was to ask Andrew all the My Dying Bride questions I wanted to ask him for the last thirty years and guess what? I did. Hopefully it answers some of yours too!
A Mortal Binding is very much My Dying Bride still evolving on the path you’ve more or less always been on. The band has always been insanely steady at providing a very precise type of music. The promo materials called the record "the next exultant phase of elegiac misery", which feels right when you listen to it. What’s driving you guys to still make death doom gothic metal almost 35 years into your career?
Well, I don’t like change much. So that’s one thing! What we play on A Mortal Binding is the music we like to play. I think My Dying Bride has grown as much as it possibly can. It’s not going to get any bigger than this for us. Don’t get me wrong, we’ve become way more popular than I ever thought we could, but we’re never going to be Metallica.
There's freedom in that. A freedom to do what you want and be who you are. I believe it’s what you hear on this new record. A band playing the music they truly want to play.
So, what would you say makes this album unique?
Oh man, this one’s tricky to answer. But here’s an answer for you anyway: we wanted to go back to basics. Capture the essence from the early days and make a heavy metal record. On some records, we leaned pretty heavily on sophisticated instrumentation, but it’s not what we were trying to do on A Mortal Binding. We wanted big riffs. A lot of them.
Also, we deliberately composed the album to accommodate death metal vocals. It’s something that our fanbase appreciates and it complemented what we were going for.
There’s only one song that clocks over ten minutes on this record, The Apocalyptist, but it’s a memorable one. You’re reputable for your long songs first and foremost. How is it different songwriting wise, to a let’s say 5 minutes song? What makes a good long song?
I don’t know the answer to that. It’s never the same every time. In the case of The Apocalyptist, I came up with the title first. It’s what set the tone for what the song would become. I had three or four riffs to start with and we just kept adding riffs without necessarily worrying whether or not we had a musical structure that makes sense. We just wanted it to be heavy and intense and grow into whatever it would become.
When we were writing The Apocalyptist, I had Rime of the Ancient Mariner in mind. The Iron Maiden song, not the poem (editorial note: My Dying Bride is perhaps the only band in the world that needs to make this specification!). Not that I was trying to write something exactly like that, but I love that type of song, you know? The type that breaks down and picks back up again.
I’ve read that you wrote the riffs for this album on your own during the pandemic, is that right?
Sort of. It’s going to sound like an oxymoron, but I have to be happy to write this kind of doom. When everything went into lockdown, there was nothing for a time. I had a lot of these riffs written pre-pandemic and I finished them when inspiration started to come back.
But I write all the time. We had so much material to choose from on A Mortal Binding that we’re making an EP with leftover material. We’ve completed two songs and working on a third one as we speak.
Nerd question : you have such an otherworldly chemistry with singer Aaron Stainthorpe. A good example of that is how he slides into the lingering chords on Unthroned Creed. It gave me goosebumps. What kind of place does he occupy in your creative efforts? Do you write songs with his interpretation in mind or does he adapt whatever it is you write?
A little bit of both? I know Aaron’s vocal range and the notes he’s likely to use. In rehearsal, we put a lot of violin and keyboard on everything and some of those lines are eventually turned into vocal lines. When the songs are written, Aaron is not there. He hasn’t rehearsed with us in a long time. Maybe since 34,788%?
So a lot of what is originally composed as violin is going to be turned into a vocal melody. We try to use violin and keyboard only when necessary and for utmost emotional effect because we don’t want to be perceived as a gimmick band who has to rely on that. We’re pretty hard on Shaun in rehearsal, but he’s used to it now *laughs*.
Another nerd question : Your sound is so unique and has remained rather unique for all these years, what was the vision that you had when you started? What influences were you trying to blend in your sound?
Man, it’s a good question. I don’t think we had a focus on a specific sound. We just wanted to sound heavy. As heavy as we could. I don’t think we were inspired much either, except for bands that were close to us like Carcass or Bolt Thrower. But being heavy was our only concern.
The somber, more elegant, gentlemanly stuff came later, when we released Turn Loose the Swans. That’s when we gained a semblance of clarity. We were often accused of being pretentious and we were, but our music is fantasy, escapism. Our lyrics demanded a certain type of music and the lyrics were inspired by other mediums like classic literature.
That’s really it. How we ended up being My Dying Bride was really the process of learning who we were. We didn’t have a plan or an idea about how we wanted to sound.
There’s what I call the virtuoso fallacy in a lot of metal bands where mastering your instrument becomes more important than writing good songs and My Dying Bride never fell for that. What is important to you guys when writing songs? What are the variables of a good song?
It’s about simplicity. Less is more. A band that really nailed that is Nirvana. They wrote so many songs that anybody can hum. I don’t mean that we’re always doing that. We wrote our fair share of songs with too many notes in them, but simplicity is what I go for. Gene Simmons once said: "Nobody walks down the street humming Yngwie solos"
Also, I just don’t have the drive to do the virtuoso thing. Even if I did, I could just fire up YouTube and find a 10 years old girl shredding harder than I ever could. It’s not me. I like big doom metal riffs, so it’s what I play.
You guys have done everything, conquered every mountain, so at least it seems to me. What’s next for My Dying Bride? What is left for you to accomplish?
I don’t feel like there’s anything left to accomplish. Our level of popularity has already gone beyond anything we expected. We’re one of the most popular underground bands and I’m OK with that. It’s what I tell the guys in rehearsal. This is who we are. We get to write what we enjoy. We have the freedom to do that like I was telling you earlier and I’m enjoying it tremendously.
