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| .Net Magazine interviews Aaron Stainthorpe |
| Interview source: Mostly Black
Season/Year: Spring 1999 Interviewee: Aaron Stainthorpe Please note that Your Shameful Heaven is not responsible for any of the material below You won't have seen My Dying Bride on 'Top of the Pops'. As far as most of the music media is concerned, they don't exist. But the band (variously described as "doom", "gothic" and "orchestral") have sold more than 200,000 records to a loyal following world-wide. To many black-clad, glum-faced teenagers, they are gods. Unfortunately for these ardent followers in Greece, Germany or Brazil, My Dying Bride live in Bradford. For the latest news on their heroes, such fans have to rely on local fanzines and imported magazines, many of which are out of date and badly produced. Enter the Internet. My Dying Bride were one of the first bands to set up a dedicated Web site way back in 1995 and the site has been growing ever since. It now offers breaking news and information, upcoming tour dates, a discography, transcripts of interviews, biographies of band members, lyric sheets, free pictures, sample MP3 files and even guitar tablatures for budding power-chord "chuggers". An odd move for a band which is infamous for producing a nine-minute Latin dirge called 'Symphonaire Infernus et Spera Empyrium', perhaps? Lead singer Aaron Stainethorpe disagrees. "I've always been into computers," he says. "My first was a Texas TI99 back in the early Eighties, then a Spectrum, which was great." When Aaron co-founded My Dying Bride in 1990, computing inevitably took a back seat as the band huddled in dark corners to craft their unique blend of tragic love, religious symbolism and, er, very heavy guitars. Then in 1994 something happened which would change Aaron and the band forever. "It was beautiful. It was gory. It gave me huge headaches. It was Doom." Besotted, Aaron bought a PC just to join the on-line fragfest -- and encountered the Net. "It was a long time before I decided to go for it, though. I couldn't really see the point. We already have faxes and phones, so why bother with e-mail? Ee, but I was naive back then, lad," he laughs. "Now I've seen the light. "Fans from all over the world can keep up to date on the MDB camp on the Web site," continues Aaron. "And a few MP3s and new photos are a real bonus for fans who live on the other side of the world. Or anywhere, for that matter." Aaron is an accomplished artist, designing the band's CD covers and posters. So why is the site run by Jeen Broekstra, a Dutch fan? "Because he is very good and a cool dude to boot," replies Aaron. "He knows his shit and he doesn't arse about... I'd like to become much more involved in the site, but at the moment we're very busy writing music and looking like rock stars," he adds with a grin. Aaron needn't worry. My Dying Bride's fans possess an intense dedication and the site almost runs itself. "Jeen does it all, with additional material sent in by fans," says Aaron, "Including the guitar tabs! The kids work it all out themselves and send them in. It's great!" The band are all heavy Net users, especially for business. "We e-mail one another, liaise with the record label and other music-related parties like the solicitor, accountant, and so on. It's also useful when we're on tour, especially in countries where phones are few and far between and the area's full of murderers. Bradford, for instance." In October 1998, My Dying Bride released their fifth album, '34.788%...Complete'. For a band that established its niche with choral arrangements and a full-time violin player, '34.788%' possessed an unexpected enthusiasm for modern technology, with much synthesized tomfoolery shaping the songs. Did their interest in computers and the Net have any influence on this? "Subconsciously, maybe. We've always promised ourselves that we'd write songs we wanted to hear -- and some of the lyrics were more contemporary simply because I've never written that way before and wanted to try it out." So where next for the doom merchants? Well, they don't hang about -- they're already writing the next album. Recording begins in July 1999, followed by a tour to support both albums starting in October. And once again, the Internet will be there. The Web site will feature an on-line studio diary, so visitors can follow the progress of the new album. The band also plan to keep a diary when the tour kicks off. Last year Aaron intended to keep an on-line diary as the band toured across the States, but their laptop broke on day one. He insists the studio diary will be much easier. "Ade, our bass player, is 110 per cent geeky," he laughs. "We'll get him to sort the technical bits out. And Academy Studios is a technorama -- one room is full of nothing but computers, so it'll be no problem to sort out. It should be a lot of fun." Will they become more computer-focused? Will the Net take over their lives? Will they, in short, become a techno band? "No," Aaron assures fans. "In fact the new album will be more like classic My Dying Bride, with more melody and less technology. We're still a bunch of miserable, dark musicians. We've experimented a bit but our collective heart is still very black." http://yourshamefulheaven.8k.com |