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The British are on the road to present their latest release The Light At The End Of The World. I never really been into that band and so I got joined for the interview by Caroline from Vienna who is a huge MDB fan and two members of the band....
It was obvious that the latest release The Light At The End Of The World is kinda a step back to the roots of My Dying Bride, so the question was why? "It's not a conscious step back. We just wanted to do another straight-forward My Dying Bride album and maybe less experimental as 34.788 album. So, we don't decide to re-write the Turn Loose The Swans album. All we have done is narrow ourselves slightly within our writing." The guitarist explains. "Before we almost moving away from the tradition of My Dying Bride. We realized that the logo we used in the very beginning, but we didn't used it that much and so we decided to bring it back. It wasn't so much to go straight back to the old, not deliberately anyway. It was the three of us which decided after the 34.788 album that we wanted to be darker than before. I don't know..." For the band this album is deliberately dark. In the past they didn't tried to be this or that, they just were My Dying Bride. They been part of the gothic scene, but they never wanted to be part of any scene. With the new album it seems that they feel more comfortable and so that's probably to reason why this album is kinda stronger than the predecessors. What most fans surprised was that the band recorded Seer Me a 3rd time! "Well, it's because... The first one was in Latin and it was difficult, but it was a very popular song. It wasn't written in true Latin, no sentences of Latin, if you translate it word by word it's not politically correct for the ladies. We are men, so we don't care. It's a very harsh song about sex! So we decide to do the exact opposite as well and do a true, a nice song called Seer Me. So we have the not so nice song, but it's in Latin, so we can still play it. Then we have the one in English which we can play also and then we decided for this album... I don't know... Seer Me is almost the heart of My Dying Bride! It was the most favorite song of the debut and obviously the first album is very dear to us. I felt it was right to do another one. I think that's a good song, we won't do a rubbish one. It's finished now, the trilogy!" But will it be the last time? Perhaps they recorded again in future, coz they feel there is the time to do it. Who knows? At the moment they don't think about, but it looks like this was the last version of Seer Me. "It's finished forever.... Until the next one!" But don't take that to serious, even if they seem to be a sad persons, coz their music is full of sadness, they always joking.
But in their lyrics they often talk about religion and Christianity, so it this just a topic or does religion affects them in real life? Many probably tried to find out about it through reading the words... "Christian not so much, but religion of course, it's everywhere. It's impossible to avoid it, even if you want to. It doesn't really bother us so much, it's just a fantastic topic! There is a great enough truth in the Bible. I think the original story is like a tree. The basis is the same, but the different translations let the story be differ from country to country." And he's right! In the beginning the story was told from one to another, later someone wrote it down and due to the different translations in the beginning the religious believe differ. But the basic of all translations is the same. "But there are a lot of conflicts and wars because of the different believes. The whole heart of religion is about respect and love each other! And always people been fighting about religion which makes a mockery out of religion!" Again I have to agree! And like they said "Holy War is a contradiction in terms." Often bands just this kind of topic without being really into the subject, but these guys know what they are talking about! They tolerate other believes and they don't expect that their believe is the absolute truth. And from the subject of religion and holy wars we got to the Jewish, but this is going too far away from the topic of this interview... Probably we'll talk about that somewhere in future... "Everyone in the band has a different idea of religion, but my personal opinion is that it is just a progression. There is no life, death, etc. after that, There is no overseeing God. It's just a natural progression you die and go to another level of existing. You can carry on that kind of thing..." Then I thought it was time to get back to My Dying Bride. I never read something about the initial idea about calling the band My Dying Bride. So I tried to find out about it. "We wanted a name which kinda compose the feeling and the mood of the music. A name which was just dark and mysterious and which is not death metal type of. My Dying Bride was the best choice out of the two choices we had. The other possibility was 'My Dying Child', but bride is more romantic! And our music is quite romantic, too." The lyrics are sometimes very romantic, too.... But to ask them about, won't make sense, they say, coz Aaron is the one who writes all the lyrics and if we would try to explain, we would do them justice!" So I learnt that Aaron has to explain the lyrics to the other band members. Aaron is writing in his very own way... And that the lyrics come from somewhere deep inside the singer. Reading the lyrics will give you a clue about, but that will be your interpretation... "The idea of lost, we don't like lost to ourselves, but for some reason we really enjoy the idea of lost. I don't know why, but... It's specifically love lost, coz it's tragic." The title track of The Light At The End Of The World is a kind of love tragedy. "We decide for no reason, we just became this way. Like Aaron says, we don't dwell into the lyrics, we just read them!" The music develops from the emotions of the lyrics which is unusual. But in many ways they are unusual. And the deep sadness of The Light At The End Of The World is for the band the saddest song they ever done. And so the cover artwork correspond with the title and the emotions of the title track. "It's the most tragic song we ever written. The real killer of that song is the fact that the man on the cover of the CDs is committing suicide, coz he can't take the pain just for one more night... And so he decided to commit suicide and when he wants to jump off the bridge his arms turned into wings. Forcing him, coz he's already dead. He's an angel... To stay forever... As the light! Because the act of killing himself, because of the torment of him, not to be with his loved one. Just one more night with... To take on the task to tending the light with him trying to commit suicide, the Gods have made him complete his task of being the light forever." This is the story behind the title track which has nothing to do with them as persons, as a band. The sadness and the misery they face in daily life, but if they would feel it as much as in their music, they might not live anymore. This is something none can stand in real life. The band is turning all the negative and all the sadness into their music which is a kind of self-therapy for them to cope with the negative things in their lives. "We enjoy playing our songs and per;versely we become happy through it. The trouble is that playing the songs didn't solve our sadness, but we can channel our music in the My Dying Bride sound." Live I recognized that the band has a certain kind of aggression beside the sadness... "Losing someone is a feeling everyone knows. If you lost someone you feel sad and angry, coz there are so many unworthy people. You ask yourself, why? And so there is sadness and aggression as well." But this kind a songs, lyrics aren't inspired by a certain experience. Several band members had to face loosing a friend or relative, like almost everybody did, it's just a topic which fits to the emotion of their music and which everybody can understand and feel the darkness. The current album is a very dark one... The Light is the darkest!
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