Interview: Paradise Lost
13th September 2016
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With a career that spans almost thirty years with fourteen studio albums, the heritage of Paradise Lost is one that should speak for itself.

(Photo credit: Ester Segarra)
The unabashedly heavy, Yorkshire-based five-piece has spent nearly three decades enticing metalheads with dark, gothic melancholy in the form of downbeat doom rock and gloomy death metal. With a canon that includes such classic records as Icon (1993) and Faith Divides Us – Death Unites Us (2009), the veterans have earned the ability to – should they choose to – follow the likes of Metallica, Slayer and Thin Lizzy in slowing down and becoming a “legacy band”. But speaking to Paradise Lost’s infectiously upbeat guitarist Aaron Aedy at this year’s Bloodstock Festival, it looks and sounds like they have no such plans. “We are very aware of how lucky we are,” he humbly states of his band’s longevity. “People don’t have to be into it, people don’t have to stay loyal, new people don’t have to listen, so we’re humbled by the fact that – 28-and-a-half years and fourteen albums later – we’re still able to do it.” Paradise Lost’s set on the main stage during the Saturday of Bloodstock cued the end of their 2016 festival summer, but the band will continue to strike while the iron of their new album – The Plague Within (2015) – is still hot: they are set to embark on a headlining tour of Brazil this October. “We’ve got five or six shows in Brazil,” says Aaron. “We’ve been going to South America for twenty years; the first time we went, we went with Ozzy Osbourne and Faith No More in 1995 with Monsters of Rock. Then we went with Alice Cooper, Megadeth and Therapy?. That’s when we became friends with Therapy? years ago. They were a good laugh. We had a few boozy nights with them. “But South America, it’s changed quite a lot over that time, especially countries like Chile. It was still very much a police state when we first played it. In fact, Ozzy Osbourne’s tour manager got arrested at gunpoint and almost got deported for mooning the crowd. That was quite an adventurous gig. “Now, you can go to Chile and it’ll be phenomenal. And Brazil’s been good to us; it’s a pretty cool place to play.” The guitarist continues: “[But] the community of metal is the same everywhere to be honest; some [crowds] sing louder than others, some sing the solos – like in Greece or Spain – which is pretty amazing and surprising the first time you hear it!” On return from its nationwide pummelling of the Brazilian populous, it appears that (less than eighteen months after The Plague Within saw the light of day) Paradise Lost will continue consolidating ideas for album number fifteen, which is – according to Aedy – in the very early stages of development. “We’re just about to start writing the fifteenth [record],” he explains.- Article continues below...
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