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MY DYING BRIDE

Stubble Interview by Ken Zebbyn

This is kind of a creepy interview as Rick Miah passed away upon returning from this USA tour in 1997. A very pleasant and talented chap who passed before his time. I caught up with him at a show in New London, CT at Club L&G.

Ken: I hear the band's been trying to come to the USA for quite some time now. We're glad to see you made it.

Rick: Well, this is the first time we've been to the states. Art and Calvin have been out before, just to do press trips. This is the first time the whole band as a unit has actually been here...done any gigs. We haven't been trying where as the record company's been trying to get us over here for the past two and a half years. However, due to unforeseen circumstances ...whatever else, you know, there's always complications trying to set up the tour. Nothing ever goes smoothly. We never consider ourselves to be on tour until we're actually on the plane...or actually on the stage playing. I believe two years ago the record company tried to get us over with PARADISE LOST. But for some reason, I don't know why...things can happen. But lucky for us... Sometimes it's better not to rush into things. I think in the long run it's worked out well for us because in the end we got offered this spot on the DEO tour, which is good.

Ken: So, you must be dealing with a lot of DEO's fans as well.

Rick: Yeah, DEO shows have been pretty good for us. We didn't expect to maybe go down as well as we did. Not one single night was there a negative reaction. The crowd reaction has been very positive and everybody's been very supportive. So far this tour's been great.

Ken: You guys are solid. We've been looking forward to you coming out here for quite a while.

Rick: To be honest with you, we weren't looking forward to coming to America because we're kind of good friends of PARADISE LOST. They've toured here before and they told us nothing but horror stories. Everything they said was totally negative so we were like, God, maybe we shouldn't go over there. But in the end we came. It's been hard work.

Ken: You've been here a month now?

Rick: It's been five weeks. We've got one more week to go. Then we go off for ten days. Then we come back again for another month to do the second part of the DEO tour. He's in Japan right now.

Ken: When you guys started, quite a while back now...

Rick: ...Seven years ago...

Ken: ...you were more of a traditional death sounding band. Since then your sound has evolved quite a bit into what it is now. What caused the changes and where do you go from here?

Rick: Well, when we first started off we were very young, I mean, seven years ago. I'm only 25 now, so I was 18 then and when you're young you have all this anger inside, you know. We were totally into the death metal scene back then. There were so many great death metal bands that we were into. CELTIC FROST. I mean, if you can't tell we're influenced by CELTIC FROST, they can. As you get older, you calm down a lot so maybe that's part to do with it. We wanted to be death metal in the beginning but we've made no conscious effort to change styles. Luckily for us it comes naturally. It's just a progression. Whenever MY DYING BRIDE approaches writing material we never know what we're going to sound like. We couldn't tell you what the next album will sound like because we don't know ourselves yet.

Ken: Does anyone in the band have any classical music training?

Rick: Martin, the violin and keyboard player. He's played violin since he was young. He's the only one who's had any kind of music training. We're all self-taught apart from him. I learned to play drums on a couch. When I was twelve we got this couch and I got a set of drum sticks. I've gone through four couches.

Ken: Give us a brief description based on your impressions of the following releases: "As The Flowers Wither"

Rick: That album, at the time...it's got some really good songs on it but mainly now we'd do things different. That song "The Return Of The Beautiful" for instance...something like 18 minutes long. If you listen to that there's some great melodies being played off that style but Aaron's spoilin' it by growling. He was totally death metal singing and I know now he's very pissed about that. When he listens to it and there's all these melodies going on he wants to do his beautiful vocals which he's doing now. You can always look back to a certain period and think, "Well, I should have done this thing differently...I could have done that differently. It could have been produced better for a start. The production value suffered to say the least.

Ken: "Trinity"

Rick: Well, that one really didn't have anything to do with us. That was... Peaceful Records got bought by Music For Nations and "Trinity" was just a marketing thing really. It's a collection of all the EP's that they've put onto one CD to make it easier, more available to the people who want to hear them because Peaceful didn't have very good distribution. I think it was just more of a money making thing for them really. We have no decision, no choice, they just told us about what they did.

Ken: "Turn Loose The Swans"

Rick: That's, I don't know...That album's really screwed. To me, I didn't like that. That's the worst album we've ever done. What spoiled it for me was a lot of people were saying "Oh, It's a gothic thing". To us, none of us listens to any gothic music what-so-ever. The imagery and the darkness of it is all right. I like the image but gothic music sucks to me.

Ken "Angel And The Dark River"

Rick: I think a lot of people were surprised when they first heard that album.

Ken: "The Cry Of Mankind" sucks you right into the whole album.

Rick: That song is really just a jam session that developed into what most people regard as one of our best writings. I think it is.

Ken: I like the special version with the live cuts.

Rick: Again, that had nothing to do with us. That was the record company. Now, we don't really agree with that because to us its kind of like, I don't like the fact that...it seems like they're just trying to make more money out of people who enjoy listening to MY DYING BRIDE's music. We're not really into making money. I mean, we need money to survive but as long as we can survive, we're happy.

Ken: Have you peaked on your current sound with this latest release?

Rick: I don't know. All of us. All the rest of the band, myself and everybody associated with the band think that like most of the songs are more accomplished in the case of the music today. We can go along with that. Some of our metal...It's heavier. It's more deliberate. The fans of the older stuff maybe think, MY DYING BRIDE have kind of copped out or whatever, you know? Where's the death metal screaming? Aaron's still going to do the death metal vocals but none of the songs on this album warranted that. The production is amazing. Calvin spent a lot of time in the studio with the engineer twiddling the knobs as you say. We're all very very pleased. Manny did a great job on that. The songs, we have more time to rehearse them. One or two of the songs were actually written in the studio which is strange because we never do that. We booked an extra couple of weeks to mix it and produce it. We had all the art work sorted and everything. It was just like a real easy jigsaw puzzle. We had all the tools, all the pieces and they all just clicked into place. It was very easy and very laid back when we were recording it. We're just very pleased with the way it came out. Live as well. It's enjoyable to play because it's not slow. It rocks. It goes. It just flows.

Ken: It's definitely your best album which is great to be able to say and really mean it not that we would ever stretch the truth or anything.

Rick: Maybe next time we're here and we have a new album you might be sitting there again and I'll say, oh, a lot of those song suck but it rocks for now.

Ken: Anything interesting happen on the tour since you've been over here in the states?

Rick: About a week into the tour I met these two lads and we just got to talking. They said "Do you want to come outside and have a bit of smoke?", you know, a dube or whatever you call it. I went into the car, we skinned up, grabbed a splif and we were talking and this police car pulled up. I got searched, they had me hands on the thing and they had the batons. I actually enjoyed it because I don't remember seeing that on the telly before. It was great to actually experience it and the police were very nice. I was expecting to get shot and truncheoned and whatever but they were actually very cool about it. They were just going to throw the other people in jail but I kind of sweet talked them and they let them off. It was great.

Ken: Who's the prankster in the band?

Rick: We're all pranksters. A lot of people would kind of visualize each one of us as being very miserable...I don't know, just very dark miserable people, but everybody who knows us knows that we know how to have a good time. We enjoy having a good time. We only act miserable... We use the band. The band is like a tool, an instrument for each one of us to get all our negative thoughts and feelings out. We do that pretty well every night so there's no room for miserableness in here. Maybe we're not as happy now because we've been on tour a bit but believe me, we all know how to have a good laugh and we do have a good laugh.

Ken: Do you consider your music anti-christian, pro-christian or not really anything?

Rick: We're just heavy metal. I really don't care. You should believe in yourself, man. Religion's for people who have no meaning in their own lives. They have to have this thing, people worship God or whatever because they just need something to cling onto. Something for the heart that everything's out of the way. They've got this heaven, a better place to go...The whole satanic thing. Good imagery man, but no, none of us are devil worshippers and none of us are church goers. We all believe in ourselves. You've got to fare for yourself.

Ken: What do you draw your inspirations from, just the negative things.

Rick: Yes, It's just everything negative that happens around us.

Ken: How do songs usually get written by the band?

Rick: Well, MY DYING BRIDE has six members and every person listens to every kind of music under the sun. With that many different styles of music played on a CD player, you know, we listen to all kinds. Our music can be influenced by anything. Jazz, rock, blues, heavy metal, ambient; everything apart from gothic. As far as actual live things influencing this band there's always something negative that's going to happen to you mate. It usually always happens around the time we have to rehearse new songs which is good for us because it means someone will come in feeling really crappy and feel a riff on the guitar. It's not just the guitarists that write the riffs either. It's Martin the violinist. He'll play something on the violin or the keyboard, that'll get converted to electric guitar, or the guitar will play something and that'll get converted onto the violin. Me and Eric can't play any guitar so if we get a tune in our head, we'll hum it to either one of the guitars and they'll listen and learn it. If everybody likes it then it's fiddled around with. It's collective. Six people collectively writing songs all the time.

Ken: For those critics out there that say your music is too morbid or too sorrowful what do you say?

Rick: It's a compliment. My fiancee's mother, she listened to some of the old stuff and she said...She didn't know it was MY DYING BRIDE and she came in and said "What's that dirge? That's funeral music." and my girlfriend said, "Whatever", she had to turn it off. Then when we did "Black Gods Of The Sun", she had the new album. She didn't know what it was again. She came in and said "I don't know, that rocks." You have to be criticized. We're up there. We can't hide from it. If somebody doesn't like it...I mean, everyone's entitled to their own opinion. It doesn't hurt us because it's not going to make us change what we're doing or what we are. If someone's got a comment to make like that then fair enough. They're entitled to do it but luckily they're in the minority.

Ken: How long will you be supporting the current album before you begin work on the next release?

Rick: In Europe the new album's been out over a year now but in America it's still fresh. I think it's only been out...

Ken: Yeah. It just came out.

Rick: I know the record company is eager to push it as far as it can. Like I said, after these headline tours, in a week, we go home for ten days. Then we come back and do another month with DEO.

Ken: Any final comments or special words to live by?

Rick: I don't know? Take care of yourselves, keep out of trouble and just enjoy the darkness man.