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The Fields Of  The Nephilim

Yeah, it is true! The Fields Of The Nephilim are back. The godfathers of Gothic will give the world of Gothic new stuff. In the last days of September 1997 I met The Fields Of The Nephilim in a suburb of London in their Studio. Then we went to a Pub. We were sitting outside of the pub, an old tree and a small lake in the background completed a real feeling of autumn.

Remember their records: "Burning The Fields (E.P.)", "Dawnrazor", "The Nephilim" and "Elizium".
Great stuff of gothic-music. Remember songs like "Preacherman", "Celebrate", "Moonchild" or "For Her Light". Aren't that cool songs - full of dark atmosphere? Yeah - and soon we will get new stuff.
And that's for sure - it will not be such a fucked up shit like The Sex Pistols did - just playing old songs for the sake of money! The Fields Of Nephilim are full of ideas, the break was a good thing, now they are back, they are strong again.

Carl McCoy (vocals) and Tony Petit (bass) spoke with me about the new Fields Of The Nephilim.
Here it is what they have to tell. Enjoy it!

Carl, there were a lot of rumours that you had mental health problems and that was the given reason that your Nefilim-tour was canceled. What is the truth?

Carl: What is the truth? There are many things, I’ve been doing many things at that time. I don’t know about mental health problems. Where does that come from?

It was in the german press that you’ve had mental health problems and that you had to go into a clinic, that was the reason why you canceled the tour. You don’t know about this rumors?

Carl: No. I have heard a lot of rumors most of them are quiet funny because there is not much truth in it. The reason why last years tour was canceled is that there was a dispute between the record company beggars banquet and me. The tour wasn’t gonna go ahead because I planned it, so we didn’t do it. We had to do it the way we need it, the right shows, the way we want it to do at the right time. That was the main reason why it was cancelled because of this big disagreement.

I think the record company has made this rumours.

Carl: Propably, but now, I mean, I haven’t had any mental health problems, I’m fine. I’m doing lots of plans for the future as well Fields Of The Nephilim. We ‘ve been doing some stuff together for quiet a while, but we didn’t want anybody to know.

Was the trouble with the record company the reason that you reformed the Fields?

Carl: No. That has nothing to do with it, this would have happened anyway.

Tony: It was a seven year plan.

How did you get in contact together again?

Tony:  We live very close to each other. We’ve been in contact over the years anyway.

Carl: Me and Tony have always been in contact.

Tony: It was not that we were shocked and said: yeah, that is it.

Carl: Time for doing a new album

You ‘ve been friends over the years?

Carl: Yeah.
 
 

The band will still be named Fields Of The Nephilim?

Carl: Yeah. Confusing, isn’t it?

What can we expect, which music will we hear?

Carl: We ‘ve got plenty of ideas. We’ve been working on stuff for quiet a while. It’s very much us, it still contains the original Fields Of The Nephilim spirit and at the same time it is a new album. It’s always going to be different from a previous album , every time you make a piece of music it is hopefully move on, develop. And this is a development of everything we all have done.

And will it follow the direction of „Zoon“ or will it follow the direction of the old Neph-stuff?

Carl: It follows it’s own direction. Fields of the Nephilim always had an idea about what we are doing anyway, quiet strong ideas, and Zoon was my own project, it was my solo-project. It is not gonna be the same as Zoon and it is not gonna be the same as Elizium.

Tony: If you look at the three studio albums Fields did, they are all pretty much different to each other, expect the unexpected. You’ll know it is us.

Everyone need a name for the music. How would you difine Fields today? It is very hot to do Gothic-metal today. Do you think that would fit?

Carl: I don’t think any of the terms fits anyway. Gothic-metal, what does that mean? It is a joke. No, there is no categorie for it, it is what it is.

Did you start to record or just do rehearsal?

Carl: I won’t tell you that. We don’t give our plans away. (laughing). No, both. We are writing and recording.

Tony: It is work in progress. It is a nice place to work. And the great thing at the moment is that we don’t have a record company briefing down our necks, we can please ourselves and do it for all the right reasons and not for anybody elses wrong reasons. It is probably the sort of the easiest atmosphere we ever had because there is not anybody else involved.
 

Carl: There is noone pushing us, we do what we wanna do when we wanna do it. And the thing is we are able to do so much more now, now without a record company, we have so much freedom. All the other ideas, we can explore. It is more than music, we have been very restricted. The record company wouldn’t even allow to do soundtracks or stuff like that years ago, which is sad, so it is a very restricted situation which is been removed so all of a sudden it is nice, a nice position to be.

Will you use a retailer?

Carl: We’ve got ideas how we got to do this but at the moment we havn’t confirmed anything. We just taking in our ideas, we don’t know eventually which way we will do it. At the moment as long as we can contain the freedom and control.

Tony: Probably the most natural sort of album we have done.
 

What would you do if a record company would ask you to do a deal with them?

Carl: I don’t know exactly what we want. It depends how the deal is, we don’t need a deal. When we first started we needed a record company, but now we don’t need a record company. We are talking to people. We got friends from companies we are licensed too.

Will you continue the work with SPV? (german retailer)

Carl: We are talking to lots of people, and anyone who done us good favours in the past we talk to them first because it proofed itself in the past.

Do you split the tasks, who will be responsible for the booking etc.?

Carl: We will not doing that, we will get people to do that, because it is too much, we just wanna do the creative stuff. We can’t do that, if we were a pretty small act with not much followers it would be quiete easy to control but I think it is more than that and it is easy to get out of control.

Tony: It’s much easier just to employ somebody to do the job and when he done the job say thanks, move on. It’s better to employ someone and to say we need you to do this. It is the best way really.

So you will built your own company?

Carl: Probably.
 
 

Is it a reunion or was it just a break?

Carl: Reunion? Conspiracy, that what it was. We wanted to do our things.

Will it be the end of Nefilim?

Carl: No, we never close any doors. Why close doors? I said that last year when people asked about Nefilim, is that the end of the Fields Of The Nephilim and I said no, because there never was an end. That is peoples interpretation, we had to take seven years out, only our fans will understand that.

How did you handle the songwriting today? Is there a change?

Carl: It’s the same..

Tony: Back to what we were. Nothing that will work in a certain way. When we decided to do some pieces together it’s natural. On the last Fields-album we’ve probably lost that naturalism because of all the outsight pressure of people we don’t wanted around.

Carl: Useless management and things like that. We shut the management office.

Tony: People stop playing people in the band off against each other, we havn’t got worried about that now because we can be upfront with the four of us, there is no one in the background.
.
Carl: We are a close union now and noone comes in and that what we know about it.

Do you think that the old fans will be pleased?

Carl: I don’t see why not.

The Sex Pistols reunion was very disappointing.
 
Carl: But that’s are lot more longwinded.

Tony: It’s a different thing, they got back together to play festivals and play their old songs and rehash 1977. This is an outgoing situation, we wouldn’t dream of going out and play lots of old stuff. We mix it all together, it’s a growing thing.

Carl: We spend many time to avoid all of that.

Tony: We do what we wanna do coz  we feel so much more free to do what we wanna do.

I think there have been trouble between you and the band, because you splitted the band.

Carl: Trouble?

What was the reason?

Carl: So that we can get out of the contract with the record company.

Carl: We ourselves know what happened and now there are no problems.

Are there still fans waiting in front of your house?

Carl: Yeah.

What will you release first, a single or an album?

Carl: No, we don’t know which order we will do, that’s something we will decide closer to the time.

Do you have an idea when you will release something?

Carl: Hopeflully spring next year. That would be a good time to release something. We will looking forward to the winter, carry on recording and writing.
 
 

Do you need a special mood to write the songs?

Carl: We don’t need each other in the room, it’s not a chemical reaction things, it’s not special effects, it’s just natural what we do.

Does the british press is informed about the reunion?

Carl: No, I’ll never tell them, fuck the british press.

What do you think will happen when they will be informed?

Carl. I don’t know, they'll probably come and looking for an interview.

Will you do that?

Carl: Yeah, for the right reasons. If it’s gonna help to get our message across, that people know that we are doing some projects together, than yeah.

Can you imagine to use a medium like the internet or a CD-ROM?

Carl: Yeah. It’s something I’ve been working on for years. A lot of that stuff was always there, we were not allowed to spent that time to develop the stuff with the record company.

Videos?

Carl: We’ve been talking to various people that we worked with in the past. It’s kind of like back to taking all the good aspects what we were before but leaving behind us all shit aspects. We got the choice now.

Should the people think that Fields are a new band or should they remember the older days?

Carl: This is the only Fields Of The Nephilim. this is it, this is original.

Tony: This is just a continuation of the story. People may say that it is a reformation, but ist just seriously an ongoing thing.
 
 

A lot of people use nowadays lots of electronics things in their music, David Bowie plays jungle. Will you use electronic in your music?

Carl:  We’ve always used electronic, what do you mean with electronic ? Technology?

No, like Technomusic with fast beats.

Carl: Bäh.

Tony: Put it this way, we can use the same technology, but we use it in a different way.

Carl: We love technology, but what we do with it we give it our own flavour, it's particularly don’t like that stuff, it doesn’t impress me.

What kind of music do you like at the moment?

Carl: Our music is quiet good at that moment. I don’t listen to lots of bands, personally I like something, but I don’t go looking for something.

How did you think about the actual gothic-scene?

Carl: Well, the gothic scene was pretty important to us. The gothic-scene was pretty nonexisting when we started, but it is now a big movement, it’s expanded in Amercia. When we first played in America, there were no gothics, that's something that developed. There are good areas of it and there are bad areas of it.

A lot of gothic-people show naked flesh and they wear fetish-stuff nowadays. How do you thing about that?

Carl: On the right body quiet nice.

Do you thing it belongs to the gothic-scene or is it just a trend?

Tony: It’s kind that it was always there.

Carl: It is always very dramatic, the whole gothic-thing in the first place is based on drama. and the thing you are talking about is a part of the same thing.

I’m really surprised, because a lot of young kids wear this rubber thing.

Carl: It looks good in the right places, it doesn’t looks cool in the supermarket.

What’s your own definiton of gothic?

Carl: It is big romantic. All of this vampire stuff, it’s romanticised in the kind of dark sides. Our stuff is not really dark, I think it’s very nice and pretty, presenting very well and good for the eye and it’s not very dark. I know there is a scene under that which is a little bit nasty, goths who are scared of the dark.
 

You was called king of the gothics.

Carl: King of the gothics? It’s a little bit like king of the jungle.

What can we expect when you will play live?

Carl: You can expect us to do what we feel is right at the time and we do our best to achieve that. There is plenty room for development as far as presentation. Hopefully now we got more control.
 
Tony: It is not to choreograph something, but it’s to create an atmosphere.

Will you use videos on stage?

Carl: Years before we was talking about that, it can be effective, but it is not unsual these days, if it it used correctly than I can see it working.

It seems that you are all very lucky at the moment? Did you miss the Fields over the years?

Tony: Did we miss it? Yeah, it was a sort of break that had to happened, we need this time out, in one side you missed it and on the other side you can develop other thing, expend your knowledge.

Carl: There is plenty of other things we wanted to do, we missed it and we don’t missed it. You can’t stay doing the same thing all the time.

Tony: It hasn’t been a nonproductive time, we have learned a lot about different things, which can help us now, which can help us more to be unique. In some ways it will be more productive, we have no time-scale, we dont have to hang around for anybody else.

Would you be disappointed if the new album would not be successful?

Carl: If we like it, than that is good enough for us, it has always been like that. We never made albums to sale millions, if we were that popular, than it would be so safe and boring, that we won't be interesting in making music. We have always made music we really believe in. I think we can only do what we do and if it makes us feel good than we go out and present it to other people and that how it always has been.

Where do you get your inspirtion from to write your songs?

Carl: From my fucked up life. (laughing). No, that is for me not one thing, mostly it’s like an experience, it’s what goes on in your own world, thats what we always drawn from, things I know, not things I read, it comes from inhere.
 

Will you release the new album over Europe or first in England?

Tony: When all things started out it will come out all over.

Will you play some old stuff in a new direction?

Carl: We play an old song and it will be as good as anyone ever heard, there is nothing to change, we love what we have done, we have done good music and we don’t want to change it, we want to spend time on the new stuff.

Do you think that you will have still the old fans?

Carl: Old fans, are lot of the older fans, we have been playing since 1983 and a lot of older fans growing old and died by now, but there is defintely a lot of them out there coz I saw them last year and I was surprised. But they still are there. But there is also a lot of big fans of the Nephilim, which are too young to have seen us, it’s a strange situation.  We dont know.

Are you afraid of getting old?

Carl: We don’t getting old.

Losing your hair?

Carl: Losing it? I cant get rid of it. We are getting younger. If you look at pictures of us fifteen years ago we were much older.

Frank Rummeleit