Dani Filth on Pandemic: “The Problem Here is Overpopulation”
Cradle of Filth leader Dani Filth was our guest on a recent episode of The MetalSucks Podcast. Among other topics, Dani discussed what it was like recording a new album during a pandemic with all the band members living in different parts of the world, how Covid-19 is crippling the entertainment industry beyond just music, and the creative drive that he thinks will follow the pandemic for music and art.
When asked whether humanity will ever learn from the selfish mistakes that made the pandemic much worse than it had to be, Filth had some interesting thoughts to share about the state of the natural world and overpopulation, saying:
“I think we should be learning through our mistakes, especially ecologically. The population is a thing that is really close to my heart. We try to repair all these little gaps in the sand to stop the water running back in but we’re missing the woods for the trees here. It’s only going to keep getting worse and worse and worse and worse.
“And the problem here is overpopulation. Whether you believe nature is an entity or whatever, or it’s an organism with parasites on it, it’s retaliated in some form or another. If you want to take that figuratively or literally. It’s been in a little bit of a time-out which has been good for the natural world. With carbon emissions, borders closed, etc., etc., but people are so quick to forget, and even if it went back to normal like, tomorrow, people would be back to their usual selfish ways. The big companies trying to earn as much money as possible, super-trawlers trying to get as much fish out of the ocean as possible, the usual crap.
“So I think the bigger picture really, is that we do need to learn by these mistakes. This hasn’t happened for no reason at all.”
Later in the same chat, Filth spoke about the band’s upcoming Halloween livestream concert (which has since been rescheduled to February, 2021), stressing the need to do a good job with the virtual meet and greet they have planned for VIP fans, and using a recent disastrous Cameo video shot by Mötley Crüe frontman Vince Neil as an example of what not to do:
“We’re actually not doing [the meet and greet] on the day of the show, we’re doing it from the rehearsal day. I think we’re going to be doing it in the church’s graveyard or if it’s pissing rain, which it probably is going to be, it’s England, after all, it’ll be in this church. It’s going to have to be a virtual meet and greet. Spend some time with the people, it’s going to be face to face (not person to person as in actual physicality).
“I think people have been doing a lot of this actually. I saw a disastrous Vince Neil one. [laughs] It’s one of these famous people things where you pay for a visual greeting, “Hi, I’m Vince,” and it was [slurs speech] [laughs] Oh my god. This was about two weeks before he was due to go on a tour as well. What he said in the press, you know, “We all hired fitness coaches and we’re really looking good and voices sounding great…” 10 minutes later [he posts the video] [laughs] Just amazing.
“I like the guy, I love Mötley Crüe, [but] it’s just an insult to everybody really. It’s an insult to the fans, it’s an insult to music in general and the position that he’s got as a person. This tour [was] going to bank him; obviously this is why they’re doing it, they’re going to make millions upon millions and the guy can’t even make an effort to do it right.”
You can listen to our entire chat with Dani via the player below or right here.
