Veteran journalist Bryan Reesman from Attention Deficit Delirium spoke with Dani Filth, lead singer for UK black metal icons CRADLE OF FILTH recently about a number of topics including the forthcoming book, The Gospel Of Filth: A Bible Of Decadence And Darkness, written by occult expert, author and Satanic practitioner Gavin Baddeley. A few excerpts from the chat follow:

Attention Deficit Delirium: What’s cool about the Gospel of Filth is that it’s not only a history of Cradle Of Filth, but also a journey into the darker regions of religion, politics, and films, literature and music. You didn’t craft a standard band autobiography.

Filth: "God, no! I think you actually forget about that when you’re in the thick of each chapter. I think you forget that it has anything to do with the band. Basically, Cradle Of Filth from album to album is used as a springboard to jump into the relevant topics and to meet relevant musicians and film producers and other estranged souls."

Attention Deficit Delirium: The in-depth nature of this tome makes me wonder about how you can know so much about a genre and its history, yet the older you get the more you find something that you haven’t read, seen or heard.

Filth: "That’s cool. I like finding out about stuff. I’d hate to think that all the surprises have gone. When you start at the beginning of a genre or find something that you’re good at or are interested in, it’s always really magical at the start. Then the weight of the world crushes your spirit, like everything else. [laughs]"

Attention Deficit Delirium: You obviously have a dark and menacing image that you want to portray on stage, but the book features casual, candid photos of you with your family. I guess you weren’t so concerned about removing that mystique while assembling this book?

Filth: "That’s the thing. This is intended as a grimoire, hence why the first wave of the book is a limited edition, leather bound thing. It was mine and Gavin’s original intention to do something like a medieval grimoire that was elitist and highly sought after and would be really hard to find in 10 years time. But, of course, that’s just ridiculous unless we were barons and had hordes of money to throw away, so that’s why it’s going to be in bookstores. We’ll probably make 10p a book off of it at the same time. The original signed, bound, extra-chaptered print run is limited to about 2,000 [copies], and then the one that comes to the stores will be in Barnes & Noble’s, Borders and Waterstone’s. It’s going to be filed under occult/music. It’s more like a journey through the dark side, and I think music is just a small part of the book. Yet you had to have a basis for why you’re exploring these characters and like-minded souls."

Attention Deficit Delirium: What else can you tell us about the book?

Filth: "I think it’s something that’s going to take a while to filter through because I think a lot of people have this preconception that this is solely autobiographical and is all about Cradle Of Filth, and so there is only so much interest you can have in the band. It’s a book about the occult and all this great subject matter like illicit sex and drugs, femme fatales, childhood nightmares and black arts. It’s using a band who’s got all their fingers in these different cauldrons. Eventually when it gets to High Street, people will be looking at it from outside of the black metal gene pool because they’ll suddenly realize that this isn’t just about Cradle Of Filth."

Read the entire interview here.