Decibel Books’ No Celebration: The Official Story of Paradise Lost: Expanded Edition is out today. The Decibel Books edition (out of print since 2021) returns with expanded content in the form of additional chapters, a 16-page photo section of rare and some never-before-seen shots, and a gorgeous fully debossed gold-printed cover wrap! And to, um, celebrate, we’re happy to share this exclusive excerpt. The following piece from author David E. Gehlke’s 340+-page PL history chronicles the band’s explosion in popularity in Europe following the release of 1995’s classic Draconian Times.
“The New Metallica — The Band You Need to Hear,” blared the cover of Kerrang! No. 549, essentially throwing a 400-pound gorilla on the back of Paradise Lost. Such proclamations are often a record company’s dream. For bands, it’s worth getting riled up about for a few minutes, then the realization of being compared to the biggest metal band of the time settles in. Holmes is the only member on the cover, his appearance more serious than melancholic, even as Kerrang! writer Paul Elliott titled the piece “The Incredible Sulk!” Originally, Holmes was to appear on the cover wearing a crown of thorns with blood running down his face, but objected to photographer Ross Halfin’s demands. “I was like, ‘Fuck that,’” remembers Holmes. “Ross said ‘Who do you think you are? Bon Jovi?’ That really made me laugh, actually. Ross says exactly what he thinks and after that, we got on quite well.”
Mind you, Elliott is thoroughly complimentary throughout, hailing Draconian Times as “one of the great British metal albums of this or any other year,” along with the mention that the album could be Music for Nations’ “biggest and best album since Metallica’s Master of Puppets.” The interview, conducted at a curry house in Bradford, is decidedly light-hearted, with the band often poking fun at the impenetrable image of gloom and misery they’d created. In a way, the article was emblematic of the what-have-you-done-for-me-lately relationship Paradise Lost maintained with the U.K. press, who, by the middle part of the decade, never quite got what they wanted from the band.
“The Kerrang! cover came as something of a surprise as we just weren’t expecting it,” says Hooker. “It was quite the accolade for the band and it really came somewhat out of the blue. It was easy to get great press for the band in Europe, especially Germany, but the U.K. was a different matter. With only a few exceptions, most of the U.K. journalists had their heads firmly up their backsides and wouldn’t recognize a great band if they were playing in their front room.”
Chris Watts was another Kerrang! staff writer who had frequent interactions with Paradise Lost. He drew a quip from Mackintosh in the same cover story about “having to strap on me fucking corset” after he read one of Watts’ recent stories on the band, alluding to the fact Watts was known as the “hatchet man” for his caustic writing style where he took down bands with the stroke of a pen. Watts felt Paradise Lost stood head and shoulders above what was left of the U.K. metal scene at the time and were destined for something much bigger. He did, however, feel the band was unable to escape the curse of British rock, meaning that Paradise Lost was far more popular in European territories than their own. According to Watts, a lot of this had to do with the fact Paradise Lost never played ball with the U.K. press. The underlying sense of humor Paradise Lost often portrayed to those within their inner circle never made for a good headline.
“Paradise Lost were terrible rock stars,” he says. “At the time, Oasis, Pulp and Blur were sweeping everybody aside with a memorable quote for every question and a media-savvy attitude which ensured heavyweight coverage across the board. After grunge had peaked and left a void, the press had no time for introspective thinkers like Nick Holmes and Paradise Lost. We wanted Courtney Love and Nicky Wire and Liam Gallagher and Axl Rose and we wanted to celebrate the fact that rock music could be dangerous, self-destructive and entertaining once again.
“At the end of the day, Paradise Lost just wasn’t very interesting,” he continues. “At the time, the U.K. media demanded cartoons and Paradise Lost were just too damn normal to make much of a lasting impression. Whilst Therapy? and Manic Street Preachers were just as comfortable with NME and Melody Maker as they were with the mainstream press, Paradise Lost seemed to be hiding under the settee whilst the firestorm raged outside. My overriding memory of Paradise Lost is a band which was so keen to be taken seriously that they forgot how to have any fun whatsoever. It was a critical error. Rather than run with the ball and risk a few punches, they turned inwards and hoped that Draconian Times would do the talking for them. The album and the band itself, however, were just too far out of step with the prevailing trends in the mid-1990s to make the kind of impact they probably deserved.”
“I think we all knew the whole thing with Nick was not real,” counters Dome. “Nick is a dour Yorkshireman and they played up the whole thing a lot. I think it endeared them to people, certainly in the U.K. I can’t think it did any harm for them in Europe. The U.K. metal press certainly took it for it was. Paradise Lost were lovely, down-to-earth people. Nick had a miserable persona, but we all knew he had a good sense of humor.”
The Edmondson-into-the-freezing-pool incident notwithstanding, indeed Paradise Lost never took the bait from the British rock press. Interviewers often tried to trick Holmes and Mackintosh into saying things about other bands to satisfy the need for a sensational quote, hoping they’d re-activate their dormant rivalry with My Dying Bride, who, around this time, was also picking up steam.
Kerrang! and NME often sent journalists to conduct a studio report or travel with the band in hopes of someone mouthing off or stooping to typical rock-star behavior. Unfortunately for them, Paradise Lost was more concerned about huddling over a few pints of beer to discuss movies and music than to shovel dirt on their contemporaries. They were boring on purpose. “Sure, we played miserable music, but we were just constantly pitying ourselves, laughing at stuff,” says Mackintosh. “I guess a lot of people just didn’t get it because while we looked like we were miserable, we were taking the piss the entire time. That’s probably why we got on so well with Peter Steele and the Type O Negative guys — they were doing a very similar thing, only more sarcastic.”
“I can understand where the press was coming from,” says Aedy. “Everyone likes to read about a snippet of something which is a bit, ‘No. You’re outrageous!’ We’ve never been like that. We’re in it for the music and we’ll have a few pints together. That’s literally it. We didn’t take the bait because thankfully we’ve never felt like we had to. We see these younger bands and they’d get hammered and end up saying all sorts of stuff. We weren’t outrageous in that regard. We were Northern blokes who didn’t like to spend a lot of money and liked to get drunk. We’d like to have a laugh, that’s it. Nothing was too precious. We want the music to tell you everything.”
Holmes, who never minded being on magazine covers by himself since he was just “representing the band,” says part of Paradise Lost’s image was based off the music they were playing, but also in jest. Sometimes, rather simply, Holmes was trying to look miserable if everyone else was trying to be happy. “It was always so much easier to have that image than be a band like Terrorvision, where they’re jumping around pulling silly faces,” he says. “That, to me, is harder work. You’ve got to have that personality to pull it off and none of us were like that — we weren’t bouncy. I know some guys in bands that I think are genuinely fucking insane and they say weird stuff. Maybe they believe it and then you can get away with it, but we were never really that outlandish, and we keep to ourselves in that respect.”
The band’s aversion to the press and media at large wasn’t enough to keep them off of MTV. With Vanessa Warwick still very much entrenched in her role as lead VJ for the channel’s heavy music programming, she was joined by a familiar face behind the camera: Archer, whose network of connections in the metal scene served MTV well when it came time for bookings and exclusive interviews. Any sort of awkwardness that may have come about when Archer was on set for a Paradise Lost segment was quickly dashed when the band and their old drummer started trading jokes like the days of old. In a pinch, Archer even reached out to Aedy to conduct an on-air interview with White Zombie frontman Rob Zombie when Warwick was sick, to which the guitarist gladly obliged.
Videos for “The Last Time” and “Forever Failure” kept the band in regular rotation on MTV. While the “The Last Time” was simply a live performance of the band with their feet submerged in water along with the necessary solo-band member shots, “Forever Failure” emerged as their most conceptualized piece to date. Shot at Malham Cove in North Yorkshire, “Forever Failure” — now without the opening Charles Manson dialogue, but with enhanced keyboards — largely features the interactions between Holmes and a young boy who intrinsically end up trading places by the song’s conclusion. Just as memorable as the storyline was the backdrop of Malham Cove, recalls Justin Crosby, who was present for the shoot.
“Malham Cove is a big limestone fault line,” he says. “It’s a huge cliff actually in the middle of this beautiful farming landscape. You may remember some of the shots in the video where there’s some tree that’s all gnarled, a bent over tree which is formed that way because of the constant wind. A lot of it felt like it particularly suited the music, in terms of physically it encapsulated in the band as harsh but brooding, if you like. I think that particular video was great.”
On the North American front, Music for Nations didn’t extend their licensing deal with Metal Blade, leaving Draconian Times in the hands of Relativity Records. The band’s experience on the Morbid Angel and Kreator tour was still very much top of mind, making them reluctant to even consider a second jaunt across America. This would have been the optimal time to do so; Relativity had a larger staff and wider distribution reach, giving Paradise Lost the wherewithal to jump on a Stateside tour in support of Draconian Times. However, the prevailing theme was things were going so well on the European front that a Draconian Times American tour was ultimately not pursued. The band’s decision was somewhat prudent: In late 1995, Relativity dropped all of its rock bands and decided to become a hip-hop-only label. Barely six months into its release, Draconian Times was dead-on-arrival in America.
Wanting to slowly work Morris into the fold, a series of warm-up shows under the name “The Painless” were scheduled in the spring of 1995. The first show at Glasgow Garage found the band’s nerves running higher than normal. Aware of what shakier time-keeping could do to their career prospects, every member but Morris was pacing the venue’s dressing room. The set — including cuts from Draconian Times — had been rehearsed appropriately with a click track. But there sat Morris, reading a copy of Speedway magazine, quite confident in his abilities. “Nick came over to me and asked ‘Are you not nervous? You’re sitting there reading a bloody Speedway magazine.’ I said, ‘No, I’m not nervous. I know the songs. I’m feeling quite good.” Sure enough, the Glasgow Garage date went off without a hitch.
“When we started playing with Lee and the click track, I think we all improved instantly as players because we were playing dead on time,” says Aedy. “It was quite an eye-opener in a way, and it made us all instantly better players. It made it sound better live. It was just tight. I think it made a big difference.”
Morris was truly thrown to the wolves when, on June 3, 1995, Paradise Lost performed at Dynamo Open Air. The Netherlands-based festival was easily the band’s biggest gig at the time — an estimated 120,000 fans were on hand to witness a variety of bands such as Machine Head, Fear Factory, Type O Negative, Life of Agony, Nevermore and old mates, My Dying Bride. The release of Draconian Times was still a week away, but didn’t stop the band from airing “Enchantment,” “Forever Failure,” “Once Solemn,” “Hallowed Land” and “The Last Time.”
“At the time, I didn’t realize there was going to be 120,000 people there,” says Morris. “I’d gone from playing Bradford Rio and Glasgow Garage to probably 300, 400 people, which is okay. All of a sudden, I’m walking onstage to a massive sea of blackness. And while I did feel the live presence of the audience, you just can’t see where it ends. I thought at one point I’d be able to see the back of it, but it just went on and on. You can feel it. I remember sitting behind my kit thinking, ‘I’m so glad the band wears black clothes on stage because no one’s going to see if I actually shit myself.’”
The Draconian Times touring cycle took Paradise Lost through familiar European territories as well as to South America — a first for the band. The shows were largely without incident, the band now firing on all cylinders with Morris and a set that leaned heavily on Icon and Draconian Times, with Lost Paradise and Gothic songs getting cut. Even though these were some of the band’s most successful shows to date, the members were dying to get off the road. Paradise Lost hadn’t taken a break since late 1991. The album/tour cycle had enveloped them, fraying their relationships at home, especially Edmondson and Mackintosh who had children they’d barely got to see.
The burnout became apparent to all when after their July 10, 1996, show alongside Sex Pistols, Iggy Pop, Sepultura and Slayer at Stadio Olimpico in Rome, Italy, Farrow phoned the band saying he had more dates lined up. “I think we were supposed to be going home for three weeks,” says Aedy, “We hadn’t been home in ages. He was like, ‘I got you some show.’ We would only be home for two days. I said, ‘Look, if you make us do these shows, you won’t have a band.’ We needed to go home. We were completely fried. Even going home for two weeks makes a massive difference or even a week. We had to let him know how much we needed it.”
The final show in support of Draconian Times was a slot on the prestigious Monsters of Rock Festival, which was held August 17, 1996, at Castle Donington, England. Since its 1980 inception, Monsters of Rock became the go-to destination for metal bands across the globe, a sort of recognition of stature considering the selective nature of the festival. Their slot — second overall — was originally given to Fear Factory. Upon learning of this, Farrow went, in his words, “mental” and implored festival agent Rod McSwain to ensure Paradise Lost would follow Fear Factory. It worked.
The Music for Nations brass, recognizing how much media would be present, decided to deck Paradise Lost’s backstage area in all black, which for the press corps was impossible to miss. Knowing that MTV would be filming the show, Farrow handed out Paradise Lost flags that were hoisted by canes, ensuring the band’s logo and name would be visible throughout the proceedings. All this didn’t prevent a case of the nerves — Holmes was startled by how high the stage sat off the ground, although it did give him ample time to move out of the way when a projectile — like a geranium, for instance — was coming his way. While Paradise Lost appropriately went down in a storm in front of their countrymen, there were the occasional issues with the live mix, not to mention Holmes becoming visibly annoyed by echo placed on his vocals during “Once Solemn.” In spite of this technical snag, the show was an early career milestone for Paradise Lost.
“That was probably the one gig for me that will always stand out,” says Morris. “That was the highlight of my career. As an English guy, that was the big festival. That was the good festival you used to go to and see all your favorite bands playing on this big stage, so to actually get to play that yourself was just unbelievable. It just seemed to go by so fast. You walk out on stage and see the Dunlop Tire sign at the back. You have to take a moment to take it all in. I think that point that was the first time when I thought, ‘I’ve finally done it, I’ve finally made it.’”
The band made the trek home from Castle Donington to Halifax the same day. For the first time in nearly five years, there was nothing on the immediate agenda — the band was free to do as they wished. The Draconian Times album cycle took Paradise Lost to places they’d thought they’d never see eight years prior. But Paradise Lost was never a goal-oriented band, even as accomplishments piled up. When the band made it back to Halifax to the comforts of family and home, there was now one, definitive goal: never could they repeat such a grueling run of consecutive albums and tours again.
“We probably could have used a break for a few years,” says Holmes. “I think we just burned out a little bit, but you’ve got to keep it rolling. Also, I think if you can get success quite quickly, maybe you might think that you can just do whatever you want and you’re invincible. I’ve seen a lot of bands do that kind of thing. I think there is a certain element of that. But it’s always at the back of your mind that this could go tits-up.”
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