From overheating in leather to hiding in Slayer’s loo: Life on the road with Dani Filth

Cradle Of Filth are about to get very busy indeed, hitting the road for a big UK and European tour, including headlining Damnation. But before then, if you really wanted to, you could have probably found Dani Filth hanging out at his local Ipswich service station, on the hunt for some pies and pasties.

Here, the frontman lifts the lid on the highs, lows, creature comforts and touring weirdness of a travelling band…

“That’s easy: a cool pair of dark sunglasses. I never go anywhere without them. I’ve always got spares, as well. They’re the ultimate, all-situation accessory. I don’t get hangovers anymore because I’ve been teetotal for a few years, but there’s plenty of late nights, early mornings, border crossings – all situations that demand sunglasses.”

“Malaysia. It was worth it because there was a gig at the end, but recently we did do four days’ travelling to get to one show. It was a long four fucking days for being onstage for barely an hour, but it was worth it. At the opposite end, I spent my birthday in 2018 sitting in a departure lounge from 11 o’clock in the morning until two o’clock the following day, while the airline continually lied about the problems, which were either with the plane, or they were having a strike. And we couldn’t leave, because it was an important gig. Did I at least get birthday cake? No, I got fuck-all.”

“Back when we were quite a fledgling band, I would say it was probably 1997, and we played in Switzerland. The bus pulled up outside what looked like a cottage. They’d basically converted someone’s living area into a gig space that held about 40 people. They had a British telephone box in the middle of it, as far as I remember. And there was a really small stage, so much so that I had to stand on a soapbox or some crates, and found myself exactly the same height as a guy in front of me, who was super-tall. For the encore, we went out of the sliding partition doors to the garden and just stood there in the freezing cold. But the weirdest thing was, we sold the equivalent amount of merch as we were doing in 800-capacity places. They were buying everything!”

“Don’t drink. Stretching. Get enough exercise. The amount of calories I must burn onstage… In this bloody heat under all this leather, it’s pretty full-on. We played a festival in Bordeaux the other day that was more like a French farmer’s market. It was great, but it was 42 degrees. It was fucking boiling.”

“CBGBs in New York. I mean, they’re all pretty fucking horrible at venues, but CBGBs was the worst one, especially if you wanted a poo. There was no door, so it was just a step up, and then there was the loo. There was also one place in Ukraine where they’d turned what was obviously a hallway into a gents’ toilets. It had a set of stairs, and down the stairs the urinal went at an angle, so that you could stand on any step you want and pee. I thought that was actually quite a good bit of engineering.”

“The one at the bottom of my road in Ipswich, easily. Hands-down, 1,000 per cent. I go there all the time. I give it my official approval. Am I hoping for some sort of Alan Partridge-style discount next time I go in there? Yeah, or a big box of pies and pasties, and somewhere to park my Fiat Regata sports edition, 1978, with lime green racing stripes.”

“Quite boring, like any other place. We’ve only played there once, at Tattoo The Planet in 2001 with Slayer. There was an unfortunate incident where I went to use Slayer’s toilet, not knowing it was their dressing room – I just went in, really desperate. They all piled in for an argument, having a really big go at the drummer, and I was in the loo going, ‘Oh…’ I was there teetering on the flush, thinking that maybe I should just flush it and then go, ‘Oh, sorry, guys, I didn’t realise you were there.’ I just stayed in there until it was vacant again. I can’t think of many trickier situations to get into backstage than that.”

“The end, when you’ve done it and you’re taking a photo against the crowd, and you think, ‘I’m deserving of this merit, this stolen, frozen opportunity in time.’ You know that the gig was great, everybody’s fucking euphoric – that’s the best feeling.”

“We did a big metal festival in Greece once, and I mentioned England had beaten Greece in the World Cup or the Euros. I didn’t realise how fucking sore they were. Honestly, the amount of water bottles that came onstage was perpetual. Apparently, though, a record number of people were taken to hospital from that show, from dehydration. So I felt like we had a little bit of recompense there…”

Cradle Of Filth tour from October 27, and headline Damnation Festival on November 2. This article originally appeared in the autumn 2024 issue of the magazine.

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