East Anglian Gothic Groovecore Metallers Devilment have just released their debut album The Great & Secret Show on Nuclear Blast. Before heading out on their maiden touring voyage around Europe, in part 1 of a 2 part feature, guitarist Daniel Finch caught Ghost Cult up on the band’s back story.
The story of Devilment is the story of a guy from a whole other band. It is the story of a guy who sang about vampires. It is the story of a guy called Dani. No, not that one, though we’ll get to him later. The story of Devilment is the story of one Daniel Finch, former guitarist and vocalist of cult Goth Metal band 13 Candles, who, perhaps to avoid too much confusion has reverted to his full name of Daniel. Two Dani’s in the same establishment, and it not being a hair and booty salon in Essex, would have been too much… even if the band is from Suffolk (or Suffuck as the latest range of merchandise announces), which borders TOWIE-land.
It is a story that covers apathy, heartbreak, years in the wilderness and a serendipitous return to the cradle of youthful ambitions before finally finding the devil that was ment (sic) to fulfil the musical destiny of our humble protagonist. “It was 1998 and it was not long after 13 Candles second album. It was just a weird time, musically, then” begins the gregarious and verbose guitarist, referring to the last time our paths crossed and also to the period that saw all but the kvlt-est of labels follow Roadrunner’s suit after the US giants ditched all their non-“trendy” bands (sellers or not), the game played out by the major labels five years previously when grunge turned the rock world on its head repeated in the underground.
Death Metal was dead, Black Metal dying, Grind extinct, Goth/ic metal was the millipede that had lost 998 legs and the innovation and fertile creativity of 90’s underground metal had exhausted itself. It was a scene where labels like Earache had been left bereft of all their Death Metal talent following an exodus that Moses would have been proud of leading, and sought to fill the void with the pop-punk of Janus Stark, the nu-metal of Pulkas, the gabbacore of Beserker and, um Mortiis. “It’s the same old story, I guess. Record labels were interested, but nobody wanted to actually go out and sign Candles after we’d been dropped from Cacophonous, and after a while people (in the band) wanted to do other things. So, it got to the point where it was ‘Is there rehearsal next week?’ ‘No, can’t be bothered’, and, do you know what? We just didn’t rehearse again.”
Fast-forward an ominous 13 (!) years, through a pile-up of failed bands, blow-outs and a relocation, to one serendipitous evening… “The first time I’d met Dan (Dani Filth) was at an At The Gates gig, around ’95. And he’s there, sitting in a chair, but right at the front of the stage, his wife stood next to him, and I’ve thought ‘Who the fuck is that tosser?!’ And then I realised, ‘Ah, it’s that guy from Cradle of Filth’, so I went up and was all ‘I like your band’ and he just fucking ignored me!
Quite a few of the other Cradle guys were there, and my mate, randomly, had this pair of plastic vampire teeth, so he ran up to the Cradle guys going ‘Look at me! I’m a vampire!’ They weren’t happy and it almost turned into a big bar brawl! Then a couple of years later I bumped into Dani again at a festival and said hello, and he just walked past me, and I thought ‘Wanker’ (laughs).”
It seems fate, dark forces, or just pure bad luck on Mr Filth’s part, had decreed that at some point the two Dani’s would unite to take on the universe with their heavy metal. They say good things come to those who wait, and while it’s probably rare for Daniel Finch to be called virtuous, his patience paid off. These stars were meant to align. “I bought the first Cradle album twenty years ago, and I auditioned for them way back then, around the second album. Well… I didn’t actually get to audition, I sent a demo tape in, but nothing ever came back. I bet Dan’s still got it in his loft!”
But providence was to intervene and give Finch the opportunity to take a step forward in his music career and had that particular circle completed by having Dani Filth ask to join his band. “It was 2011 when Devilment became a band” orates the be-dreaded East Anglian, before revealing the twisted nails of faith and fate that brought the two leading men together. “I was just about to get married and I had a massive, massive argument with my wife about the wedding, as you do. So, my best man took me out for a drink. I was there, all ‘I don’t want to get married’, as you do, and Dan walked in.
“So I went up, said I used to be in 13 Candles, but he wasn’t interested, just blanked me and walked off. But later on he came up, bought a beer, and we got chatting. From that, we started hanging out and I mentioned I was doing this new band and asked if he knew anyone that was a good singer, but I wasn’t sure what type of vocals I was looking for.
“He said to send him over the stuff and he got back and said he wouldn’t mind giving it a go, so I thought ‘Alright then…’ Then, next thing, he was in the studio demoing on the stuff I’d done, and I remember thinking ‘We’ve got something, here!’
“Next thing, Nuclear Blast are putting the album out!”
There will be many who begrudge the success of the band and assign a large proportion of it to the status within the scene of their frontman. While Devilment is clearly more than something for Dani to do when he’s not doing Cradle of Filth, the scepticism of the general punters, be they Cradle fans or not, seems to be a prevailing cloud on the horizon. As is always the way for bands that are even slightly successful, rather than being pleased people pour forth their negativity and look for ways to criticise. “Look, we are lucky, we have got Dan in the band and it definitely helps; how many local bands do you see that are awesome that don’t get this opportunity? But you don’t get signed (to Nuclear Blast) without having good music” reasons Finch.
However, having Dani, who is a rather divisive figure in the UK metal community and beyond, a person who people love to hate, in the band, there are cons to go with the pros… “I guess it’s always going to be a thing, because Dan is marmite. People love him, or they fucking hate him. But then, I saw a review where the guy was saying ‘I hate Dani Filth, and I hate Cradle of Filth, and I always have, but this I like’.”
The good news for Messrs Finch and Filth is that it appears to be that there are many more people than the vocal minority out there, plenty of whom are looking for a little Devilment in their lives…
Part 2 of our feature on Devilment follows soon
The Great & Secret Show is out now via Nuclear Blast
Words by STEVE TOVEY