“Dark chills from your spine in your eyes Darkness emperor, rogues all gather The other Moses fill my head Blackened thoughts cannot escape Time is now, don’t waste our fate!”
Bow down and bow deep to the new and terrifying ruler in town. The Empress is here and here to stay. With a lineup of musicians known for their power and brutality, this is one regime that you will gladly surrender yourself to with both eagerness and devotion.
Formed by Paul Allender (ex Cradle of Filth), the formidable raw power that oozes and permeates through to your soul through his signature style is tangible and intoxicating when set forth via a vehicle such as the White Empress. We had a quick moment with the master to talk all things White Empress, and we at RockRevolt are simply humbled by his candid yet effusive banter.
Tell me about the concept of the Empress. From statements I’ve read, she’s not necessarily just Mary, but the band as a whole. Can you expound on that concept?
Mary represents the embodiment of the White Empress, for videos and photographs. When I put it the band together, I wanted to put a band together that would have that big “Fuck off” attitude. What I want to try to do with this band is to bring back the really grimy, gritty attitude, punk rock feel that metal bands used to have back in the day. The concept behind the band is that very thing. It’s the attitude of, “We don’t care what you think.” It’s that whole punk attitude feel to it. I remember when I was a kid, way back….
Don’t say that! We aren’t that different in age, so it can’t be that long ago!
There you go! When I was a kid, I remembered that all the real cool thrash bands, and metal bands, used to have this real punk rock attitude to them. It was this whole nonconformist feel. That is what White Empress represents. If you look around everywhere, it seems so mundane and boring, everything is so squeaky clean, and everyone is so worried about what they look like, and if the music is going to sell, or people are going to like it. In White Empress, we don’t give a shit. If people like it: brilliant. If they don’t like it: fucking brilliant. We are doing it for us. If it takes off: great. If it doesn’t: great also. I will still keep doing it.
What you’re saying is, if it works, great. If it doesn’t, great; it’s the process of doing it that is important?
I’ll tell you, I’ve never been so into a band before ever in my life more than this. When I was working on my previous stuff, it was awesome, until I left and started this. (laughs) People will say, “but you left such a big band!” So what! It got boring, you know? There was no excitement there. It was too busy worrying about how many albums we were going to sell. We were always worrying about that kind of stuff instead of worrying about the music and taking it into avenues where nobody’s gone before. Since leaving, and starting this band, I can put all those ideas into this band, and it’s freaking awesome.
You mentioned trying to bring back that punk/thrash feel. Is there any difference between British punk and thrash versus American punk and thrash?
Yes. Huge! (laughs) When metal started coming out of Europe, like the Sex Pistols and this sort of stuff, (I’m not saying that we sound like punk), that is attitude towards the music and towards the scene we are going for. The album Rise of the Empress was written specifically to be played live. The whole band was made specifically so we could go out and have the rawest band we could be. That’s why the riffs are written the way they are. It’s going to translate awesome live. I got bored of playing shows where the kids are not allowed to jump up and down and stage dive. That’s just freaking ridiculous.
That was really common back in those punk shows back in the day. The kids were up there.
Exactly! Exactly! I remember doing that as a kid, and it was freaking awesome to be part of the show. Everything is gotten so nice and squeaky clean now, where you’re not allowed to do this and not allowed to do that. Fuck it. At the end of the day, we are going to encourage it.
What I’m hearing is when you come through my town, I can get on stage with you.
If you want to get on stage and fucking jump off, you go do it.
Awesome. I don’t know if I will, but I will try.
I went to go see some bands play, and the stage diving got so ridiculous for this one band, you could not see anybody in the band. (laughs) however, the vibe was there! Obviously that’s an extreme. I remember when we played one show, and one kid got up, and I tapped him on the shoulder and he jumped off stage. I thought to myself, “Fucking finally! Shit is actually starting to happen!”
I don’t know. In light of the whole Lamb of God issue in Czechoslovakia, will you have people sign waivers?
At the end of the day, you can play, and if people are stage diving, that is fine. If people are stupid enough to climb up onto massive things and jump off, it’s their own stupidity. At the end of the day it has nothing to do with the band. If the band told them to jump off the balcony, then it would be the band’s fault.
Tell us about the feeling you had when you released Rise of the Empress.
It’s awesome! It’s done really well. The majority the reviews have been awesome. There been a couple of them (because you can’t please everybody) that weren’t, and also people can’t see past the idea that I’ve gone past my last band. People have pigeonholed me, which is absolutely ridiculous. But it’s been awesome! Then you also get the trolls commenting “this is crap” and bla bla bla, which means it’s actually working. Because if all the trolls are starting to come out, and you have the haters come out, it means they’ve been offended, and it’s working.
I think a good trolling is good for it.
People are actually quite stupid. At the end of the day, especially for trolls, the more they talk about it and the more they bitch about it, the more people will want to see what they are bitching about. The only way to make us disappear is to shut the fuck up about us! But nobody will ever do that because people like to have their say.
Have you had anybody compare you to Cradle?
Only some trolls have done that. Obviously they haven’t listened to it, because it sounds nothing like Cradle. The thing is, it’s different, and it has its own sound, and doesn’t sound like anyone else, people have to try to pigeonhole it; put it in a genre. If they can’t put it an a genre, it mustn’t conform, and nobody wants to hear it. It’s ridiculous. We live in a world, especially this scene, unless it’s categorized, nobody knows what to do with it. Everybody wants to sound like everybody else all the time. This is another reason why this was put together: to not sound like everybody else all the time. That’s the point. That’s the reason why I took the best parts of the metal scene over the last 15 years, and put it into one band, but with a modern twist.
There you go! I read in an interview where you said that White Empress is the link that the music scene has been desperately missing. Tell us how that’s true and how White Empress is filling that void.
Basically because it’s different. I’ve spoken to so many people: friends, bands when I’ve been gigging, everything else. The general consensus is that this scene is crap. There’s nothing out there to get your teeth into anymore. There isn’t. You can pick up any fucking album. If it’s an established band, every album sounds exactly the same. If it’s a band that is up-and-coming, I can guarantee that you can pick it up and it’ll sound like somebody else, just because they will think it will sell. We aren’t doing that. We are that missing link. We are the bridge that is bridging this gap. This album is giving the industry a wake-up call. You just do it for the music and that is plenty enough. Follow your heart for Christ sakes! Stop worrying about your freaking pocket! Obviously you make a living out of music. It happens. At the end of the day it’s a job. If it doesn’t happen, then make a living somewhere else, and then keep doing it.
Gene Simmons recently said that rock is dead. Is this you proving that it’s not?
It is totally not! Right now, the scene is changing. The scene changes every 10 years. We are starting to notice a change which is happening right now. White Empress is actually hitting the scene at exactly the right time. It’s not dead at all. It might be dead if you have millions of dollars in your bank account and you are bored. It’s not dead. Things are starting to actually happen again. Things are starting to go back to the way they used to. Kids want something different. The White Empress album is that something different.
White Empress – The Ecstatic and The Sorrow
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In your press release it say that it exudes the depth and ferocity of your prior work while pushing new boundaries. How is that true?
I think what they are talking about is just the fact that I play on it. That’s something they made up. (laughs). I’ve been told I have a distinct playing style. They are basically saying that the stuff that I’m doing now is a lot heavier and more in your face then my prior stuff.
Is it because of this new “we are White Empress and were going to take it to the next level”?
Yeah. The thing is that I spent a long time trying to find a band in the metal scene that I could really get into, that I could really listen to and go buy their albums, and be finally someone who makes me fall in love with music again. But there’s nobody out there. There is nobody that did it for me. I had a specific sound that I wanted to hear from another band. There have been little parts of songs from bands that I’ve heard that are awesome, and then it just goes pear-shaped. Eventually it came to the point where I couldn’t find anyone, so I did it myself.
As far as the band’s imagery, is that coming from you?
To start off from, it was me. I came up with the concept of the Empress, what I wanted it to be like, and the name.
What about the makeup?
When we had the EP cover made, I bought four images for it. One of the images had that make up that Mary wears. When I saw it I thought, “hmm, that’s a really good idea. Let’s see what that looks like.” So we dressed Mary up and I thought, “Yep. This is gonna work.”
How did you pick the players for White Empress?
The thing is that with this band, I had a bit of luxury of having time on my side. I had a lot of time to fine-tune it and get it to a point where the first album would be an absolutely awesome steppingstone. I think I had written about three quarters of the album, and we decided we needed to find additional members because it was obviously turning into something way more than just a project. I first contacted Mary, who was going to be a replacement keyboard/vocalist for Cradle, which she turned down. I told her about another project I was working on, and I letter listen to it. She got it was amazing. She flipped over it. We went over the ideas I had in my head about the vocals, and she sent the demo back and it was like “Holy FUCK!”. It was awesome. She completely nailed it the first time. That’s how I met Mary. Then I was looking for a bass player. We had gone through three or four bass players, trying to find the right person, but no one would come along. Mary said, “Hold on. I know Chela.” She sent some tracks over and she loved it. I explained to her what I was looking for in a bass player: someone to groove with the drums, but complement the guitars, be rock solid and really pull the groove out of everything. I didn’t want a bass player to just follow the guitars, because that’s boring and doesn’t work. From there Jeremy came along. I jammed with him, and he was spot on. He is one seriously awesome player, which is good. Then we got Zac. When I spoke with him on the phone (never spoken with him before my life), and I asked him if he was up for it. He said, “yeah. I can do that. Easy.” So I booked a rehearsal, invited him to come down to see what happens. He said, “Yeah I just need one day. It’s fine.” I asked him if he were sure, and he said yes. So he came down, we jammed, and it was like we had been playing together for years. It was absolutely seamless.
I know it works because everybody’s on the same wavelength. Everybody’s has the same driving force. When we rehearse, it’s so intoxicating. It is so raw and heavy. It reminds me of when I first started playing in a band when I was a kid. That was the feeling I was trying to get back, not just for me, but for everyone in the band, and it’s working.
So do you feel younger?
(laughs) Oh Yeah! I used t0 feel like a 25-year-old, so now I feel 10. (laughs)
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