A conversation with Paul Allender (ex- Cradle of Filth/ The UnNamed Horrors)

Back in February of 2021, I had a conversation with former Cradle of Filth guitarist, Paul Allender. Paul was in the band for two stints, one covering the early-mid 90s (The Principle of Evil Made Flesh) and the latter from 1999/2000 (Midian) to 2012/13 (based on his final album appearance- The Manticore and Other Horrors, and statements in this interview: bravewords.com...)
I reached out to Paul as I received a presser from Carcosa PR announcing that Paul was back with a new project: The UnNfamed Horrors. I asked Paul if he'd like to have a chat, and to my delight, he agreed. Once the conversation got started we addressed a heap of topics, one of them was that he was free to speak his mind and I would not release any part of the chat for the podcast until he'd given me the 'all clear'. In the wash-up, Paul asked me to remove any references to Cradle of Filth, and I had no hesitation in honouring his request. Paul has his reasons, he prefers for them to be kept private which is why I will not speculate what those reasons are.
One day Paul might be ready to share his testimony about his long tenure in the group, and I have offered to help, be it via podcast, video or a biography. I understand that fans will be unhappy. You want to hear Paul talk about his time in one of the most revered blackened metal groups ever, a band that he wrote the majority of the music for during his long tenure. Although this is a worthy chat as Paul discusses his job as a truck driver in the mid-west of the United States and The UnNamed Horrors, which I assure all Cradle fans, is amongst his very best.
An important point to consider prior to listening: I do not conduct interviews, I have conversations.
For anyone who wants to know, yes, it is my intention to chat with all of the tenured members of Cradle of Filth from the album The Principle of Evil Made Flesh (1994) right up to and including the From the Cradle to Enslave EP in 1999. So I've yet to chat with Andrea Haugen, the Ryan brothers, Robin Eaglestone, John Piras, Les Smith, Sarah Jezebel Deva, Was Sarginson, Adrian Erlandsson, and maybe Dave Hirschheimer. Dave gets a nod as he was in the From the Cradle to Enslave video.
For many more conversations conducted for the Scars and Guitars podcast with members and ex-members of Cradle of Filth, check out these links:
Nick Barker: player.whooshk...
Dani Filth: player.whooshk...
Stuart Anstis: player.whooshk...
Greg Moffitt (Damien Gregori) player.whooshk...
Richard Shaw: player.whooshk...
Lindsay Schoolcraft: player.whooshk...
A book is planned covering the band's epoch from the mid-late 90s. Watch this space!
Check out well over 550 conversations with musicians who appear on the podcast: www.scarsandgu...
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[@darthwalshus2876]

I really wish Paul all the best. To be honest, I felt an awful pit form in my stomach when he said he was driving trucks and not playing guitar. Don’t get me wrong, truck driving is a great job and an honest living, but Paul is one of my favorite guitars players from one of my favorite bands and has written some of my all time favorite songs. I hate that someone so talented with such magnitude could fall out of it like this. I can’t wait to hear this album, I hope for the best for him.

[@Sagothh]

This dude is responsible for some of the best music in metal history. I really looking forward to hear new material.

[@DavidWoodMusic]

Paul has been one of my favorite guitarists since 2006 when I first heard Cradle. I haven't even listened yet but thank you for this.

[@christopherhuff3123]

Damnation was mind-blowing. I wore out 3 cds of it over the years.

[@timholt78]

It's awesome to hear that Paul is active in music again! I've been a huge fan of his playing since I got the Principle of Evil Made Flesh in the summer of '96. I had the pleasure of hanging out with him in Atlanta during the Thornography tour and he was extremely humble and easy to talk to. Looking forward to listening to his new project!

[@FutureClock]

Stoked to have found this video! Huge fan of Paul! I bought my first PRS custom 24 because Paul also played PRS. Took me 2 years of delivering newspapers on the hills in New Zealand to afford it back in 2005. Look forward to following his new musical endeavors!

[@billymountain4498]

You should speak to Martin Powell as he wrote a lot of the music too for the albums from 2000-2004 from what I've gathered. He wrote Swansong for a Raven in it's entirety.

[@pip7967]

Woahhh thought Dani was the only one to write lyrics.

[@gallopinggargoyles7891]

@@pip7967 he means the music

[@pip7967]

@@gallopinggargoyles7891 Dani? Is that you?

[@Qualitywinereview]

I'd love to hear about his experiences writing for a whole orchestra in Hungary for the 'damnation and a day' album. Dark horse album of their catalogue

[@Nickodemus93]

Thank you for this interview and thank you Paul. My favorite guitarist of all time

[@howardanderson1804]

Paul is a great guy and my old band owes alot to him.. whether we needed advice, help writing songs, or even a fill in guitar player he was always right there for us and came to almost every practice for years, he did it all out of friendship and never wanted anything from us.. that's quite rare in the music industry

[@jaysofacton8056]

Great interview. What a genuinely nice, down to earth guy.

[@ScarsandGuitarspodcast]

Awesome, thx so much mate!

[@asdfauilor3916]

24:24 this is the golden ticket. Dude's happy driving trucks and making the music that he wants when he wants because he feels it, without worrying about pleasing an industry, which sounds like it would be a terrible way to get easily burnt out on making music.

[@chrystopherwarren7202]

Paul is my favorite guitarist, I really hope he's talks about what happened with the band one day. I've always been curious.

[@jameskirkansell6853]

Paul is my all-time favourite guitarist, his signature prs has been on my wishlist since I was in my teens, love his ethos for 1 guitar metal, which I think he mentioned in an interview from awhile ago, only cradle albums I like are the ones he wrote on and like you said in this interview I only listen to cradle for the guitars effing sick. \m/

[@Nickodemus93]

His guitar has been on my wishlist to since I was in 8th grade.

[@Industrialist2015ofUk]

Principle' and Damnation and a Day is Paul's best contributions. You should get Adrian to talk, hes a great guy, when i spoke with him at the cartoon bar at a drum session.

[@ScarsandGuitarspodcast]

Adrian is definitely on my radar. He's missed the last three times we've booked in to chat with each other. No dramas, he's a busy bloke and we will eventually chat. I met him in 2001 and he was easily the most pleasant member of the band back then. Very engaging and willing to chat with the fans.

[@Industrialist2015ofUk]

@@ScarsandGuitarspodcast So true. Look forward to your quest of the Ryan brothers and furthering Dusk👍

[@DanaOrtiz]

I’ve been wondering what happened to this genius. He was a huge inspiration to me when I picked up guitar.

[@leerutledge6517]

Funny how Paul chose the Midwest as opposed to the more trendy parts of the country..namely of course California, or the Pacific Northwest. Shows an admirable modesty. Good luck Paul

[@CØFFĮN_ÐĘLĮVĘRY]

Dude, have you ever been there? As beautiful as it is out there, the homeless have turned basically the entire west coast into a giant toilet.

[@kuldude2084]

As someone who lives right next to seattle I can attest to that.

[@Madhouse_Media]

Or it could be because you can live in the Midwest for a fraction of the cost.

[@lloydtownsend5306]

I love Paul's enthusiasm. If he's in the dirty mitten (Michigan), I'll buy him beer!

[@necronorris]

I met Paul back in 2009 in Vegas when said band was touring for Said album. Cool fucking dude. I didn't know he started driving truck. That is wild to me, because he is soooo talented.

[@metalfactor666]

I hung out with Paul in Seattle about 12 years ago when Cradle played at Showbox, I took Paul to DejaVu to see strippers, then we went to your bus to have some beers. Paul is really cool dude. I can't wait to see his new band

[@KevinHallSurfing]

Met him 2013 in Sydney while on tour then later on Skype. Was early and suddenly he popped up! Oh ... Paul Allender! WTF? In shock so we agreed to hang up, get a cuppa then back to Skype. 😮😆He'd just moved to St Paul at the time and chatted about White Empress and what he was doing, setting up a studio in the basement.Good bloke to talk to. 👍

[@MatthiasLetsch]

Cool chat and I fully understand the fact that he doesn't want to talk about Cradle. But I have to admit that this makes me curious and I would be interested: Wasn't this a mutual decision? Was there any bad blood in Pauls departure from the band? Because I always thaught that he just decided to go different paths and everybody was cool with it... Paul was literally the mastermind behind the music of cradle of filth (besides Vocals) until 2012 and I love his style of guitar playing and all Cradle outputs he was part of. My favourites (yes actually none of the first three, shame on me): Midian, Damnation and a Day, Godspeed. I even do appreciate the not that popular "Manticore" album. I actually do like the newer stuff with Ashok and Richard Shaw too. What I always liked with Cradle of Filth is that every Album has its unique sound and sounds a bit different from the others. I am very hyped for "The Unnamed Horrors". Because he is a fckn beast and that's just basically going to be good :D

[@ScarsandGuitarspodcast]

Paul certainly has a story to tell. If the day ever dawns that he wants to share his testimony regarding CoF, I hope I can help. IMHO, The UnNamed Horrors" blows anything he did with CoF away, perhaps except for the first two CoF albums. What a great bloke too.

[@yuriyv4239]

without Paul's guitarwork Cradle is not Cradle. There were 2 pillars Paul and Dani, I do respect all the other musicians, those are professionals definetely, but those could be replaced... And Paul could not ever be replaced. Good luck to you Paul and best warm wishes from Romania :)

[@saltpeter7429]

I just got into COF this year. I had heard Cruelty back in 98, just didnt get into em because I was judgemental about the "hot topic" look, my bad. I love DAMNATION and every album up to MANTICORE. They are fucking brilliant. I am a lifelong MAIDEN fan, and to me Paul really brings a great melodic Maiden feel to COF. I think it's funny that all sorts of people resent Nynphetamine and Thornography, essentially for being outstanding. As if sucking and being "grating" and unrefined is virtuous. What a load. Nothing wrong with popular metal music, Priest, Ozzy and the Scorpions have nothing to be ashamed of in my book. I like the last 3 COF albums, they are decent, but they are not up to the standards of the Allender releases.

[@Aquarius999FJS]

Wow new music from Paul? Yes! I do love old Cradle, to me Midian is THE masterpiece and my all time fav Cradle since it came out. So, I am into esoteric things a little bit, hearing you talking about the universe and hawking and so on: maybe it would be interesting for you to read Vivekananda. The hindu knowledge is deep. And I remember Jon Nödtveidt to be interested in, but he failed, in my opinion. Because his "interpretation" of Kali is wrong and he mixed it up so that may have led to his suicide. It would have been helpfull if he knew something of Ramakrishna. But hey, I talk to much.

[@MeduFiles]

Aloha Andrew! Interesting podcast. I am glad that Paul is alright but I don´t understand why talking about Cradle is a "taboo". Anyway, I have met him several times, during his CoF times and he was funny, polite, interesting, attractive:-) Now you got to find Gian, haha ... Come on, bring him to a podcast! He has been essential for the band as well.

[@ScarsandGuitarspodcast]

G'Day! Thanks for tuning in! Paul has his reasons for wanting to exclude CoF talk; he told me what went on in the group and what I can say is that he deserves better, and I understand his reluctance to talk about the past. Out of all the ex-members I've spoken to, he was the one that surprised me the most. It's no secret that I don't rate the group's post-millennial output. Still, Paul has written some classic riffs, particularly in his post-CoF group White Empress, and he deserves loads of respect for co-writing 'Principle' and most of 'Dusk'. I hope this doesn’t sound odd, but I reckon I would have found Paul to be the best company if I was in the group and on tour for months on end. RE John (Gian)... if the opportunity ever came up to chat with him, I’d take it. But Nick and Stuart have so comprehensively covered his contribution, and I’m not sure there would be much to cover except to ask him to comment on what they’ve said.

[@cadaveric_perversions]

Get Paul Ryan on the show. He’s got some stories.

[@ScarsandGuitarspodcast]

Yes I’m trying, he’s a hard fella to contact though✌️

[@Erfilth69]

Paul, I miss you in the COF

[@WillVRam]

Paul chosed to find ways to get out of his mental pain by himself. I wonder how different would be if he had a good help from a good psychologist.

[@damienhelmold6978]

I came to hear him talk about cradle. since he doesn't want to discuss that I don't much care for what he's doing in his life rn honestly.

[@Bermondseybob]

Same for me. I wanted to know why he left, came back, then left again and general Cradle stuff. It's an empty interview otherwise for me. Shame, as the others have been fantastic!

[@laporte1625]

@@Bermondseybob From what other members have said in other interviews on this channel, one can make pretty educated guesses...

[@Bermondseybob]

@@laporte1625 I know, that's why I'm so interested! I kind of knew the bands manager from the demo days and was hoping to hear about him and from what I understand, he was responsible for the split after Principle by telling the three who left that they'd be better off in a new band, so The Blood Devine was formed. I was kind of hoping that would get clarified or not...

[@laporte1625]

@@Bermondseybob I'm of course also extremely interested by what he has to say, about the first and second break-up. Something is obviously very fishy with Mr Filth, the revolving door policy ever since his first departure, and then that of of Nick, Stuart and Les can only hint to this. But I also respect that for whatever reasons, maybe even by fear of lawsuit, he wishes to remain silent for the time being.

[@justhannah3960]

For his sake, I'm glad he seems happy and settled. But yeah, I came for the Cradle talk.

[@WillVRam]

18:35 is organic

[@comtederochefort3021]

Has the album been released already? The UnNamed Horrors album. It's 2024 and I can't find it anywhere.

[@arksin11]

short teaser demos sounded exactly like new COF material.. my guess there are some legal copyright issues with COF, sound is way too similar

[@Ivy-u6h]

The whole point of listening to the interview is too HEAR about his thoughts on Cradle and there albums they did together so moving on. Sorry Paul bore the crap out of me

[@ghaianthaljie220]

Paul allender

[@tommyragnar2174]

Cradle of filth found form again when Paul left