Cathedral was one of the few bands to come from the late eighties playing a slower form of metal that is now known today as doom. As one of the forefathers and certainly one of the innovators of the genre, Cathedral have built themselves a legendary reputation. Several months after it's European release, Cathedral's latest offering, "The Garden of Unearthly Delights", sees it's North American release. Metal Coven takes this opportunity to talk with vocalist Lee Dorian about the new album…

Lee: I've got no idea. It just kind of happens sometimes when people license records to the States; it's quite rare that they have the same release day. I don't really know what the reasons are, maybe it's seasonal differences or something.

Lee: Oh, cool. What do you mean? How it was created?

Lee: Well, I'd wanted to do a song like that for quite some time. I mean, in the early ninties, in between albums, we used to do EP's where we'd be a lot more experimental and diverse in the style to break away from the traditional format of albums, which would be a bit more off the wall, and we hadn't done anything like that for quite some time and it's been a long time since we'd recorded an EP. I think a lot of the people that like Cathedral's music often say that they miss the more experimental elements of those EP's. In a way, I kind of do myself, so, probably the last three albums, I'd wanted us to do a song like that, where one song would take up the whole of side two, giving us more time to focus on the dynamics of the main songs on side one. If we were to do an album again after all these years of just standard songs, you know, verse, chorus, middle section, verse, chorus, it would become a bit frustrating and a bit obvious. I think the more you do, the more creative you have to try and be, otherwise you become very stale. So the longer time has gone on, the harder it gets to stay on top of what you do.

Anyway, I've probably gone on way too long about all of this, but basically, we'd had this idea for quite some time and it was only now that the other guys listened to me and agreed it was a good idea to do. But we didn't want the song to be twenty minutes of two riffs just going nowhere, like extremely slow and directionless, we wanted it to be something that was a challenge for us to create, as well as a challenge for people to listen to, but in a way that would keep people's attention so they wouldn't drift off after the first ten minutes because it became too repetitive or too boring. We wanted it to be a song that's just continued and continued and didn't stop for breath, you know. Just like loads of different changes that went into different moods and different atmospheres. Me, Garry and Leo listen to a lot of underground progressive rock from the UK from the early seventies and late sixties and so the use of violins and female vocals kind of related to a lot of the music we listen to as individuals. I don't think Cathedral sounds at all like a seventies progressive band, but there's elements of that coming through in the music that's just showing a side of our influences, really.

Lee: (laughs) Again, I have no idea, really. It wasn't my idea; I guess someone at the record company had the idea of it. But it's a cool idea, I think it adds something to the album, but it's supposed to smell like an apple, but the only thing is that it smells like bad celery or carpet cleaner or something. (laughter)

Lee: It was a different producer, different studio, we definitely wanted the record to be less polished and a bit more raw just to capture how we are as a live band, really. More than anything. I think when a record becomes too polished, it starts to sound dull and a bit stale. We just wanted to go for a more dynamic, edgy kind of sound.

Lee: Well, it would be nice, man, but the last time we toured the States was about three years ago now; that was with Samael and Strapping Young Lad. Before that, we hadn't toured there since 1996, I think. There's major gaps. Let's say, between the times we've been over touring in the States, so I guess we'll have to see what the response is to the album, if we get a good offer on a good tour, then of course, we'd love to come over to the States and play some shows.

Lee: That was a bit lame, I must say. (laughs) We were really looking forward to playing Texas, the other show was fantastic, that was a real great show, but the Houston show… we just didn't fit in on that bill at all, man. There's a bunch of Nu Metal bands playing and stuff… they seemed like cool guys, but musically we couldn't be further away, I don't think. We opened the show, we were the first band on really early, four or five o'clock in the afternoon or something and there's hardly anybody there. Strange one. It was a bit of a shame; whenever we'd play in Texas before, it was a good crowd, you know?

Lee: They're a very professional label, they're very organized; they're the biggest metal label in the world so they've got to be on the case a bit more. (laughs briefly) I was personally involved with Earache for so many years… it took awhile to realize that we're not with them anymore. But that's what happens with bands; bands and record labels eventually break away from eachother. But at the moment with Nuclear Blast, we couldn't ask for anything better; they're very supportive and they've been very professional, which is nice after all these years. The main thing is after all these years… I mean, Cathedral's been around for almost seventeen years now, so after all that time for a label like Nuclear Blast to at least show an interest in us was a big compliment for us and gave us a little bit more of a boost, you know? They've been good to us so far.

Lee: To be honest with you, it was so long ago… whenever that question comes up, it's like "oh God, here we go." Sometimes, if I've had a few beers, I start talking about it and then regret talking about it. It's history, you know? Basically, we got thrown off the tour for whatever reason; I don't want to go too deeply into it, it was so long ago.

Lee: Columbia was one of the most fantastic experiences of my life, really; we had a great time there, but there is an element of complete corruption and fear as well. A load of incidents happened on that tour, but the incident with the cops was the last night we were there. Basically myself and Leo, our bass player, were on a beach and he lit up a joint and the next minute these cops come running over with rifles, pointing them against our heads, shouting and screaming at us in Spanish for about forty minutes. Completely put the fright in us, they were threatening to take us to jail and everything and we were "fucking hell; what do we do, man?" Luckily, we were with a couple of people who spoke Spanish and they managed to calm the cops down. Then it turns out that the cops just wanted our money, basically. The basic fact is that if the cops just came and asked for our money, it would have been alright, but they fucking stuck rifles in our faces, you know what I mean? They could have pulled the trigger at any second. But in the end it was fine, we just gave them all the money we had, but they wanted more money, which we didn't have, so that became a bit sticky. I had to go in a taxi with no money to try to find a cash point that worked with a car that didn't work in Columbia. (laughs) The whole time I was in the car looking for a cash point, Leo was on the beach still with these cops, you know? I couldn't find any cash, but eventually found a machine that worked, got back to the beach, the cops had gone and he was okay.

Lee: Oh, no, it's always my idea. The artist is a good friend of mine, so the concept is always mine. But he understands the way my mind works, he understands what I like and what kind of a person I am. He just knows me and knows what I'm going to think is good or detrimental to the band in terms of the artwork, so I always go to meet him, have a couple of beers, talk for a day or two and then he'll start working on it, but he'll keep me informed as to what he's doing and we just take it from there, really, so it's always my concept.

Lee: I put them in order; my top three. I'd say "Forest of Equilibrium" is by far my favorite one, "Carnival Bizarre" would probably be second and I think he new one is probably third.

Lee: I don't really care for these kinds of terms and stuff; I just like music, that's enough for me. I'm not the kind of guy who sits on forums being obsessed by what people listen to or what they don't. I love being metal; I love seventies rock, I love punk, I like most different kinds of music. To me, the whole stoner thing was a bit silly. I t got to the stage where bands were just doing things without any real feeling; it was just "let's try and be retro, have a silly haircut and sing about beach boogies." To me, that was a bit crap after awhile. I think it was quite good when it first started, but when it first started, it didn't have a name like stoner rock, you know. I think in the early nineties, there were some great bands around; on one side you had Kyuss, then you had Sleep, but there was also all the other classic bands like Trouble. There was some really good stuff around in the early nineties, like early Melvins; it wasn't definable.

As soon as that kind of music got a label, that's when it all kind of all fell apart and just became bands jumping on the bandwagon. So the resurgence of doom… I love doom metal, but doom has gotten to a point now where it's so hard to interpret what people's different opinion of what doom is, 'cause now doom has so many subgenres in itself. Some people would say that the first Revelation album or the first Penance album; that's true doom. Others would say early Sabbath is true doom, others would say that Carnate or Sunn0))) is true doom, others would say Electric Wizard is. People have their different, varying opinions on what's doom and what isn't, (laughs) so to me, I find the whole thing a bit confusing. Bands like Reverend Bizarre are great; they're obviously a doom band, so I think it's fantastic that there are a lot of bands coming back. But I hope they don't just go through the motions and just copy other bands; I do like to hear bands doing new things to it, as long it doesn't get silly, as long as it doesn't go too far away from the original idea. A fresh approach to doom metal would be nice, you know, and I think there probably are a few bands doing that.

Lee: No problem, man. Thank you.