5 Questions With Paradise Lost’s Nick Holmes: 70,000 Tons of Metal, New Concert DVD + More

With more than two decades of music in their history, Paradise Lost continue to adapt and reinvent themselves. We had the opportunity to chat with the band's very down-to-earth frontman Nick Holmes, who talked about Paradise Lost's new DVD Symphony for the Lost. He also expressed his excitement for the upcoming 70,000 Tons of Metal cruise where he’ll be pulling double duty since he will be performing with both Paradise Lost and Bloodbath. Check out our interview with Nick Holmes of Paradise Lost below:

The 70,000 Tons of Metal cruise is coming up. What are you looking forward to most about the experience?

There are so many bands that are kind of like friends of ours, I don’t think I’ve ever been in one sort of place where there’s so many people I actually know. [Laughs] It’s going to be quite a good hang out, I think, I’m looking forward to that aspect. I’m looking forward to seeing everybody on the cruise, you kind of just drift around with a beer in your hand. I’m also looking forward to getting away from this weather, it’s f---ing really horrible here.

There are so many bands on this cruise. If you could join one band on this cruise, besides Paradise Lost, which band would it be?

I was going to say Bloodbath but I’m in that as well. [Laughs] Oh I don’t know, just Vallenfyre because I know them all and they’re my friends. I could probably do some backing singing for them or something like that. There are a lot of really good bands on there as well, Aura Noir and At the Gates maybe?

With over 25 years of music and 14 studio albums in an industry that’s unpredictable and forever changing, what does this longevity mean to you?

It’s our life, we’ve seen it change completely. I don’t understand why people moan about, “It’s not like how it was anymore” because that doesn’t matter, it’s about how it is now that’s all that matters. It’s about the here and now, that’s what the music business is about. You have to change and you have to adapt to what’s going on around you, you can’t go on about the past all the time. We try to adapt, I mean it’s very difficult now to make a career in music, the biggest thing is that you really have to work now.

We kind of came along at the end of an era  late ‘80s, early ‘90s and you didn’t have to do much work to be very successful but now you really have to work, you have to tour a lot and really know about the business. It’s almost like a real job. [Laughs] I think people in the ‘70s and ‘80s and early part of the ‘90s they didn’t have to do very much to have quite an easy life. Teenagers and young bands now have really adapted and they know what they have to do and what’s required of them, they do work hard.

With Symphony for the Lost, even though the music of Paradise Lost is no stranger to the orchestral element, what made you want to take orchestration to the next level with the DVD?

We’ve always talked about it but especially with a doom metal back round you think of it because there’s long stretches of string arrangements and there’s long gaps between note changes. We’ve always used strings on certain songs over the years, we just got the opportunity to do it in that lovely setting and we thought it was an interesting experiment and project so to speak, just to try it out. We didn’t get a great deal of time to rehearse with the orchestra or anything and we didn’t even meet the choir they came along on the night, we didn’t know what they would do at all. It was all very organized behind the scenes and it was good fun to do. It was about trying to do something a little bit different and the crowd was fantastic, a really superb atmosphere.

What does the rest of 2016 have in store?

Bloodbath, we’re going to do the shows on the 70,000 Tons of Metal Cruise and see what happens. Katatonia [which features members of Bloodbath] is starting to get really busy now, they have a new album out, and Opeth [of which Bloodbath's Martin Axenrot is a member] are touring all the time. I don’t know, we’ve had a great year it’s been fantastic, we’re going to do these two shows and we’ll see what happens. Obviously Katatonia comes first for the majority of the guys. We’ve had a real blast doing it, it’s been great.

Paradise Lost, we’ve got quite a few bigger festivals coming up, a European run, we did a lot of touring and missed some of the summer festivals so we’re doing it this time around. I guess sooner or later we’ll get round to working on another album. It would be nice to get to the states, I mean we are doing Maryland Deathfest but it would be nice to do a proper tour of some sort in America, we always try to get over there.

Our thanks to Nick Holmes of Paradise Lost for the interview. For more information on the band’s new DVD 'Symphony for the Lost' click the button below, and get info on the 70,000 Tons of Metal cruise here.

Watch the Trailer for Paradise Lost’s DVD ‘Symphony for the Lost’