THE DEVIL'S MOUTH Vol. 139: (another) ten rounds with Aaron Stainthorpe
There's a lot of new things happening since Aaron first guested on our show - let's find out what.
It’s been almost four full years since the legendary Aaron Stainthorpe first had a go at the Ten Rounds challenge of our regular podcast. It was still a baby show when we managed to get the famous singer to be our main guest on episode #26, published on November 6th 2020, smack dab in the middle of the plague. Since then, a lot of things have changed, obviously, including the fact that calling him the frontman for My Dying Bride isn’t enough anymore to describe his artistic activities. Well, actually, if you call it “artistic”, you’d already have to include his brilliant artwork (check out his website Azzron for more on that), but yeah, even within the confines of music only, there are a few more things to add now to Mr. Stainthorpe’s list of achievements.
Most notably, the great man is now a frontman for another band, High Parasite, a high energy, ferociously catchy “death pop” outfit whose debut album ‘Forever We Burn’ was released just last September 27th. It came as a bit of a surprise, and as Aaron has told us during the conversation, it happened almost accidentally, but the band is indeed making some waves, with some very interesting live shows announced and more planned for the future. Aaron is excited and he describes the music as “frantic” and “upbeat”, check it out for yourself with the player below if you haven’t yet.
And no, it doesn’t mean he doesn’t have time anymore to do My Dying Bride, and now, it has nothing to do with the hiatus MDB are on right now - as he will also patiently explain once again during this episode. This is simple Another Thing, okay? A thing that he has time for, as are a few other activities that are revealed over the course of the show, including an exciting possibility for regular poetry readings in the company of musicians such as Mark Deeks and Jo Quail - already with its first of hopefully many similar events to happen in January in Antwerp.
As you can see, there’s plenty to talk about, not to mention a whole new list of ten songs that the British singer is passionate about, that have lead to the most wonderful tangents and surprising discussions. From not knowing what to do on stage (and will taking dancing lessons help?), to heartfelt homages to beloved heroes like Tom G. Warrior and Michael Gira (who both get two songs on the list), not to mention sneaking ecclesiastical fellatio into his lyrics, and a marvellous occasion where we go from Leonard Cohen to Bathory in the same conversation with just a couple of degrees of separation, it was a riot to have Aaron on the show again.
He also did promise us to appear on it eight times more (seriously), so let’s try to hold him to that in the future. For now, Aaron’s second go on the Ten Rounds is available on our Mixcloud podcast home, just a click away. You can also click on the first image of the post to get there. Tune in and have fun.