One of doom metal’s most distinctive voices discusses the unexpected birth of High Parasite, life after My Dying Bride, his bond with melancholy, poetry, and “The Forever People II” with The Choir of Agony.

Aaron Stainthorpe

INTRODUCTION

For more than three decades, Aaron Stainthorpe has been one of doom metal’s most recognisable voices. His work has never treated darkness as decoration. Grief, literature, stage fright and transformation have shaped both his lyrics and his presence as a performer. Following the end of his time with My Dying Bride, he is now opening a different path with High Parasite, a band built around shorter, more immediate songs and a sharp instinct for memorable hooks.

Speaking to Black Metal Chronicles, Stainthorpe discusses High Parasite’s unplanned beginnings, the movement between clean vocals and death growls, his life after My Dying Bride, unfinished poems and the present state of doom metal. At the centre of the conversation is a collaboration linking Türkiye, Brazil and the United Kingdom: “The Forever People II”, reimagined with The Choir of Agony and The Cross.

ARTIST PROFILE

Aaron Stainthorpe is an English vocalist and lyricist who spent more than three decades shaping the language of gothic death-doom metal as a founding member of My Dying Bride. He now stands with bassist, vocalist and songwriter Tombs at the creative centre of High Parasite. The band introduced its self-described “Death Pop” sound, moving between metal, gothic rock and dark synth-pop, on the 2024 debut album “Forever We Burn”. In September 2026, High Parasite released the standalone single “The Screams That Come” and confirmed that recording for its second studio album was complete.

High Parasite

INTERVIEW WITH AARON STAINTHORPE

By Senem Semiz & Zeynep Çolakoğlu | Black Metal Chronicles

You have returned with a brand-new project, High Parasite. How did the band come together? How would you describe the music you are making with High Parasite? Is this still Aaron Stainthorpe following his own path, or is it something genuinely new that you are allowing yourself to explore?

HP is most certainly a new thing for me! I didn’t create it; that was a guy called Tombs. He writes all the music and was looking for someone to sing death metal vocals, so he approached me. Then, before I knew it, I was part of the band! It happened very quickly and was not planned at all. HP is a sort of goth/rock/pop entity where the songs are short but very catchy, which is very refreshing for me, and I am loving it!

Your voice carries both clean singing and death growls, and they never feel like two separate choices; they feel like the same emotional current shifting registers. How did that duality develop in your technique over the years?

After years of death metal vocals, I was always going to dive into clean vocals at some point. I did a little with MDB back in the day but applied that technique more and more as my career went on, and so it seemed a natural thing to do with HP. I am perfectly happy doing either style these days.

You officially parted ways with My Dying Bride in October 2025. Is there anything you would like to say about that, or would you prefer to leave it where it is?

They kicked me out due to a huge misunderstanding, which is regretful, but I have to move on. I have not given up on the music, though, and much more of me singing MDB is coming...

Your lyrics are often described as literary or biblical, but I think the more precise word is deliberate. You have said that you never rewrite, that the emotion lives in the moment the pen meets the paper. What do you do with a lyric that arrives incomplete? Do you wait, or do you let it stay unfinished?

Good question! I have books filled with unfinished pieces, which I delve into from time to time, and I often put several of them together to form an entity of their own, sometimes as a lyric for music and sometimes as a poem. I never really stop writing. It’s just something I have to do.

Doom metal has always borrowed from literature, but your lyrics absorb it differently, as structure rather than reference. You do not quote Byron; you write the way he made you feel. Which writers, beyond the Romantics, have left that kind of structural residue in you, the ones you cannot read without hearing rhythm and weight?

It is true that I cut my teeth on second-generation Romantics like Byron, Shelley and Keats because that was what we had to learn in school, and I loved it! However, I keenly dove into wider material as I grew and matured, seeking unknown authors and quirky poets from libraries and old bookshops. I have hundreds of poetry books these days and have become something of a collector. There are too many poets I like for me to name them all here, so just head out on your own journey and make the discoveries for yourself.

My Dying Bride, Paradise Lost and Anathema came from the same part of England at roughly the same time, but the relationship between those bands was closer to rivalry than kinship. From your perspective, what was actually in the air in Bradford in the early 1990s? When you compare that moment with where doom metal stands today, what has the genre kept, and what has it lost?

It does seem quite the coincidence that all three bands emerged within five years of each other, in the North of England, and all signed to Peaceville Records. I suppose it was something in the water! But it was a great time for that genre, and the area. Every band worth their weight played in Bradford because it was THE cool place to be. And we had a good variety of venues too, to cater for all sizes. Those days are long gone now, but the spirit still remains. And the genre is huge, with many spin-off branches all helping to keep the scene healthy. It might seem miserable, but it’s still fun.

Some people who spend years inside doom metal eventually step away from it. They say the darkness becomes too heavy over time, that it starts to feel less like catharsis and more like weight. You have lived inside this music for over thirty years. How do you think about the relationship between melancholy and the people who need it, and those who eventually leave it behind?

I completely understand why people love it, need it and leave it. The scene is darkly heavy and overwhelming at times, and folk dip in when the need arises, and once satiated, move along to something lighter and more easily consumed. I, however, love it. The sheer weight! The sharp darkness. The palpable nuances of grief. It feeds me, and in return, I give it back everything I have. I’m not so much trapped here; I’m guarding the gates!

The way music reaches people has changed completely since My Dying Bride released “Turn Loose the Swans”. Record labels, media and the underground scene are all different now. When you look at new bands coming through, what do you see? Does today’s metal infrastructure support the kind of music you have spent your life making, or does it work against it?

There is good and bad in everything, and ways to make things work and ways to fail. The music business is all these things! Starting out as a new band these days must be very difficult, as there are almost too many ways to get your tunes heard. Back in the old days, we just gave it to the label and they released it, then we went on a promo tour to speak with the magazines. Nice and simple. Now it’s a bloody nightmare! There is a sea out there waiting for new bands to navigate it, but beware! It is fraught with hidden surprises and sharks!

You have said that the nervous energy before a show transforms you into the character you become on stage. With My Dying Bride, you also said that character came at a cost, because reliving those words each night was mentally draining. Who is the man who walks off stage after saying “goodnight”? How long does it take him to come back?

I have no idea how this came about. It was just me terrified of going on stage, and that terror transformed me into another character, one with the strength to go through it. I am lost in a dream when I am performing, becoming the people I wrote about and living the turmoil I put them through, which may well be karma! Before going on stage, I am on the point of physical sickness and want to be anywhere else in the world but there. After the show, good or bad, I take some time to come back down to a normal human who can talk coherently and understand what is being said to me. It is far from ideal, but it is who I am.

Working on “The Forever People II” with The Choir of Agony and The Cross connected you with a new generation of doom from a very different geography. The original “The Forever People” belonged to My Dying Bride, and now it has been transformed into something entirely new. What was it like to step into this special project?

I love the new version! It was a great pleasure to be able to take part in it. Hearing an old song transformed into something bright and new was exhilarating. I love hearing MDB songs performed by other bands, as it often sheds light on things I wasn’t even aware of when we recorded them!

We know you have been in talks with Prophecy Records about a poetry book, possibly accompanied by a recording of you reading the poems to music. Could you tell us more about it?

I have chatted a bit with them, yes, and hope that it develops into something tangible, but let us see. A poetry book IS coming; it’s just a case of who will give me the best help and advice. And if I decide to self-publish, I will let everyone know where to get hold of it, but ideally, a publisher is my aim. I have been writing for over thirty years, and it is about time I shared my literature with others.

Aaron Stainthorpe

If it were your last evening on Earth and you had one glass of wine and one piece of music playing in the background, what would you choose? Not what pairs well by any rule. What would feel true?

A lovely bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape, at room temperature, and the entire recording of “The Serpent’s Egg” by Dead Can Dance. Perfection.

CLOSING WORDS

“The Forever People II” brings Aaron Stainthorpe together with the Turkish gothic death-doom band The Choir of Agony and the Brazilian doom metal band The Cross. The collaboration does not simply repeat an older song. It allows musicians from Türkiye, Brazil and the United Kingdom to place a familiar piece of doom history inside a new international context.

Stainthorpe’s response captures the point of the project. Hearing the song become “something bright and new” shows that he does not regard his musical past as a sealed monument. In the hands of other musicians, it can reveal details that were not even visible when the original was recorded.

“I love the new version!
It was a great pleasure to be able to take part in it.”