Bido Lito! April 2015
songs…”
“I’m
unconsciously
afraid of becoming
a little self-indulgent,”
Danny continues in hushed
tones, “but I’ve experienced so
much internally… and also I find
that to my mind the meaning of life is
– well, there is a meaning. Which I think is
the biggest statement you’ll hear all day. The
meaning of life can be found only on the inside;
it’s something that can only be experienced. You can
have pointers from books and pointers from other people
but ultimately it’s about what you can find within yourself
and how deep you can get.”
“People can make spiritual breakthroughs, and sometimes it
comes through trauma. That can be part of the process in which
you break though the psychological structures of your mind and
into something deeper. I’ve been fortunate enough to meet
a person, or at least one, possibly more, who was able to help
me access infinitely deeper realms of life within, deeper than
everyday life would have you believe is possible.”
It is this breakthrough to which Danny credits his lyricism – a
breakthrough that came at an incredibly difficult time in his life
and proved to be transformative. “In 2005 I had this therapy in
which I was able to break through the psychological structures
and difficulties I’d been in and suddenly access something
incredibly beautiful and incredibly deep – a deeper state of
consciousness, a higher state of awareness.”
His frankness should perhaps have come as no surprise
considering the nature of the band’s music, but it’s nonetheless
remarkable to hear him talk so candidly about what is for many a
touchy subject. However, this touchiness, it seems, is something
he’s experienced first-hand. “I meet people who don’t know me
very well, and somebody might make a comment that playing
in cathedrals makes them feel a little bit strange because all
religion is evil, for example, and I could – and I did – speak for
three minutes on the subject and realised I was getting nowhere
and just dropped it. But life isn’t that black and white, and religion
isn’t that black and white.”
Having found his groove, Danny reaches for the most
fundamental thoughts this run of shows has called him to
reflect upon. “The best way I can put this is to say that at the
deepest level of reality there’s something incredibly profound
and beautiful and it’s timeless, it’s outside of time altogether. We
are life itself, and we are absolutely and indivisibly connected to
the heart of the fabric of reality, and because it’s outside of time
it can’t die. Only things that live in time can die, and that’s cells,
molecules, atoms; but this is something non-physical. There’s this
divine, almost inconceivably beautiful presence inside everything,
inside the heart of the fabric of reality, and no words can possibly
describe it, but everything that is comes from it. If there’s one
word in the English language that flows from this presence it’s
love – the truest word I’ve ever known.”
For many fans of Anathema, it is this focus on love which
creates such a deep connection between them and the music
– and something which has not gone unnoticed, as Danny will
soon be releasing a solo covers album called Memory And
Meaning
Meaning, funded in part by offering personal performances and
dedications of their songs.
“Dreaming Light has been chosen almost twice as much as any
Dreaming
other song, and it’s almost always for a romantic reason, connected
to a partner. So I don’t mind doing that. I can’t sing it like Vinny
though, but I do a sincere version, and that’s the main thing.”
Whilst it’s Danny who writes much of the music for the band, it’s
his brother Vinny who brings it alive with his astonishing vocals.
As he explains, it’s the combination of talents and personalities in
the band which led them to be where they are today.
“The songwriting team that I’m at my happiest and most
comfortable with is Vinny, John Douglas, and me. We’ve grown
together so long – John understands music on a particularly high
level, and he’s a fucking lunatic [laughs]. In the best possible
way! He’s hilariously funny, absolutely hysterical, and people
who don’t know him can’t see it
because he’s so quiet. It’s been
a long time you know, and
I think there’s a lot of
love there. He’s not
scared to put
me down if
I
need
13
bringing down a peg or two, and he should never be afraid of that
– there’s no kingpin in this band, that would be inappropriate. I’m
very, very grateful to have them. They’re soulmates.”
The reflective nature of both Danny’s speech and the band’s
anniversary celebrations gives the conversation a rather intense
air of nostalgia, something which seems to be at odds with their
usual mantra of ‘make it, and move on’.
“It’s just for this year,” he explains of the quarter century
anniversary. “We’ll move straight on again next year. Vinny
was against the idea of doing any kind of nostalgic thing
at all, but I told him ‘Look the next album won’t sound any
different; we’ll just do it for a laugh!’ And that was the idea,
and it will be fun, and to be fair we do owe Duncan Patterson
and Darren White a debt – without them I don’t think we’d
have done what we’ve done. Who knows where we’d be – it
took Darren to get the band started really, his organisation
and focus. And it took Duncan to take the band into new
musical areas, melodically and in terms of songwriting –
writing with piano, and having Vinny sing th