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What more can be said about the iconic and one of the most influential bands ever, The Sisters Of Mercy? The band, which formed in Leeds (UK) in 1980 - after achieving early underground fame - released many significant singles and three genre-defining albums. First And Last And Always (1985), Floodland (1987), and Vision Thing (1990) are - with no doubt - three of the most "cult" albums in the world as the founder and frontman, Andrew Eldritch, is one of the most significant persons of the entire dark music movement. What we now understand as gothic/dark rock and darkwave has mostly to do with The Sisters Of Mercy. Even though The Sisters Of Mercy of today is not the same band as it was back then, in the 80s and early 90s, it still keeps touring and making new songs. The devoted fans have been waiting for a new album for 33 years, but the last official studio recording dates back to 1993 when the band recorded the single "Under The Gun". Anyway, The Sisters Of Mercy definitely has enough new songs to release two or even three albums, and we have a chance to hear them live quite often, for usually, almost half of the set is based on new songs. During its 2023 tour, the legendary The Sisters Of Mercy also performed in Zagreb (Croatia) - HERE is the report - and we had a chance to talk with the guitarist, composer and back vocalist Ben Christo, who has been with the band since 2006. Maybe you already know everything about The Sisters Of Mercy, but probably not. So, you better keep reading to find out some more - still not everything, though.
Interview with: Ben Christo
Conducted by: Tomaz, Jerneja
Edited by: Jerneja
Tomaz: Hello Ben. Thank you for accepting our interview request. Let us start with the recent tour. We heard about some problems that lead to gig cancellations. Nevertheless, how it is from your point of view?
Ben: Well, you always need to look at your last show - and the last one we did was very good. I think that all our shows in the last week were very good. In fact, I will put some of these shows as the best ones I've ever done with the band. It has just been very good energy. This has a lot to do with Andrew, actually. If he's having a good time, then it goes really well, and it seems that he's very enjoying himself in the last week or so.
Jerneja: There was some talk about his health issues. Is he ok now?
Ben: Yeah, the last few shows he's been great; he's in good form. He has been singing well, and he has been enjoying himself. Like I said, you need to look at the last show to really gauge how it's been going, and it's going very well.
Tomaz: There were talks that while playing some of the early shows on this tour, especially in the UK, you were the one who stole the show away somehow...
Ben: Well, that's very kind of people to say. I think my role has changed in the last few years in terms of how involved I am in the show. When I first came to do a show with The Sisters Of Mercy, I was very much like just head down and playing the parts. As I became much more of a part of the band, I think I got a bigger role in the show, as well as in everything else. I'm writing the music, helping choose the setlist, talking about what we're going to wear, talking about the order of the songs. I've been here for quite a long time now, since 2006, so almost 18 years.
Jerneja: Guitarist, Dylan Smith, left the tour after the first show. Soon after, the guitarist Kai (of the Japanese metal solo project Esprit D'Air) joined you on stage...
Ben: .We currently have Kai playing with us. Kai is a friend of mine, and I have known him for a long time. I used to run a nightclub in London where we did covers of classic rock songs, and Kai was involved in singing a couple of songs. From there, we grew our relationship and worked more and more together. Kai asked me to cover a song with them, and I even sang it with them. I sang it with them a few weeks ago when they played in Budapest (Hungary). We toured together a lot. Then this opportunity came up. We did a bunch of shows just with one guitar during the first couple of weeks of the tour. It was going OK like that, but even though Andrew decided he wanted somebody on the stage, visually three people in the front. He thought that this was important. I thought Kai would be a very good fit for such a thing, and he's also a freaky good singer.
Tomaz: So, you were the one who brought Kai into the band?
Ben: Oh yes, it was a suggestion, since I knew him very well from before, and Andrew was very happy with this suggestion.
Tomaz: Being a part of one of the most cult-ish and influential bands in the world, especially for the gothic, wave, metal and alternative scene, how does it feel?
Ben: It's a curious feeling because, on one hand, I grew up listening to The Sisters. They were a very important band for me. If anybody would have ever told me that I'll be a part of it, I would just say, "how could this ever happen to me?". How can I, coming from a small town in the suburb of Bristol, ever become part of this international touring epic band and the entire movement? Somehow, it happened. I guess what makes it easier to comprehend is that the band now is quite dissociated from the band I grew up listening to. As you know, I presume that you are fans as well, The Sisters Of Mercy have three iconic albums, released in 1985, 1987 and 1990. Each of them has a different line-up. Each one is a very different shade of the band, a different kind of style, a different feel, and that era seems to quite disparate from where I am right now. If I say that I joined the band when it was still the original 1985 line-up, and if I was a part of that line-up, it would feel more like a real The Sisters Of Mercy thing. But because I've never been associated with any of those other members, it always felt like a kind of different band I came into and built something over the years since I joined. With Andrew and other people, it feels almost disparate from that. It's quite surreal, he's still the same man, he sings the same songs, and it feels like a completely different era.
Jerneja: How did it happen in the first place that you became a member? Did you have to go through an audition, or were you brought into the band like you've brought Kai?
Ben: I still don't really know how I got the job because I received a phone call one day from a number I didn't recognize. A voice told me that they wanted me to come to an audition. They didn't tell me what band it was - they didn't tell me anything. So, I went to this audition, still not knowing what I was auditioning for. I was told to bring along some Hendrix riffs and that we'd have a jam. I thought it was a joke, or maybe it was a cover band or something. But, they have been so vague about the whole thing, and I didn't hold any faith in it for being anything good. When I went to the audition, it wasn't even like a proper studio - it was someone's apartment. They were sitting around the room with a computer (Doktor Avalanche), a guitar and amps; it was all very basic. I didn't recognize any of those guys. We started playing some riffs. They asked me if I could play that and did a solo over that,... "Yes, I can play this", I answered, and did it. I started thinking those riffs sounded a bit like The Sisters Of Mercy. The thing is that they didn't play those famous The Sisters Of Mercy songs, but newer songs, which weren't even recorded. It had that The Sisters Of Mercy flavour and feel to it. I remember that I hadn't seen a picture of the band with the current line-up for many years, that was in 2005, and I became a fan in 1994 and haven't really followed the band for the last couple of years. So, I didn't know anything about the current line-up or anything like that. Then, I thought of playing a famous Sisters riff - to see if anybody in the room reacted. I played the riff from the song "Doctor Jeep", and the guy with a can of beer and shades said: "This is one of our songs". I said, "fuck"! I remember that point so vividly. I was looking down at my hands, and they were shaking tremendously. I was so nervous, not only because I was in the presence of the band that I greatly admired, I might end up in that band. It was such an incredibly defining moment. I was very grateful that I didn't know what I was doing until then. For half an hour, I was relaxed. There was no ceremony or something about it, like "you are going to an audition for The Sisters Of Mercy"! Oh my god, I would probably be nervous about it, and I wouldn't be sleeping the night before. This was more like, yeah, whatever. I'm grateful that it happened that way. A couple of days later, I got a phone call, and they said that they would like me to do it and asked me when I could come up and start rehearsing. At that time, I was working in a 7-11 store, my job was mostly to pack boxes, and I perfectly remember that phone call. That was in December 2005, and in February 2006, we did the first show in Las Vegas. It was a real life-changing experience. How did they get my phone number in the first place? I don't know. I know I had a MySpace page at the time, and my profile had some songs I've written and recorded everything by myself. On the list of influences, I had written The Sisters Of Mercy as one of the bands. It was without "the" because I got it wrong, haha. I think my page was connected with another page where my number was listed. I don't really know.
Jerneja: So, everything went just that smoothly?
Ben: There was actually one moment that I almost didn't get the job. They said they would call me - it was Andrew - at 2 o'clock and that we would talk more about the audition. I missed the call for a minute. My phone was upstairs, and I saw the missed call. I ring back, and it goes to the sound of a fax machine. Oh my god, I said, he's not picking up, it's a fax machine. So I went to the local internet cafe and sent the only fax I've sent in my entire life. It said: "Hey, it's Ben the guitarist here, and if you are still interested I would love to be in contact". Immediately my phone rang, and, apparently, that initiative saved me and gave me the job. I was thinking about the problem and how to solve it, and Andrew really valued that.
Tomaz: The Sisters Of Mercy hasn't officially released any new songs since 1993, though unleashed many... How much are you involved in the compositional process?
Ben: Well, all the new songs we have been playing since 2019, of which, I must count, around 20 or so, "Don't Drive On Ice", "But Genevieve", "On The Beach", "Eyes Of Caligula", "Black Sail", "When I'm On Fire", "Show Me", and many more were written by me, Andrew and Dylan Smith. As far as I'm aware, it's the most prolific the band has ever been, as one band during the career of the band. Certainly, since 1993, because if you look across the years, and yes, new songs have been written, but from 1993 until 2019, maybe there were just two songs or something per year. In that period, some great songs like "Crash And Burn", "Suzanne", and "Romeo Down", but never as many new songs in such a short period of time. Something happened with the chemistry at this point, and the band has become very prolific.
Tomaz: How does it look when The Sisters Of Mercy are composing and/or rehearsing?
Ben: If we are talking about the compositions, it can happen generally in two different ways. Either, we get together in the studio, which is much better because, in a studio space, it feels more like you came to work there. Someone would bring a song idea which is maybe around 50% done, or at least 50%, there's a structure, there's a riff, and then all three of us say what is good, what needs to be changed, maybe we should do that, and things like that. Or, it can happen spontaneously in the practice room. Andrew would say: "I'll set Doktor Avalanche to this speed, and let's just see what happens". Some songs and ideas happened like that as well. It's also very interesting how Andrew can come up with very good vocal hooks right there, on the spot. We'd be playing some music round and round, he'd step up to the mic, and sing something, and it would be like, "That's it, that's the part". Maybe he could change this or that, but no, that's the part. Andrew is very good at just listening and coming up with his iconically good thing. Particularly in the song "But Genevieve", I remember he came up with the chorus just like that. He stepped up to the mic and sang it, and we were just like, "Wow, it's amazing". It's so spontaneous and so good, there's no question about it, that's the chorus. Usually, it came in either of those two ways.
Jerneja: Does the music usually precede the lyrics, or is it the other way around?
Ben: Andrew is very good at writing lyrics completely separated from the music. In fact, what happened some other time during this process, was that he already had lyrics written, and we had some music ideas half-formed. We told him we could try and stick to the lyrics and develop the music together - fitting the lyrics. Maybe he'd need to change a little bit the lyrics only to fit the melody better. Usually, that's how it works. It was with the song "Eyes Of Caligula". As I understand, the lyrics are about Margaret Thatcher and England in the 1980s. He has had the lyrics since 1986, I think, and he just never put it to music, and now, finally, two years ago, we put it to music. It was such an amazing thing for me. He has kept the lyrics in his head for 30 years, and only now was the right time to put music to that. To just be a part of that is amazing; it is also one of my favourite new songs we play.
Jerneja: I had this question (among some others) prepared for Andrew - just in case he'd stopped by - because I think he's the only one to answer it relevantly. But let's give it a try, anyway... Regarding The Sisters Of Mercy's discography - I'm quite sure it's a band with probably the most songs with a female name in the title. I doubt those are random names, so whom do they belong to: some ex-lovers, friends, public figures, or...?
Ben: That's a good question. I think some are real people, some are figures from literature, some are politicians,... Well, I don't think Andrew ever just pulled a name out of the air and said: "Let's do a song with the name Sarah", for example. There's always some kind of personal, literature, or political relevance.
Tomaz: I'm sure this question is more than familiar to you, but still, shall we expect The Sisters Of Mercy's new album?
Ben: Thousands of times! I should have a plug and have the answer on it, haha. To be serious, I don't mind the question at all. I'm really grateful that people are interested and so hungry for it. I think that it's an absolute honour that people are interested in anything I would create. The political/ diplomatic answer to this question is: there are no plans to make a new album, and there are no plans not to make it. Andrew has never said to me that we would never make a new record, but he also never said, "Let's get together to make a new record". We certainly have enough songs for it, and during the songwriting process, we put together some demos as a part of the songwriting process. It is pretty amazing to me to record something with Andrew Eldritch, even if it's just a demo. You need to ask, why would anyone buy a record? If you are a musician, it's because you feel that you have to express something to the world, you want to have a legacy, and you want to make a difference to people, and he has already done all of those things on a huge scale. So, why would he do that necessarily again? You need motivation to go through everything to do an album, from demos, labels, arguments, press, the song order, videos, who will be a producer, who will do this, who will do that,... all of the process, and if Andrew decides to do a new album it would certainly be a big deal. It might be a massive stress, and he experienced all this in the past. Let's just go out and do some shows, so people get the new music, and we just get to deliver it with no filters and no complications. What's quite remarkable is that when people come to the shows, they record the songs with their phones. Technology has improved so much that you can listen back to those recordings, and they are good. There was one younger fan, I think he was 21 or 22 years old, and he said to me, "I love your new songs, I listen to them when I walk to the university". I asked, "How?"; he said he made a YouTube playlist on his phone and knew all the lyrics and songs. That's quite normal, I guess, for this generation to consume music like that. I'm 43 years old, and my generation, at least I do, still has an idea of a full album, the song order, which song is the first on the side two,... listening to the full production of the song. I want to have a record, and look at it, put it next to the other ones. Young people don't have such an experience. I'm also seeing people sing along with these new songs, and I wonder how they know it. Of course, they check it out on YouTube.
Jerneja: Well, I think The Sisters Of Mercy doesn't even need a new album since your strategy seems to work just fine.
Ben: That's true. Personally, it would be an exciting thing to be a part of the fourth The Sisters Of Mercy album. It's an exciting thing for a musician to hear when you record music because when you record music, it's a completely different principle and discipline than playing it live. You think about layers, elements of production, and such stuff, but Andrew is the one who has to be excited about doing it. I'm just grateful that we are playing to so many people, even if there has not been any release for such a long time.
Tomaz: The Sisters Of Mercy, even before 1990, had many songs that were never officially released. It's a band with so many bootlegs and other unofficial releases. Some days ago, I came across a new bootleg with the recorded show from your recent tour. Do you ever, as a band, listen to such releases, and what's your opinion about this stuff?
Ben: The only ones I've heard are those I watch on YouTube because I want to practice along with the songs if we haven't been on a tour for a while. Ok, I go like this: "Oh, there's 'Show Me' from Madrid, recorded in 2019, and I'll listen to that". There are many people who are good with the fidelity of their recordings. There's a guy named Ingo who does very good recordings, and you know you'll get high-quality artefacts. Some people do some kind of odd remixes, taking it live and playing drums over the stuff. There's a guy named Tobias from Sweden who did, on Spotify, an entire album of our new works. He has listened to live versions and interpreted and recorded all of the songs by himself. I, like someone who can't read music, I'm good at listening and learning by ear. I really respect that he has put so much time into this. I know it can be very time-consuming listening to YouTube videos, and wondering what the guitar did there, for example, and rebuilding everything from scratch.
Jerneja: The Sisters Of Mercy is also one of the bands whose songs have been covered the most. Last year Terra Relicta released a compilation, Coversations, and among 31 songs, three were The Sisters Of Mercy's covers. Do you ever listen to those covers, and was there one that you think was really good, maybe even better than the original?
Ben: There was a cover version of the track "More" - I can't remember the artist - I think it was a Brazilian band, and it was very epic. They were incredibly good at what they did. They took the quite straightforward song and made it really orchestrated. I think it was dark rock, maybe a bit industrial and possibly symphonic. That was a good one. Really good sisters covers are quite rare since, many times, people's perception of what The Sisters Of Mercy are is different than what it really is. So what they do a lot of times is that they take the recipe of what the song is, and they put way too much sugar in it, and it becomes just too sweet. Their perception of what the band is is different from the source material. If you strip down a classic Sisters' song is like some kind of a good, melodic, hard rock, pop song, but many do it like some kind of a super dark evil thing. By doing that, you are taking away all the charm, joy, all the power and majesty, because "it's really dark now". Stop it because the perception of the band isn't like that, and they made it too far away from the road. Andrew's vocal delivery is quite sardonic, satyrical, dark and evil, which makes many people do dark and evil covers of The Sisters Of Mercy.
Tomaz: But don't you think that, nevertheless, its rendition and its quality, these bands/artist, by doing these covers, show their appreciation and admiration for the band? The Sisters Of Mercy are the main influence for many bands. For example, Paradise Lost did a great cover of "Walk Away", and Cradle Of Filth was also quite good by doing a dark and evil version of "No Time To Cry".
Ben: Yeah, that's their style, naturally. Those bands have taken influence, and they did it in their own way, and it totally makes sense why they did it. Those are two examples where you got incredibly skilled musicians and incredibly skilled song arrangements, who did justice to the songs in their own way... In their cases, it's not like when you get another cover of "Lucretia", done by some obscure death metal band, which just made it as evil and dark as possible.
Tomaz: The past spring, you had the first U.S. tour in almost 15 years. It took that long mainly due to Andrew's political views, I guess. Do you and the rest of the band share his point of view?
Ben: It's difficult for me to define exactly what I would share of his views. We would have to sit down and have a long discussion. I think that what's important is that so many people in America, literally millions of people in America, are in line with what we are about. It's the same when people ask me about Brexit. For fucks sake, I'm not interested in Brexit. I'm interested in inclusivity and being in connection. I feel like I'm a European person. I guess that Americans must feel the same way. You can't just say that America is "this" because of "that". There are so many people there desperate to hear The Sisters Of Mercy. They love the band, and they share the band's ethos and views. Of course, it was great to be back there and to have such a successful tour. Andrew is not necessarily saying that we are not going to America ever again; it's more that things have to align in the right way to do the tour thousands of miles away from home. It has many things to do with finances and logistics, which haven't synced up over the years, and now they finally did. There are many other places in the world that we haven't played for a long time because it's quite rare for everything to align for us to go to that place.
Jerneja: The managers and promoters in the USA have different working principles. Everything is instant there - with things usually arranged on short notice, from today to tomorrow. In Europe, bands plan tours for a year or more in advance.
Ben: Yes, that's right. It's a different principle and different working processes. There is also the thing with visas and other complications. Is it worth the cost of all these people and crew, who also need visas? There are really a lot of complications that make it difficult to align.
Tomaz: The Sisters Of Mercy albums were all released or at least in control by the Merciful Release label, which is a record label started by Andrew. Is this label still alive?
Ben: Actually, I don't know. I don't know if it was just a name or a bigger distribution back then. Sorry, I really don't know much about it and what's going on with it.
Tomaz: Among the three official The Sisters Of Mercy studio albums, which one is your favourite?
Ben: Ah, that's a tricky one, isn't it? It would have to be a combination of all the three. It's symptomatic for the albums from the 70s and 80s to have three or four standard songs, and then there would be other songs that are perhaps more B-sides, or esoterical, weird or whatever. My ultimate Sisters album would be ten songs taken from all three albums, but I would also add "Alice" (1993 version), and "Temple Of Love" (1992 version) to that album because they are amazing songs. It's really hard for me to say my favourite because my favourite songs are on all three albums. I absolutely love "Lucretia My Reflection", and "When You Don't See Me", I love "Amphetamine Logic", and they are from three different albums. I'm not so keen on "This Corrosion" if I'm fair enough. In fact, when I first heard it, I didn't like it at all because it's a bit pop-ish, a bit silly, while "Lucretia My Reflection" and "Dominion" are fucking majestic. Later, I found out the reason "This Corrosion" was written - Andrew wanted to make a statement about pop music. It's so pop-ish because it's a statement about pop music. The irony of it is that, of course, it became a big pop hit. It is why "This Corrosion" is so very different from all other The Sisters Of Mercy songs - because it was specifically and ironically written to sound like a pop song, which it then became.
Jerneja: What about the audience? Are there some songs they want to hear, and has this been changing through the years?
Ben: Funny enough is that when I came to the band in 2006, the band didn't play "This Corrosion", and it took quite a long time to play it live. Now it's played on every show, and I love it - it's a high moment of the show, even if personally it's not a great song for me to play it. The synergy of people is an amazing feeling.
Tomaz: So, which songs do you most enjoy playing live?
Ben: I love to play "Lucretia My Reflection", "Alice", and "Dominion/Mother Russia"; also some new ones. I enjoy playing them, and they are going very well. "On The Beach", "Eyes Of Caligula", "Don't Drive On Ice", and "I Will Call You", are all good to play, and since I was a part of the composition, it feels even better to play them. Those are all amazing songs. Oh, and then look at the setlist, there's also "Temple Of Love", which is another one that is very good to play. It's amazing to see that the iconic "Temple Of Love" is played together with, for example, "Eyes Of Caligula" - the song I was a part of the writing process. It's such an amazing feeling.
Jerneja: Will you play any new, never-played-before-song on tonight's show?
Ben: I don't know. We sometimes don't decide on the setlist until an hour before the show. It's depending on how we feel. We had a discussion if we would try this today. I guess we are not doing a new song tonight - maybe on some other occasion. My guess is that the set tonight will be similar as on the previous two shows, but I don't know for sure. It might be something different.
Tomaz: Does the audience usually know the new songs? How do they react to a new song?
Ben: The series of new songs we've been playing in the last couple of years is that even if they don't recognize the song, I believe that these new songs sound like The Sisters Of Mercy. So, the style, the riffs, the atmosphere, I can see people feeling positively excited about the music because it sounds like the band they came for. Because it sounds like the band, people are very receptive. We re-arranged the setlist a little bit because now it works much better. It was actually Kai's idea to make it like one recorded released song followed by a new song. By doing this, we got some kind of a balance, and it's a nice landscape for people, and then at the end, we do two, three or four songs that everybody knows.
Tomaz: We talked only about The Sisters Of Mercy, but Ben Christo is known also for other bands and projects. You are involved with the band Diamond Black, which released a single, "Through The Misery", a couple of months ago, a very well-accepted one. We shall know since it spins on Terra Relicta radio. So, what's next for Diamond Black?
Ben: Next year, we will start the UK tour and a couple of European dates, which we will announce very soon. We want to accompany it with a new single or an EP. Last year was very slow-going because of some behind-the-scenes things that we needed to sort out, but now I think we'll have a much more progressive move forward. I'm very excited to be doing and releasing new songs with Diamond Black again.
Jerneja: We talked about many things, though it could be many more. But all things come to an end eventually, so did this interview. Thank you again for taking the time for it. Is there anything left to say?
Ben: I would like to say thank you for waiting for The Sisters Of Mercy to come back to Croatia for such a long time. I think the last time we played here was in 2008 or 2009. I really appreciate people's patience and that they believe in us and support us. I'm sure tonight's show will be much better than it was back then, just because we developed as a band and have a synergy in the songwriting. Back then, it was still very early days for me, and my influence in the band was very small if anything. Thank you for the interview.
Photo credits (from up to bottom):
1 + 9: by Nat CHerry/Flashbang
2 + 4+ 7: by Elke Bredenbruch
3 + 5 + 8: by Tomaz Vogric
6: by Rock Art Vision
10: by Paul Grace & Dimitar Alexov
The Sisters Of Mercy links: Official Website, Wikipedia
Ben Christo links: Official Website, Facebook, Instagram
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