Interview: Paul Roland Re-releases 'Lair of The White Worm'

Few artists have built a world quite as distinctive as Paul Roland. Across a prolific career, the British cult songwriter has carved his own corner of the musical underground: steeped in Victorian fog, esoteric folklore, baroque psychedelia and a distinctly literary imagination. His latest release, Lair of the White Worm, remains one of his favourites, standing as a significant work in his catalogue: a record where his long-running obsessions and sonic influences merge with rare cohesion and intensity.

Drawing on imagery from Bram Stoker, the Plague of 1666 and Greek myth, the album evokes a cinematic realm of eerie characters, historical phantoms and fantastical dread. It is storytelling at its most vivid – dark, theatrical and unmistakably Roland.

We spoke with Paul about the making of Lair of the White Worm, writing as world-building, the relationship between history and imagination in his work, and what continues to inspire him after decades of music, myth and the macabre.

Congratulations on this release! I understand it’s an album you made a long time ago. Can you tell us why it’s a special one for you? 

It’s the album where the disparate elements all came together and blended seamlessly – goth, baroque psychpop, dark pagan folk and even a hint perhaps of prog in the 10 minute title track. All these elements were present on earlier albums but the fantasy, supernatural and historical subject matter is more pronounced on this one and the songs are very strong too, so it sounds like a culmination of everything I’ve been working towards. Add to that the ethereal female vocals from Joran of German dark folk group Elane and Anna Barbazza from my young Italian band and you have a rich layered texture of rock and acoustic instruments that adds to the magical vibe. As you can tell, it’s an album that really gets my juices flowing!   

This record draws from imagery inspired by Bram Stoker, the London Plague, and Greek Mythology. This is a really diverse and rich pool to draw from. What is it about these imagery and storytelling that inspire you? 

I love to create graphic novels, lurid horror comics and mini movies in the listener’s mind, evoking atmospheric places such as gas lit Whitechapel and historic periods like the Edwardian, Victorian and Regency era when colourful characters strode the foggy streets of London – be they serial killers like Dr Neil Cream and Jack the Ripper or eccentric inventors who’ve stepped out of an H G Wells novel. But with ‘Lair of the White Worm’ I felt I’d covered all that and didn’t want to repeat myself. That’s why I set it aside for a couple of years(!) something I never would have done before. I tried writing about Greek myths and Tolkeinesque fantasy, but I couldn’t get past the usual cliches. It was a form of writer’s block, lyric wise. Then I had the idea to write about the London Plague of 1666 because of that one striking image of the plague doctors in their grotesque beaked masks and that broke the damn, so to speak. 

Stoker’s novel is actually very weak and the Ken Russell film is dire, but I remembered a modest little Hammer Horror called ‘The Reptile’ about a young girl turning into a snake and that really appealed to me!  Ordinary, mundane things don’t do anything for me, It has to be the fantastical and larger than life characters – be they historical or fictitious.    

Do you have a favourite song on the record? Why? 

‘Master Boil and Mistress Sore’ is the single and probably the most immediate and appealing track because it has that sub Led Zeppelin vibe. I stole their riff from ‘The Immigrant Song’ but why not? It’s too strong to have spawned just one song! And I really like the lyric ‘Mother Shipton roused from sleep, ran a-wailing into the street and raised a finger to the sky.

“Behold, a judgment on us all, there will come a fireball

That looks for all the world like God’s own eye” 

 I take a lot of care with my lyrics so when they turn out well, I’m a happy man.

For people just getting to know you from Lair of the White Worm, what record or project would you recommend they turn to next?

If they liked the heavier tracks, I would recommend two themed compilations on my bandcamp site – ‘Come To The Sabbat’ and if it’s the acoustic songs they like, then the ‘Psychpop Minstrel’ compilation should please them. If they want a physical CD then I would suggest ‘Reanimator’ (with its Lovecraft and Poe inspired tracks) or ‘Bitter and Twisted’ which is me in Addams Family mode!  

I think it’s fascinating the way you weave stories into your music! As a writer (please tell us more about this!), do you think this influences the way you write music, perhaps compared to the traditional musician? 

I don’t think that I write music differently to other songwriters, but certainly my lyrics are more concerned with evoking a scene or in distilling the essence of a character. I’m not interested in writing about my feelings or personal experiences mainly because I want to tell stories (in songs and my books) but also because other people do it so much better than I could. And writing short stories set to music - as Greg Lake aptly described my songs – frees me to trawl the galleries of English history for subjects and the pages of any novel that appeals to me for characters. When I adapt a Poe or Lovecraft story, for example, I want to capture the quality of their language not just the plot. I think that’s the difference between my songs and what a metal band might do. They think that merely repeating the name of, say Cthulhu, conjures that whole world Lovecraft created, but it’s as potent as singing ‘Mars bars!’ You have to find key phrases in the original story that take you into that world and you can’t use prosaic language because it’s anachronistic. The Victorian characters didn’t speak as we do. There is an eloquence that is missing from our language and you have to have a feel for it if you are to invite your listeners in to your macabre fairground of the mind.

As for my books influencing my songs, no I wouldn’t say that writing all those books on True Crime, the Occult and even my biographies of Marc Bolan and Lovecraft helped me to write better lyrics. No. But each one helped me to write better books!        

With so much experience in the music industry, what advice would you give to yourself when you were younger? 

Have patience! I was far too impatient to finish and release my first few albums which would have been much stronger and more consistent if I had waited just a few months and written more songs, then chosen the best dozen to record. Instead, I recorded what I’d written and they all had to go on the album. But then in my defence I had no producer or manager to advise me. And I had too diverse a range of interests and influences then. I’d be more consistent and discerning now – I hope!

Do you have a favourite moment from your time as a musician? Maybe a story from a tour, a festival you played, or something you released. 

There are so many. The first time the audience gave me a standing ovation was stunning. I thought they were getting up to go home until they stood there and applauded. Then there was the first time they sang and clapped along to ‘Gabrielle’ and the first – and only time – someone jumped up on stage in Greece and hugged me and had to be pulled off! The first time we played at the Metal Magic festival in Denmark was another as I honestly expected to be pelted with bottles by all these huge Vikings with tats and painted faces, but instead they sang along with the songs and roared when I took the stage. In the studio every session the tracks come to life when we overdub something that adds a new colour is a buzz and of course recording with artists I’ve admired like Robyn Hitchcock, Knox (the Vibrators), Andy Ellison and Nick Saloman (aka Bevis Frond)  is a great delight.

How has your relationship with Lair of the White Worm changed since it first came out? 

It hasn’t! I’m reading the biography of Geddy Lee of Rush (a band I don’t actually like) and he is constantly complaining about post album depression which his something I never suffered from. If I don’t like something, I’ll remix it or fix it or dump it. Ever since my return to music in 2003 after a 7 year absence, I’ve made a point of not releasing anything until I’m absolutely happy with it, so I stand by all those albums. The earlier ones are not so consistent, but I was barely out of short trousers when I recorded those! 

And what does the album represent to you now in the trajectory of your career, and what did it represent to you when it first came out? 

It was a ‘difficult’ album in the sense that I had to shelve it for a couple of years until I came up with the themes for the lyrics, but once the ideas started to come and the vocals were added, that struggle was forgotten. On the rare occasions when I listen to my own albums I just can’t believe all the work that went into it, though I don’t consider it work. It’s the best fun I could imagine – recording with other people you can share the pleasure of creation with. I find it a flawless album – an especially strong one and one that is the realisation of all that I wanted to achieve – and did thanks to my band and the two guest singers.  

And lastly, what do you hope audiences will feel when they listen to Lair of The White Worm, and your music more generally? 

I hope they will be transported to a realm of strangeness and wonder. 

Listen to Lair of the White Worm:

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