The Sacred And Profane: An Interview with Hanging Doll

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Sally Holliday (vocals), Dan Leddy (guitars) & Alex Cooper (drums)

“The photographer had a top hat, tried it on, thought that looks good… same day, Alex comes back to the flat, had a lovely cup of tea, had a fag out the window, the sun was shining, was a lovely day… I digress. Went to town on the same day, bought a top hat, and I thought ‘I’m gonna wear that!’, so I did. It looked good, and y’know what, no-one has worn a top hat on stage before…”

It perhaps shouldn’t come as a complete surprise that despite their music being very dark and very emotionally intense, the band Hanging Doll are rather light-hearted and jovial behind the scenes. Having already released the sublime and moody Reason And Madness, Hanging Doll have reconvened to record their new opus, The Sacred & Profane. Being a band that are strongly linked with the Birmingham music scene, the band not only have easy access to places to practice and record, but half the group even work at the studios and venues the band often utilise. On a Bank Holiday afternoon, three members of the band: singer Sally Holliday, guitarist Dan Leddy and drummer Alex Cooper, met up at Arkham Studios, situated just next to the Asylum venue in Hockley, Birmingham.

“I’ve worked here for the last ten years, I was managing the rehearsal studios to begin with.” begins Alex, talking about his studio; “I was doing a lot of recording sessions in the recording studio, because I had done that at college and stuff like that. We did a couple of albums here, working with Andy Faulkner who worked with Bolt Thrower, and Greg from Esoteric, on the last album. I wanted to evolve it into something that I would do personally.”

He continues, elaborating on the band’s involvement with the scene; “We’re very much on the scene in Birmingham anyway, me and Dan are always out and about and meeting people and all the rest of it. Sal as well. Its always good, we’re just big fans of music anyway, so being around it all and being all about it, it’s not a bad life really.”

Indeed, any visitor to the Asylum venue next door is likely to run into one of the guys in the band. Guitarist and fellow co-founder Dan Leddy can often be found in the venue’s unusual surgeon’s uniform, a peculiar outfit for a bartender. The pair discovered the venue and what was then just a bunch of rehearsal rooms in the very early days of the band.

“It was a college band.” says Dan, referring to Hanging Doll’s origins; “We came here because we needed somewhere new to rehearse, so we formed in college for the end of term gig.” The gig in question was something the band’s original singer had asked the two to help her with, as Dan continues; “It was a paid gig that was just a bunch of covers, Skunk Anansie, Pumpkins, Alanis Morrisette…”

“ We wanted to put a very British slant on the sound ”
- Alex Cooper

Despite the band’s humble beginnings, both Alex and Dan realised they worked well together, and so around the turn of the century, the band was born. Originally, the band thought they had uncovered a new sound, a mix of string arrangements, hard rock and female vocals. They were in for a bit of a shock.

“When we heard Evanescence… ” Alex explains, almost cursing; “It was right up our alley, not in the pop way of doing things, but it was very much with the string arrangements that we were throwing in, and we were like…”

Dan continues; “We thought we had created a new sound here, and then we looked at Europe and were like ‘Oh…’ ”

“When we first heard Comalies by Lacuna Coil… ” Alex begins, before being interrupted by Dan, recalling their first listen to Italy’s finest; “I remember playing that to you in my mum’s living room, and I think you actually wet yourself. It was The Ghost Woman And The Hunter. The chorus kicked in and you went; ‘Turn it up, putting the kettle on.’ That was just a good day for everyone.”

Whilst the band realised perhaps that they hadn’t uncovered completely new territory, they continued on regardless, evolving their own unique take on the sound. The early days weren’t entirely stable, with several line-up changes, but for the band this proved to be only a good thing. Through these line up changes, they eventually found the members that would become part of the band’s now stable line up.

“The first time it really made sense was when Kev auditioned.” comments Dan; “We needed a new bass player because we had a guy playing with us called Ben, and he was good, don’t get me wrong he was good, but it’s not his style. He’s more into his Sikth.”

Not long after that the band hired keyboard player Aryan ‘Oz’ Amoli, as well as changing singers from Emily Brownhill to current vocalist, Sally Halliday. The singer’s dark, haunting and sometimes ethereal voice, often breaking into full operatic song, helped define the band’s progressing sound. With Sally, Oz and Kevin on board, the band began work on their first album (or second album, if you count the unreleased album before Sally, as Dan describes; “The lost album – henceforth known as”).

“I love that album,” enthuses Alex as they talk about Reason And Madness; “I think it’s really good. It really captures a time for us.”

Dan laughs; “2007!”

“Was it 2007? That was ages ago.” comments Sally; “There are little bits I hear and go ‘Ah, I wish I could change that bit…’”

“Reason And Madness was the first album when we had Kev in and things started to make sense.” muses Dan; “It became less and less just two people saying ‘This is the song, make something up’, to a completely group effort.”

Alex adds further; “I’m glad we started releasing stuff with Reason And Madness, because that does flow more. I think there’s a maturity about Reason And Madness.”

“The new album maybe more so.” continues Dan.

Which leads us to the band’s new album. A good three years on from the release of the band’s official debut, the band are finally getting ready to release a follow up. The album might certainly prove surprising for fans for the band.

“I think it’s really matured again, it’s so much stronger.” speaks Sally of the album; “Everything about it, every single part is just got so much stronger… even more catchy in a way, and darker.”

“I think it’s an album of polar opposites.” begins Dan, his tone perhaps a little tongue in cheek as he explains; “If I may draw metaphors, look to the title. There are some songs, I hate to use the term radio-friendly, but they’re radio-friendly. They’ve got the big choruses, they’re catchy, so they would be the sacred. Where’s others are really heavy, really dark, and they would be the profane.”

Perhaps a little cheesy, but Dan makes a good observation of the album’s material. The group were kind enough to give a sneak peek of some of the songs recorded for the album so far. The album’s title track, The Sacred & Profane is a massive change from the band’s established style. As the song starts, Dan quickly asserts that the song is the most radio-friendly of the album’s tracklist, which is probably just as well. Production-wise, the song is lightyears ahead of the band’s last record and competing with some of the best produced titles in the symphonic metal scene. It clearly sounds like a good choice for a single or video release, being far more accessible than anything that came before, but still sounds heavy enough to retain credibility, even ending with some great guitar work from Dan. Following on, Bound In Servitude and The Final Descent share more of the mood shown in Reason And Madness, but at the same time come across as much larger. Some of the vocal tracks for these songs hadn’t been completed, though Sally was kind enough to add live vocals on top. The final track the band previewed, Dark Narcissus (The Forest), sounds like possibly the heaviest and most menacing song the band have done to date, complete with monstrous strings that would make the likes of Dimmu Borgir jealous. Have the band matured? Absolutely. From just a limited preview, The Sacred & Profane sounds like it could be the best thing to come out of the female-fronted metal scene in the UK. Period.

“ This album is like ‘Here’s the pills, here’s the vodka, get on with it’ ”
- Dan Leddy

“We wanted to make it very heavy. I mean, we’ve always been about that anyway.” states Alex; “We wanted to put a very British slant on the sound. We didn’t want to be like the Europeans, who are very… I wouldn’t say they’re light, some of the albums are very heavy but we want to be a bit more earthy with it I think. We’re not pretending to be from anywhere else. We’re not trying to jump on that bandwagon, we want to carve out our own style. There’s a lot of things on this new album where we tried to pull in lots of different influences to try and make each song its own individual story, but be a part of a whole concept.”

Like last time, the album follows a rough theme. Reason And Madness stuck to the themes of love and sex, usually in rather twisted and bitter terms such as on Forlorn, A Formidable Mistake and Iniquity. Such lyrical themes perhaps show some of Sally’s more gothic rock influences; this time round, the band have gotten a lot more dark.

“This one is more about death,” tells Dan; “But not in the classic ‘oh I feel all depressed’, it’s death in its literal sense, its metaphorical sense. It could be literal death, death of faith, death of your own sanity, that sort of thing. Not so much death I guess, loss is more the theme really.”

Quietly, Sally adds; “.. and addiction.”

“It encompasses a lot of the darker emotions,” comments Alex; “Where the first one was very much about love and hope, and all those sorts of things.”

Sally laughs; “No hope! But it’s not depressing.”

“Its not depressing?” Dan says, shocked; “Yeah it is! This album is like ‘Here’s the pills, here’s the vodka, get on with it.’ ”

Shrugging, Sally replies; “I don’t know, in a weird way I kind of find it uplifting.”

“I think the music side of things can be at times very uplifting” Alex interjects; “But we’re all very dark lyrical content. I think it’s just who we are… I think when we do the shiny happy album… you can write that one off. There’s a lot of things that have gone in our lives over the last four years that have helped us write this one.”

“I stepped on a plug once.” Dan remarks, lightening the mood to some laughter; “…and he asked me if that hurt, that contributed.”

“ I think when we do the shiny happy album… you can write that one off ”
- Alex Cooper

With the first album released on their own and distributed through Cargo Records, there is a bit of a question mark as to who shall be releasing the band’s second album. The band claim to be ‘in talks’, but are keeping their lips firmly shut as to whom they might be discussing with. There is, however, a big push to get the album out before the band make their debut in Europe, at the exalted Metal Female Voices Festival. Alex smiles; “We love doing festivals, they’re great.”

“Most of our gigs have been these kind of all day festivals.” adds Dan; “I’ve forgotten what a real sound check is like. This kind of gig draws the real fans I think. Everyone there is a fan of the same music.”

Sally agrees; “It introduces new bands as well.”

“We’re very lucky to be on that one, Metal Female Voices IX in Belgium that we’re really gearing up for, and putting a lot of promo in for.” continues Alex; “We really want to put it across to the European fans. This will be a break through gig for us. There’s a real scene for us over there, really. It’s whether we get welcomed with open arms, or they go ‘what you trying to do?’. It was lovely cause when we were talking to [festival organizer] Phil, he said that he had the album and really loved it. He was even talking to me about the songs on the album so he had obviously listened to it, it wasn’t just a line. So that was a real comfort really. I think Phil does well out of it, he does enough to put it on every year.”

With any luck, the gig might will be the break the band need to break out of the relatively small UK scene and into the bigger symphonic metal scene on the mainland. Hopefully by then the band will have made good on their promise on finally delivering their long awaited second album, an album that is sure to set the bar for all other female-fronted metal bands in the country, and quite possibly the rest of the scene as well.

Written by James Donovan
More: Interviews, Hanging Doll