Aaron Stainthorpe says he never intended to leave My Dying Bride and calls his 2025 dismissal the result of a misunderstanding.
Aaron Stainthorpe co-founded My Dying Bride and sang for them for 35 years. He says the reason he was dismissed rather than allowed to walk is that he had no intention of walking.
Speaking to Paul McNamee on “The False Face” show he described the split as something he tried and failed to resolve.
“That doesn’t bother me anymore. I’ve moved on. Obviously, I was gutted when [it happened]… I mean, it was a misunderstanding, which they don’t believe that it is what it is. And I tried to prove that it was a misunderstanding. They weren’t interested. So I think they wanted me out — I don’t know why — a long time before that. Anyway, it happened. I was heartbroken. I couldn’t believe it. Luckily, I had High Parasite to sort of catch me as I fell, which was great. And then Mark Deeks approached me about doing maybe some keyboard stuff, singing My Dying Bride songs. So I thought, ‘Okay, it’s not necessarily over, me and My Dying Bride music.’ So we did a few things together. It was great,” he explained (as transcribed by Blabbermouth).
He said he has no interest in a public argument about it.
“I don’t care what they say about me now,” he continued. “We all know why it happened and how it happened. If they wanna spout some bulls**t, well, that would be the measure of those people. I’m not getting into any online spat because you will just bury yourself if you do that. Everyone will laugh their socks off, and it’s no good for anybody. So, I don’t follow any of them anymore. I’m not interested in anything they’ve got to say. By kicking me out, they showed their cards. If they want to continue to beat me, that’s absolutely fine. But I think the more people who see that will realize what kind of a band they’ve turned into.”
Asked how long he thought the decision had been coming, he pointed to a conversation with co-founding guitarist Andrew Craighan.
“Well, God, I have no idea,” he replied. “I remember years ago, [My Dying Bride co-founding guitarist] Andrew [Craighan] would say to me, ‘Look, if you’re gonna leave, at least give us plenty of notice.’ ‘I’ve no intentions of leaving. What are you talking about?’ I would never leave My Dying Bride, and I said that right till the end, which is why they had to kick me out. I had no reason to leave, because I’ve done nothing wrong, despite whatever B.S. they’re gonna come out with. But, as I say, I’ve already moved on. I’ve got a hatload of exciting things ahead of me.”
My Dying Bride abandoned their 2024 touring plans citing what they described as a profound sense of discontent within the band. They then brought in Mikko Kotamäki of Swallow The Sun to front their 2025 live dates, and confirmed the permanent split with Stainthorpe in October last year.
Their statement at the time:
“My Dying Bride have decided to part ways with vocalist Aaron Stainthorpe.”
“Please understand that this decision does not come lightly, hence our initial and painful silence while we gathered our thoughts and carefully considered our response to the disengaged, eerily abandoned state we suddenly found ourselves in.”
“Our collective decision to move forward without him is not something we thought we would ever be forced to say, but to ensure a continued legacy for what we hold dear to our hearts, we simply have to move past this. Whilst change can be difficult, we are doing our best to bring this new chapter forward with powerful positivity.”
“My Dying Bride are not on hiatus, we were never on hiatus.”
“However, we do genuinely wish Aaron all the luck in the world in his new solo endeavours.”
Stainthorpe announced Towards The Sinister on July 24, taking the name from My Dying Bride‘s 1990 debut demo. It reunites him with founding guitarist Calvin Robertshaw, original bassist Ade Jackson and founding drummer Rick Miah, the first time the four have played together in close to 30 years, alongside guitarist Chris Revett, keyboardist Mark Deeks and violinist Emma Allington. The idea took shape after Stainthorpe ran into Robertshaw at Fortress Fest in Scarborough and a subsequent reunion between the old bandmates circulated online.
Towards The Sinister signed with The Kirby Organization for live representation this month, with Ian Shaw handling them in the United Kingdom. Warm-up shows in England come first, with European festival dates expected next summer, and new material is planned alongside the old.
Stainthorpe said the reception so far has surprised him:
“It’s been nothing but positive. You always hope, when you’re embarking on a new journey, that people welcome you with open arms, but it’s no guarantee. So you keep your fingers crossed, and you just hope that you’ve got all the right ingredients in the right place, the right people, the right music. And you’re just never sure. People might think, ‘What’s the point?’ And other people would be absolutely in rapture. They’ll absolutely love it. But it seems to be the ‘loving it’ thing, particularly when we decided that we’re only gonna focus on the first four albums and the in-between EPs. Because the rest of the guys, they weren’t involved in writing anything after that, and they’re not interested in playing anything they didn’t help write. They helped write the first four albums, so they want to play the first four albums, so we’re going to. And it’s something we’re all very much looking forward to.”
On whether that window might widen to include later My Dying Bride material, he left the decision to the others.
“Well, I’ve been singing all of them, obviously. So I’m gonna leave that decision up to those guys. They all obviously are aware that I’m going away for a few days, and I’ve just said, ‘Right, you do the T-shirt designs. You work on the posters. You guys do everything, while I do absolutely nothing.’ But they’re happy to do that. And I will suggest — I thought I may have suggested in the past, but come to think of it, perhaps I didn’t, or maybe it was over a beer and we all forgot — maybe they do have a think about doing something beyond the fourth album. But that’s entirely up to them. I’ve been doing all the music for 30 — I think 32 years. So it’s up to them if they wanna learn something new… But we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. I mean, even with the four albums and the EPs, that’s a lot of music. And typically, when we announced it, we already had the setlist nailed down. And of course, there’s hundreds of people asking for songs that are not on the setlist. But they will be. We intend to get through as many of the early albums as possible. Most of the songs we’re gonna try and have a go at. But we obviously we can’t do them all. The long songs, some of the festivals we’ll only be playing for 40 minutes or something like that, and some other festivals want us for an hour and a half. So we’ve learned about an hour and 20. And I’ll throw in some jokes to flesh it out. And then we’ll probably play this setlist — I don’t know — for a year, I guess, and then perhaps start introducing one or two other songs. But we will get through the good majority of that early cannon at some stage. But we’ve gotta learn to walk before we can run,” he concluded.
The four albums in question are As The Flower Withers from 1992, Turn Loose The Swans from 1993, The Angel And The Dark River from 1995 and Like Gods Of The Sun from 1996, along with the EPs released between them.
Stainthorpe‘s other band High Parasite released their debut Forever We Burn in September 2024 through Candlelight and Spinefarm, produced by Gregor Mackintosh of Paradise Lost, and went on to support Cradle Of Filth across the United Kingdom and Ireland. My Dying Bride‘s A Mortal Binding, released in April 2024 through Nuclear Blast, was his last album with them.
