[Interview] Paul Cooper - A Clockwork Opera - April 2015

Based in Manchester, A Clockwork Opera fuse symphonic metal with all things Victorian and steampunk. Having recently made their live debut at the first edition of the UK's only symphonic metal festival Northern Symphony, I caught up with the band's guitarist, songwriter and all-round main man Paul Cooper.

What's the meaning and concept behind the band's name, A Clockwork Opera?

To be honest it seemed like a natural choice for the band's name. I came up with this relatively early on. The first few songs I wrote were quite Steampunk themed so the Clockwork comes from there. The Opera part is simply from the fact that it was always going to be a Symphonic Metal band but I also had the intention of including some form of theatricality to our image.

You recently made your live debut at the Northern Symphony Festival, what was that like for you and do you think it was a success?

Northern Symphony was amazing. It showed the wealth and diversity of the current Symphonic Metal scene. We were all very excited about playing there, especially considering it would be our debut. It was definitely a success from our point of view and it was a great opportunity to introduce ourselves to the right audience and meet new friends at the same time.

When can we expect to see an album or EP released?

There are no guarantees yet but we plan on entering the studio in the next couple of months. We are likely to release an EP first since we're so eager to share our work with everyone.

What plans are in the works for the band?

More gigs, obviously. We can't reveal the details at the moment but we will be announcing more dates very soon. And also recording. At the moment we have Rowan Andrews, who created our logo and the artwork for Femetalism (support this site!) working on some concepts for sketches for us.

What are the major lyrical themes and concepts in the band's music?

Whilst we try not to pigeonhole ourselves so people can interpret what we do in their own way I think it is rather obvious that we have a strong Victorian theme. We write about history and we write stories but we try to make everything relevant to the period. Everyone has their own input to the writing process but I mainly write stories. There are characters and there are plots. Like any author, every character I write about has a back story and a life of their own.

Where do you see the band being in five years?

I think it's a little bit too early to know at the moment. This band is still in it's infancy and we are just trying to get a name for ourselves. I'd just like us to still be here in a year, let alone five at the moment.

Given the chance, which band would you tour with?

Everyone in the band would answer this one differently. I'm not sure I could pick just one either. My biggest inspiration musically is a band called X Japan. Not many people over here know them but in Japan they are MASSIVE! I would donate limbs to support them (Not mine, obviously). On a smaller more achievable scale, there is another band from near us called Reign of Sirius who are excellent. Their music and themes are of a style that work very well with our own and we would love to do more shows with them in the future.

How did the idea for A Clockwork Opera come about?

I started this originally about two years ago on my own. My intention back then was to make a Steampunk metal band. I soon came to realise that this gimmick would wear thin very quickly and would have been so niche that it would probably never catch on. That's how it came to expand to having a Victorian theme, Steampunk stories would still work whilst then having a much larger scope of themes to draw from.

A Clockwork Opera online:
http://facebook.com/aclockworkopera