Inspirations:

Tony had started Screaming Dead, was walking through a park late one night in 1984, passing a patch of nightshade, when the inspiration came, "I want to do Pagan music". The idea for a song came at the same time, originally called "A Dream Of Yesterday", it eventually became "Song To Pan" on the legendary "Wytches" album.

History of IS and preceding bands:

In 1986, Tony's first band, "Screaming Dead", broke up. The last ever Screaming Dead recording, never actually performed live by the band, was "Underworld", which re-surfaced nearly a decade later on the third Inkubus Sukkubus album, "Heartbeat Of The Earth".

Sam, the vocalist with Screaming Dead, left, hence the split, and Tony moved to London, where he began to work with Lee Boote. Together they formed a band generally known as the "Night Creatures", although they also played as "Sanctuary" and were at one point briefly known as Incubus Succubus! Back then everything was still recorded on tape. The Night Creatures recorded "Star of Venus", with Tony singing. Interest in the Night Creatures material was shown by (author of "Have I The Right To Touch You), who offered to buy the rights to "Meloncholy Blue" for two thousand pounds. Tony turned him down.

Just after this, Lee bought an S21, one of the very early sequencers. This was just before the Pet Shop Boys took off. Tony had an R21 drum machine, and Lee had the S21, so Lee programmed the sequencing for "Star Of Venus", while Tony was learning how to use the sequencer. Tony subsequently programmed "Midnight Queen", one of the tracks that eventually made it to "Belladonna And Aconite", the first of the "modern" Inkubus Sukkubus albums. Tony and Lee recorded several other tracks which became the forerunners of Inkies classics, "Take Back To Heaven In A Dream" became "Goblin Jig", while "The End Of Love" became "Burning Times", another of the classic tracks from the "Wytches" album.

Back in the 80s; before the Internet was known, being openly pagan was somewhat riskier than it is nowadays, and soon enough rumours began to circulate that Tony was involved in sacrifice and other unsavoury practices, and the Night Creatures split up.

Tony continued to work, on his own in a studio in London, recording "Melencholy Blue", "End Of Love", "Fire and Ice", and "Love Is A Weapon". He was almost signed up by FM-Revolver Records, who amongst others had legendary rock act Magnum under their wing, however the label was owned by a Baptist Christian who walked away from the deal when he learned that Tony was a Pagan.

Later, with friends Paul and Grahame, and the R21 drum machine, Tony formed a new band, "Resurrection". Paul, though a drummer by preference, played bass at several gigs.

Tony then went to college in Cheltenham, but continued to play with Resurrection until one particularly bad gig after which the other two left and so the band split. However, at college Tony had met bass player Adam Henderson, and keyboard specialist Jason, who both shared his interest in paganism and the occult, and the three of them began to rehearse together. This was at the start of the Autumn of 1988, and they took the name "Bellas Knapp", after a local long barrow.

Not entirely sure where they were going musically, one day Jason's dad handed over the full lyrics to a song called "Pagan Born". The band replaced almost all the actual lyrics, but kept the name and concept, and thus what was to become Incubus Succubus was born.

Tony, Adam and Jason rehearsed together through the end of 1988 and into 1989, during which time they met Candia, also at the college. Finally, at the end of the 1989 term, Candia joined the band as singer. Together they all agreed to ditch the name "Bellas Knapp" because it rhymes with "crap"!

Over the next five months, Incubus Succubus recorded many tracks, with the drum machine for backing, including all the tracks on the "Beltaine" album, at this point released on cassette. Soon drummer Bob Gardener joined, and the band began to play gigs arround Cheltenham and Gloucester. Meanwhile Tim Oaks, a pagan friendly DJ, started promoting them, and they also sent copies of their cassettes to a great many of the pagan fanzines which had sprung up in the previous few years. The tapes were well received, and the band's fame began to spread.

They recorded a vinyl EP, however the first pressing came back warped, at which point Bob and Adam left, leaving Tony and Candia to form "Childern of the Moon".

Candia's brother in law is Howard Worf, in who's studio many of the early CotM tracks were recorded. During this period working in Howard's studio, Tony bought a Yamaha QX5 sequencer and learned to program it, recording the results on 8-track tape. This was the material that formed the "Beltaine" album, originally released only on cassette. Copies of this tape were sent to many pagan fanzines, and once more, they were very well received and tha band's fame spread still further.

Beliefs:

Tony and Candia have somewhat different personal beliefs, though they are both definetly Pagans, and both have a deep interest in the darker side of magic and belief. They have both participated in various pagan groups and organisations over the years, however they feel that all too often people get into paganism for the wrong reasons, and use it to get power, or prestige, or just for sex. Candia is more of a traitional Wiccan, while Tony's beliefs encompas both the Faerie Kingdom, and Vampyres.

Tony's beliefs mix aspects of Hinduism with Western Paganism, and he feels the two paths have a great deal in common. He sees the Gods as boths aspects of a greater force, aspects of self, and aspects of the universe in general. Gods and Goddesses personify universal power. As this power is universal, it can also be tapped into, if enough people believe in any given form, that form is made real.

The Music Industry

I asked Tony what he felt about the issues of Internet file trading and the RIAA's crusade against it. He said that on the one hand, if there is less money, then there will be less new music produced and less publicity for bands, but on the other hand if the RIAA suceed, music in general will lose. While there may be fewer commercial recordings, MP3 trading does mean more fans, which in turn mean more live shows. While I was in Gloucester, Tony showed me a CD obtained from Russian music pirates, featuring all of the band's albums bar Supernature, all on MP3 on this single CD, with a professionally produced inlay and track listings. Without vast resources there is little that can be done to stop things like this, but at least it does mean people in Russia get to hear the band's music.

His final point was however that while free trading of MP3 files is one thing, ripping off artists for profit, as the Russian pirates are doing, is morally wrong. You should never seek to profit from the work of someone else without paying them a fair price for the work.

The Future?

Tony originally expected "Wytches" to be Incubus Succubus's final album, so everything since then has been very much "shall we do one more?". Back in 2003 there were no plans beyond recording "The Beast With Two Backs" and touring to promote it, though of course since then there has been the Witchqueen EP and an 11th album is in the works, so we'll all just have to wait and see what happens next! Whatever the future brings, though, you can be sure that Tony will continue to produce music. It's both a passion and a way of life, not the kind of thing you can just walk away from.