Cradle Of Filth: Our Kind Of Scum And Villainy

Playing with toys was only part of their childhood memories. For some of them, dressing up as their favorite character was a way for them to show off their Star Wars pride to their schoolmates. "I tried to dress up as Boba Fett once when I was young which obviously looked a bit daft seeing as most of the armor, as far as I can recall, was made from breakfast cereal boxes," Filth laughs. "Nowadays, I'd like a real suit to dress in, but really what I'd like to do would be to dress up as Jar Jar Binks and then spend the rest of the day violently beating myself up as some kind of penance for my actions."

"If, in the UK, Halloween was celebrated more back then, I'm sure I would have wanted to be Han Solo," Pybus says. "Being Boba Fett was just way too complicated. But I had a Han Solo blaster so that helped a lot. Plus I thought he was the coolest. I used to want my hair like his, and a belt that he had for my blaster."

"I used to really want to be Luke Skywalker, but would flicker between that and the Emperor," Hedger adds. "Now I know I want to be the Emperor."

Which begs the question of which characters the guys feel closest to. "I'd say I'm Boba Fett, obviously, while my friends refer me to more of a C-3PO type, probably because I'm always quoting stats and probabilities," Pybus laughs. "I guess I'm too geeky to be Fett in the end."

"I probably identify most with Anakin," Hedger says. "He's kind of a good guy, but his frustration at the way life works causes him to do evil things. Good intentions, bad methods, and unnecessarily angry at even the slightest provocation. Seriously -- I just stomped on a tomato for falling off my plate."

"I can understand Darth Vader's motives for turning to the dark side in defense of Padmé, and I like his tyrannous demeanor during the original films," Filth explains. "Plus there is his inevitable redemption at the hands of his son. So all in all, quite a packed life!"

Even though the band has their favorite characters they identify with the most, there's still quite a few characters they wish had more screen time to satisfy their craving for a richly detailed backstory. "I always thought that Boba Fett wasn't given enough screen time in the original trilogy, this was obviously made up for by the inclusion of his father Jango," Filth says. "I used to think that he could have been involved in a few more skirmishes with the Rebels. Also the bounty hunters assembled to track down the Millennium Falcon in Empire could've had a bigger part to part in the movie, especially IG-88. I mean there's plenty of dolls of each of them which hardly justifies their allotted screen time."

"Greedo is underrated," Pybus says. "He was a cool bounty hunter before Han Solo ended his film debut within a few minutes of him making an appearance. I just loved the way he talked."

"For me, it's the A-Wing pilot who crashes into the Super Star Destroyer," Hedger says. "He pretty much wins the battle, and I can't even remember his name."

The band enjoys comparing notes on which characters they'd like to see join ranks with Cradle of Filth. "We're already like a ragtag band of Rebels fleeing the tyranny of the music industry!" Filth laughs. "Characters I would like to be in a band with would be Princess Leia (Jabba's palace version) for obvious reasons and of course, Darth Vader for the getting everybody off of their lazy butts by utilizing his Jedi mind control. Sy Snootles would be pretty handy as well, as would the medical droid 2-1B for all the bust-ups and hang-over remedies."

"Jabba the Hutt -- his vocal style would have been awesome for a slow, doomy Goth band," Pybus laughs.

"Max Rebo would be a great band-mate," Hedger says. "He seemed to be doing pretty well for himself, until that whole getting blown up thing."