July 25: Dani Filth - AKA Lord Filth - founding member of the metal band Cradle of Filth, is 40-years-old today.

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Dani Filth was born Daniel Lloyd Davey in Hertford, Suffolk, England on July 25, 1973. His earliest bands were Carnival Fruitcake, The Lemon Grove Kids, PDA and Feast on Excrement, and he named Judas Priest, Venom, Emperor, Destruction, Slayer, Iron Maiden, Sabbat, Misfits, Paradise Lost and Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas among his major influences.

He chose a career in music over an internship at a newspaper, although his "Dani's Inferno" column ran for two years in Metal Hammer during the late 1990s.

Today, Dani is the front man of one of the biggest metal bands in the world. Over nearly two decades and eight epic albums with Cradle of Filth, he's established himself as both a metal legend and an expert on Gothic horror. Since forming Cradle in the early 90's, Dani has played to huge crowds at Ozzfest and the Download Festival and starred in a horror film called Cradle of Fear.

There's been a great deal of angst and controversy along the way. For instance, the band's notorious "Jesus is a C**t" t-shirt offended many. Although Cradle of Filth has said it is not their mission to offend, they recognize that many don’t appreciate their fascination with the darker side of human nature that's reflected in their songs.

Dani has co-written and released The Gospel of Filth with Gavin Baddeley. The book, which Dani describes as an "occult study," features contributions from Clive Barker, Christopher Lee and Ingrid Pierson. He had been accused many times of being a Satanist, but has denounced such rumors, claiming instead to being "more of a Luciferian."

Away from Cradle, Dani appeared on the Roadrunner United CD in 2005 - contributing vocals to "Dawn of a Golden Age" - and his high profile has also led to a handful of film and television roles. In 2003 he provided the voice of the eponymous main character in the feature-length animation Dominator.

Dani was ranked 95 in the Hit Parader's Top 100 Metal Vocalist of All Time. Filth recorded a song with Claudio Simonetti and Simonetti's band Daemonia, the song "(She's) The Mother of Tears (Mater Lacrimarum)," is on the soundtrack of the film The Mother of Tears.

In 2000 he appeared in the movie Cradle of Fear as The Man, a deranged psychopath taking revenge on his father's persecutors.  An homage to the cult Amicus anthology Asylum, Cradle of Fear unfolds four stories all linked by the thread of an incarcerated child killer wreaking vengeance on those responsible for his imprisonment. The film also starred David McEwen, Edmund Dehn, Emily Booth, Eileen Daly, Rebecca Eden and Emma Rice.

His latest record, Godspeed on the Devil's Thunder, tells the story of an obscenely wealthy 15th-century French aristocrat and his experiments with alchemy and witchcraft.

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For more about Dani, visit his Website at -

www.cradleoffilth.com

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