“It’s a place where outsiders live. When you’re getting hit in the face for being a dirty grunger, it’s a world to escape to.” How UK goth-punks Creeper crafted a deliciously dark new world for outcasts everywhere to hide in. With vampires.

Creeper pose around a casket.

There are parts of the 18th-century church where Creeper’s Will Gould lives that he dare not venture into. Even though this former place of worship has largely been converted into flats, remnants of its previous function are still in evidence, and they give him the willies. There’s the crypt, for starters. “It’s terrifying”, says Will. “I refuse to go in there. I keep imagining that there’s something really sinister in there. Or someone.”

Then there’s the mysterious area at the back of the church, which has been blocked off by a dividing wall with a door that remains permanently locked. Or at least it did until the other day, when Will found it open. “It was pitch black in there, except for this big, stained- glass window with light coming from it”, he says intently. “I swear it was the most haunted thing I’ve ever seen.”