BARNEY GREENWAY of NAPALM DEATH: Continual Evolution Leads To Revolution
An interview by Sarah Kidd.
They have been touted as the pioneers of grindcore; others prefer to call them extreme metal, and while truth be told, none of the founding fathers remain, there is no denying that the lineup of Embury, Harris and Herrera lead by the rather pragmatic Mark ‘Barney’ Greenway is synonymous with the name Napalm Death and has been since 1992’s Utopia Banished.
From the band’s humble beginnings in 1987 where debut album Scum produced the world’s shortest song – ‘You Suffer’ coming in at 1.316 seconds long – to their last release in 2015, the aptly titled Apex Predator – Easy Meat; Napalm Death have continued to push boundaries both musically and topically.
October sees Napalm Death once again return to our shores [sadly minus Mitch Harris, who while still a member of the band is currently on hiatus and will not be touring] and in true English style they are bringing along a couple of friends in the form of Mexican extreme metal band Brujeria and UK grindcore supergroup Lock Up [Napalm Death bassist Shane Embury originally forming the band].
I recently caught up with Barney to discuss humanity, the tour and themes for the upcoming new album.
Napalm Death has moved from strength to strength over the last few years and this has been illustrated by your record sales; in particular with the last two albums, ‘Utilitarian’ and ‘Apex Predator’. In a largely digitally dominated world why do you think this is?
“You know what I couldn’t say! We have not done anything any differently, this is the whole point … it’s the point I’ve made several times before. Bands are really struggling right now to sell the physical sides of things, as in vinyl and also CD’s actually; but Napalm is selling more not less you know, so we are kinda bucking the trend a little bit! But again we’re not doing anything drastically different to what we’ve ever done.
I mean sure we are moving our albums, we’re evolving, we’re doing what we feel is the right thing to do at the particular times when we’re making new music; but you know it’s not as if we’re reinventing the wheel in terms of completely finding a new way to put ourselves out there – in terms of the way we present ourselves. So I don’t what it is, it just is what it is! For some reason the band has kinda gone on an upward trajectory; but you know generally, the records that we have been doing, each one is more extreme than the last, certainly in the last four, five or six albums. So we are actually becoming more sort of popular by being less listenable you could say” (laughs)
Or could it be that with many of the themes featured in albums such as Apex Predator – that you have given a voice to the masses; summing up their feelings and frustrations with the world today. Do you see Napalm Death as social commentators?
“Well here’s the thing, I would sort of term it slightly differently; anybody can be a social commentator, anybody can pass comment about stuff. Similarly it’s also arguable that Napalm is a ‘political’ band you know, it’s quite an obvious reference point for a lot of people looking inwards to the band. But I think of it on a more simple level, I think Napalm is just pushing human ideas out there and I know that might sound a bit strange, but the thing is that … look at the world – and this is nothing new – but look. Look at the things people are prepared to do to other people just to perhaps gain a bit more power, a bit more resources, a bit more influence. They will do stuff that completely betrays the notion of behaving like and being a human being; that’s what we are doing basically.
So it’s actually pretty simple, but I would also argue that Ok, there are certain flash points that are quite strong at the moment and people are picking up on that. But let’s be honest about this, the world has never, never – certainly not in my lifetime – been a bed of roses ever you know, and people suffer because of that. So I think it’s nothing new unfortunately, we haven’t learned yet as a human race how to move forward and be peaceful and conciliatory, it’s a shame”
When you speak of humanity and how it treats its own, it reminds me of one of my favourite tracks off the album entitled ‘Smash A Single Digit’; especially the line “non-reflective minions who must labour and perish”. Do you think that society has crushed – what it deems to be – the lower levels of society’s ability to live independently?
“The line that you referenced there, when you think about that line in isolation, it’s basically saying that there are human beings out there – “non-reflective minions” – people who are expected to not assess things, to not critique things, to just do what they’re told to do, do what they’re expected to do, shut the hell up basically and make our stuff. That’s what it is. That whole song was about factories you see maybe in South East Asia, or elsewhere, where people are literally expected to be vehicles for production and that’s it. They matter not very fucking much outside of that. So just think about that for a second, the likes of me and you can probably – obviously I am just making an assumption here – but the likes of me and you can lead lives, very multi-faceted lives you know. We can have many experiences; but many of these people have one or two experiences; they might be born, they might grow up, but from a very early age they are drafted in just to be slaves more or less, to make goods, because child labour is rife”
Well it’s driven by the West’s mass consumerism really isn’t it?
“The world’s, not just the west; it’s the world’s appetite for goods you know and I think it’s unsustainable. I think the balance will tip at some point and it could be a revolution, and I am not talking about localised, I am talking about generally speaking it could be one where people just rise up. Because it surely cannot go on forever, where people are put in such a position to where you live, you toil, you slave, you die. Literally it’s that, in those stages! I mean it’s …”
Pretty depressing isn’t it?
“… Yeah.”
So what do you think the biggest threat to humanity is – beside ourselves?
“The biggest threat to humanity is – well that’s it – you have put it in a nutshell. We are pretty much responsible for everything that becomes a direct threat. I mean fucking hell, the last few weeks have brought something up, has underlined something – can you believe that people are still playing tug of war with nuclear weapons? I thought these non-proliferation treaties were supposed to have solved this twenty, thirty years ago you know? Yet some of the countries with major impact in them still have nuclear weapons; active, functional nuclear weapons, it makes a mockery of all that stuff in the 80’s and the 90’s. The non-proliferation treaty’s the treaties of understanding, I mean what the fuck are they meant to achieve if they’re not stopping anyone from owning nuclear weapons?
You know, this thing with North Korea, I just find it laughable. I certainly would not wish to legitimize any regime, any dictatorial regime; but the thing is, it’s all well and good for the US government to point the finger at North Korea but the US government has fucking infinitely more nuclear weapons (laughs) than operational nuclear weapons that North Korea has. So it’s a bit rich for them to … (laughs) and again that’s not to … I don’t want to get into a conversation of ‘Well you know they should have nuclear weapons’ – because nobody should …”
It’s not a necessity of humanity…
“No …”
Returning back to Apex Predator – I know you are a fan of Lo-Fi and Ambient, how do you believe that it raises Napalms sound overall?
“It just makes us more than one dimensional; it’s very hard when you’re a band like Napalm where – let’s face it extremity is kinda the touchstone. It’s hard to find other things that are markedly different in their pure forms to bring into the band. Bands like Swans, Killing Joke, Joy Division, My Bloody Valentine, etc. etc. whilst you might if you hear them not be able to make a direct connection to a band like Napalm – on a certain level there are elements in there that really have quite gritty, some very uncomfortable sounds you know – chord progressions.
So when we can, like for us it’s a boon, because we can take stuff from that and adapt it into our own sound, mix it into our own sound but it definitely gives us other elements. If you look at our first few Napalm albums, they were not entirely – but very, very stop start fast and furious – great, fantastic, milestone albums, but at this point when we have done what, fourteen, fifteen albums, to just replicate those albums, to only have that style to build upon; well you would be struggling. I believe you need to think about bringing in other elements, not something that’s gonna take the edges off your band, off your art, but other stuff that will come in and enhance what you are doing you know?”
Yeah, exactly, evolution of your sound. Now with this Australasian tour you are bringing along Brujeria for the ride – how did that come about?
“Well of course we already did the tour in Europe together …”
Of course, but how did you convince them to come all the way down here?
“Well what it was, was Brad [Wesson] who’s a promoter at Soundworks Touring – the people we always work with in Australia – they wanted Napalm anyway, but it was that thing with Australia and New Zealand, it’s great to come down there but it can be difficult in some places to get people out especially because the cities are so spread out you know?
Certainly in Australia you are talking hundreds of thousands of miles between the cities you can play because you know enough people are going to come out to hear you play. So we were like how can we make this even more appealing so that we can hopefully get even more people out; and the answer was to bring another band. Brujeria also shares a member with Napalm of course because Shane [Embury – who will also be appearing in Lock Up] our bass player plays in Brujeria, so it seemed like a good idea…”
So what can NZ fans expect in terms of set list? You guys have sixteen albums – are there certain records you just don’t go back to anymore?
“No! We’ll do anything; I mean we have done every album in the Napalm catalogue. When you’re evolving making music, when you’re a band, I think you should also apply that principal to whatever you do. So if you are making artwork you should always try and make your artwork different and of course it doesn’t hurt to have a very distinctive style; but at least within that style make things look slightly different, give things a different flavour. Similarly when you have a set list, don’t play the same set list for fucking months and months on end, change it up a bit, you know bring some other albums into play for a while, bring some other songs in that make people go ‘Holy Shit I never expected them to play that’ (laughs) you know what I mean?”
Yes! And there is nothing better!
“But you have also got to remember that set lists, like music, are subjective; I mean everybody wants different things, you could play some stuff and it could leave some people with blank faces while other people are jumping up and down! So you know we just try and give people a bit of everything, we don’t play from every album simply because we couldn’t fit it all in the set but we cover pretty much all of the bases.”
Nice! So Napalm Death is currently working on their next album. Since Apex Predator there have been some major events in the world, Trump being elected etc. Are there any particular themes that will feature?
“Well what I tend to do, is that I tend not to pick the obvious targets you know. I always try and be topical, because one thing I don’t like – to say I don’t like it is too strong – but I don’t see what personally I am going to achieve or what the band is going to achieve by making lyrically generic statements. Because I think if you are going to try and relate to people they’re going to need something to hook onto, something that’s going spinning around in their immediate universe, and you know you get some bands out there who will just make … basically anti-war albums; which is fantastic you know, I am not saying that there is anything wrong with that.
But at least if you are going to do something like that, make it recent history or current history so that people can grab onto a principal, a plight, to what is going on around them and understand and hopefully bring them on board – so that’s the thing for me to do that. But having said all that, I think for us to do an album next that references Donald Trump would just be too obvious. You know of course Trump will be inherent somewhere on the album (laughs) but it just won’t be obvious, like I wouldn’t have thought I’m gonna write an anti-trump song …”
So more around the by-products of his election; increased racism, inequality etc.?
“Yeah … oh yeah! There will be by-products, like one or two of his by-products will probably be covered on the album somewhere. But trust me, the way I sort of look at it is, there are a lot of people out there now – rightfully so – using their art to be critical of not only Trump but of other people alone in that sort of isolationism sphere you know, which is a quite popular flavour right now in the world.
But yeah other bands, other artists will be dealing with that, I think we probably don’t need to at this point; there are other things to focus on you know, so that’s what we’ll do. I have a vague idea of what the concept for the album will be, but I don’t want it to be too narrow, I would like to widen it out a little so we’ll see, we’ll see. I’ve got stuff in mind!”
The Campaign For Musical Destruction Tour featuring Napalm Death, Brujeria and Lockup is hitting Auckland, New Zealand next week. You can find more information on the show here. Tickets are still available from Valhalla Touring, but get in quick as this show is sure to sell out!
