Napalm Death interview with Barney Greenway

(Originally from 9/15/05)

Our "investigative reporter", Matt Cinatl, once again brings us a fantastic interview with one of the big name metal bands, this time featuring Napalm Death. Widely known as forefathers to the grindcore genre, today the group has become an entirely different entity, with no original members remaining. Vocalist Mark "Barney" Greenway gives us a brief look into the band's past and present, as well as the suspected future of the legendary Napalm Death...

Matt Cinatl: A massive thanks for doing this.

Mark "Barney" Greenway: No problem.

MC: England, for a long time there's been a lot of musical innovation there. Beatles, Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath. Everything. Then, Napalm Death. What happened, what went wrong?

BG: (Laughs) Yeah exactly. I don't man, I mean, obviously England has been a hotbed for a lot of quite original, unique stuff down the yeaars, I've thought about it before but have never really come up with an answer, to be honest. I guess it's, I don't know. Maybe it's because England, Europe in general, is sort of open to embrace a lot of different things, you know? As opposed to some places which are a little more conservative. I don't know, it's a tough on to call really. And from our perspective we just really wanted to make music by making stuff that could be considered, maybe, deeplym un-musical, at some point. It's a difficult one to answer.

MC: Any conditions that stand out?

BG: Not really, Birmingham, where I come from, is particularily notable for, as you mentioned, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, that's the town where that stuff came from. If there are any factors, it's a working class town, maybe there's something there about working class musicians being under a lot more pressure that other people.

MC: And how did you get your start with death and grind music, were there any bands you were in before Benediction?

BG: Not for me, I had a couple of small project things, but nothing really. I just grew up with the underground, the tape trading scene, which had a very big impact on my involvement in the music.

MC: One really interesting thing about Napalm Death to me is that the Napalm Death of now is a completely different one than that of say 1987, with Scum. But you guys have really overcome the original line-up.

BG: Possibly, but is it really different from 1987? I don't think it is. Yes we've evolved and taken to certain places, but it's not entirely that far removed from the original blueprint of the band. All 10 or 12 albums down the line from Scum you can still hear that which is definitely Napalm Death.

MC: You guys have been really busy. Two albums within the past couple of years, touring, action figure is out...

BG: (Laughs), Yeah...

MC: So what's next?

BG: We're going back home in a few days, then we're back on the road in Europe doing something called "The Resistance Tour" which is called "The Persistance Tour" now, actually. Which is us, Agnostic Front, Hatebreed, and a couple of other bands. So that's going up till Christmas, but by the looks of things we're coming back to America in February with Kreator.

MC: And the new album, it's great, and was dedicated to the legendary Jon Peel. What influence did he have on the band, and even personally?

BG: I didn't really know Jon Peel real well, Shane knew him a little bit better than I did. But of course he had that spirit of doing what he wanted to do, not being subject to playlisted slavery on the radio, and stuff like that y'know, which is a great thing. Not only did he become synonymous, but he flat out refused. Of course anything like that is going to run parallel to what we're doing with Napalm Death, because we do what we want to do basically. No one tells us what to do, no one has any creative control over the band, and obviously that allows us to do what we want musically, and just as importantly, lyrically.

MC: And just one look in the back catalogue in the band and you can see just about every social issue has been covered, has there ever been a point where you've thought you'd run out of things to say?

BG: No, because the world is as it is. There's the struggle between rich and poor, y'know, if you like 'The Invaders and the Invaded', so the world is a constantly shifting place in which there are a huge number of issues to deal with. If only they would get dealt with on the literal level, rather than having us just sing about them all the time, maybe the world would be a lot better place.

MC: One of the cool things about Napalm Death is that the songs are all fast, they're all crazy, but they really maintain their identity.

BG: Fantastic.

MC: Yeah, so is there a consious effort when you're putting together a song to say "Oh let's have this part sound like this", or "We need a good hook here"?

BG: No no, it's very simple. We get the riffs and the drums ready first and then I'll go and finish off the lyrics on top. There's no real masterplan behind it. All throughout the process, it's just to make the best album we can in the time that we've got. And anything that comes out in the rehersal studio that doesn't quite sound right will be changed. That doesn't mean to say that we've got some grand plan about where to take an album. Very often, these things always hit the peak when you actually get into the recording studio. When your in the rehersal studio, things sound good, but when you take it into the recording studio they reach a whole new level. SO you can't always ascertain 100 percent how things are going to work.

MC: One of my favorite songs, "Twist The Knife", which oddly enough was featured on the Mortal Kombat soundstrack...

BG: Yeah!

MC: When you listen to the album it's like "Techno, techno, techno, Napalm Death, techno..." How did you end up on that soundtrack?!

BG: I don't remember how it worked out, to be honest. Y'know, we're always big fans of video games and stuff. Someone just came along and wanted the song. I really can't remember how it came about.

MC: And one of my long time questions for you has been where does the nickname Barney come from?

BG: Ok, it's a really old nickname, really old. It's just the fact that when I was younger I used to drink quite a lot, I had a real problem with drink. One time, which of course, isn't particularily funny. The whole Barney things comes from well, to make a long story short from drinking a lot and causing damage. Not on purpose, it wasn't malicious damage, it was just being drunk and stupid. Turning things to rubble, Barney Rubble.

MC: Oh ok!

BG: Yeah, it's a very tenuous link, but a link, nonetheless.

MC: Alright! Thanks so much for taking the time out of your schedule to do this interview.

BG: The pleasure was all mine, I hope to see you out there.

A big thanks to Mark "Barney" Greenway and Matt Cinatl for making this interview possible. Visit the official Napalm Death website at: www.enemyofthemusicbusiness.com.