Interview With Barney Greenway of Napalm Death 04/27/05

I have been a long time fan of the nearly maniacal sounding musical stylings of the British band Napalm Death.
They were pioneers of the genre of music known as grindcore. It's Angry. Fast. Extreme. Rooted in punk rock, metal, hardcore, and protest music.
For Napalm Death, behind all of the furious screams, blast beating drums and dissonant churning guitars, there has always been an ethos of compassion, equality and liberation.
Something like 18 years ago they released their legendary debut Scum. They just put out a new one, The Code is Red. . .Long Live the Code. It's an instant classic. Recently, Napalm's vocalist Mark "Barney" Greenway was cool enough to spend some time talking with me via telephone. *This is the result:

DemLeft: What's the idea behind the title of the new album?

Barney: What it was is, we've got this sort of internationally accepted security system which is based on lies which I believe originated in America. It has been around for some years, but I think most countries never accepted it until recently as a viable form for themselves. What it means, I think, I believe blue. . . the color blue represents the lowest threat. And then it goes on through the colors and, supposedly red, you know. When it's "code red" that signifies that's there's an extreme level of threat to national security. So basically, what I'm saying is that for the last couple of years we've been living under this simmering climate of fear and paranoia. And I think that various governments around the world are thinking it's a jolly deal if we live in this kind of "code red" situation where we're led to believe that around the corner someone's going to blow us up, you know. It's a very clever ploy because now we have a great sector of the population believing there is a terrorist attack, if not immanent, it's possible, you know what I mean, or highly likely. So from that, people are starting to accept that our civil liberties should be eroded. It sort of rang true quite recently over here when the Labour Party, supposedly a liberal left thinking party, or at least it used to be, were trying to pass this law where they could imprison someone who they only suspected could be capable of a terrorist action in the future. Therefore, based on no evidence whatsoever, you could be imprisoned indefinitely.

DemLeft: We're already doing that over here in the US.

Barney: Yes. You're already doing that in America of course. Now, where the fuck have we come to when this sort of thing is going on and, more importantly, what response do we have as human beings walking on this earth? Surely, human rights and civil liberties should be made stronger, you know, because we have to be able to react to massive governmental power like that. Because, make no mistake, governments are more powerful than than they ever have been. And when they're supported by such support networks as, you know, oil companies where oil companies are now sort of unveiling the most absurd profits, you know what I mean. The most absurd profits. I mean, surely, there has to be an escalation in our response as regular citizens, you know what I mean? And that's not happening. I mean, what sort of response have you got before being arrested and put in prison indefinitely in the states you know? I mean, an Iranian ends up at Guantanamo Bay or something like that. I mean, they have absolutely no power of response.

DemLeft: What about Tony Blair? Is he going to get punished next week? I mean, what's his deal?

Barney: Well, it seems not. Because I think it's the lesser of two evils really. I mean the Tories, what we call the Tories are the conservatives which, you can probably understand yourself, are not a lot of major *UNINTELLIGIBLE* In other words, the conservatives are so inept and so quick to. . . I mean the conservatives here are playing the race card at the moment. They are sort of pinning their election on the immigration issue that puts severe restrictions on immigration actually.

DemLeft: Wonderful.

Barney: Although they deny it fervently, some of the points they make are very much, for a mainstream political party, bordering on sort of racist propaganda. So that obviously doesn't go down well at all. So I think the Tories have already shot themselves in the foot you know.

DemLeft: Right.

Barney: I mean, Labour, I think will win. I mean, I used to be a Labour Party member. I got rid of my membership when there were certain policy changes that I felt, actually moved too far towards the right. It's quite a weird thing for me because I'm sort of opting towards voting Green. That's my preference at the moment. But, you know, I wanna make sure. Although the Tories have shot themselves in the foot, there's still that nagging thing in the back of your mind: "what if? what if?" sort of thing. So I am kind of still verging toward voting Labour really. I mean, I would like to see a different leader other than Blair. Something more towards the Left you know, political viewpoint *UNINTELLIGIBLE* Bush and say:Ya' know what Bush, fuck you. That's what I would like to see you know. I mean, if I was American, for sure, I would vote Nader because you have to start somewhere. That guy's membership. That guy's whole thing has to build somewhere. For me, America. When I go to America, and I've been there plenty of times. America needs some kind of radicalism to fucking kick the whole situation in the backside because you go to the impoverished areas, of which there are many and they are growing, and no one is helping these people. Noone. They have no resources. They have no healthcare. They have nothing. You know. A friend of mine who is Iranian-American was helping during the election getting voters to the polling station from the ghettos, if you like, who were too ill or infirm or unable to vote because obviously there was a big drive in trying to vote against Bush. So they were actually helped to the polling station. He was saying that he met people that just had nothing. No health, no *UNINTELLIGIBLE* Bare in mind that Bush is. . .I believe that, at this moment in time, he's trying to privatize the whole social security system.

DemLeft: yeah

Barney: And he's trying to cut back even further on the nationally controlled sort of things.

DemLeft: There's this really shaky alliance in the US right now between the war kind of hawks, the corporate big business guys and the really spooky elements of the religious right wing.

Barney: Yeah.

DemLeft: It's really bizarre. And they're all just. . .It's like the most destructive and dangerous forces in society all together aligned.

Barney: I get that. Absolutely. And the thing that pisses me off right, is the Democrats are fucking spineless. I mean, they vote with Bush on a lot of things, I've noticed, because they're almost afraid *UNTELLIGIBLE* And how is that an opposition? Does that even come anywhere near the definition of opposition? It doesn't at all. And I'll tell you what. I was fucking disgusted. I was watching television and in Florida they were having, right before the election they were having the thing where they have the candidate from the two main parties on one stage. The issue came up about gay marriage. A caller phoned in and said, "Look. I'm homosexual. I want to marry my partner. I'm not hurting anyone." He put across a very simple argument: "It's my basic human right to do as I please. You know, I'm not hurting anyone else. Why should I not be allowed to do that and on top of that be portrayed as an outcast and a heathen and whatever else, you know?" The Republican spoke for himself. Then I thought ok, let's hear what. . .you know, there's obviously going to be some move towards being sympathetic. And what a shit! You know.

DemLeft: (laughs)

Barney: I mean, this Democrat just absolutely fucking went on and on about, you know, "well, you've got to have a family that's a man and a woman and you have to preserve the moral background of the country." I'm like: what the fuck is this?

DemLeft: Yeah. This is the opposition. Yeah.

Barney: That's no opposition. What kind of opposition is that?

DemLeft: Exactly. Yeah.

Barney: My understanding of someone who would be a traditional Democrat would be someone that, you know, lets people live their lives.

DemLeft: I think a lot of Democrats are to the right of a lot of conservatives in the UK.

Barney: Yeah.

DemLeft: What is it like for gay and reproductive rights in the UK right now?

Barney: Um. Not so bad actually. I mean, it's fairly liberal in terms of gay people. Yes, there is still kind of a *UNTELLIGIBLE*, but that is changing. Most people in Britain, if you ask them, they don't give a shit, you know. People do what they want and that's all good. The reproductive rights is another issue because, of course, the Catholic Church is still, even though it's not the biggest religion, is still fairly powerful, you know. So obviously, since you have the Catholic Church, you have the rare percentage of people who are very vehement "pro-lifers." But in Europe, in general there is a certain undercurrent, and a welcome undercurrent of moving towards being allowed to go get euthanasia if that's required. So we are moving in that kind of direction. But there was a small debate about abortion recently because this TV channel showed *UNINTELLIGIBLE* baby which, of course, that sparked off the whole debate again by conservative, sort of, "pro-lifers" and stuff. But most people in England are so frightened. Before the wars there was a lot of back street abortion in England, before it was legal, and a lot of women died because of a lot of home, almost D.I.Y. abortions, so I think most people in England would not want to go back to that, you know, so you know I'm banking. I'm hoping that they don't enforce more restrictions on abortion because, of course, it goes without saying that for me, it's always a woman's right to choose.

DemLeft: How did you hook up with (spoken word artist and former Dead Kennedys singer) Jello Biafra?

Barney: Um. With Jello. Well, we have sort of a long history with Alternative Tentacles that goes back with one thing or another. And also we did the "Nazi Punks Fuck Off" thing you know. (ed Note: Napalm Death have covered the Dead Kennedys song "Nazi Punks Fuck Off" for years and released an ep with that title featuring the cover in 1993)

DemLeft: Yeah.

Barney: And so we just sort of put the feelers out really about whether Jello would be into it. He was. So it was just a matter of when we were in San Francisco. We just had to book a studio and just get him down there really and he came in and did like 50 or 60 tracks of the most amazing vocals and it all really sort of, really worked out.

DemLeft: Yeah. It sounds good. Do your politics ever piss off your fans or your audience?

Barney: Oh yeah. Not necessarily fans. I think most people who like Napalm appreciate the stance and agree with the stance. Certainly not everything. But they certainly would concur with the need to expand your mind and be aware of what's going on around you.

DemLeft: Right.

Barney: We have shows where we play in, sort of, different towns. You know, I'll make some comments and stuff like that. I'll get the old middle fingers and probably get spat at. In extreme cases we have you know. . .Sometimes Aryan fuckheads come to the gig and try and cause trouble. And you get a few problems from them but you know, such is life. You just sort of. . . What I do is I just kind of, once I'm tired of, kind of reasoning with them, then I'll just kind of blow kisses at them and stuff

DemLeft: (Laughs)

Barney: One guy came up to me on the last American tour. This really big guy. Actually we played a gig in Texas you know. He tapped me on the shoulder really strongly. He said, "Don't talk shit about my president again."

DemLeft: (Laughs)

Barney: I said, "Man. Fair enough. I did. But, I mean, do you think I really need to do that? He talks enough shit to dig himself a fucking hole. I don't need to do that. You know." This guy just kind of looked at me like, like stared back. He's like, "I'll just just kind of walk it off." You know.

DemLeft: (Laughs) This is kind of, totally unrelated. How are your knees? I read somewhere that you had. . .

Barney: Oh! (Laughs) Yeah. My knee's actually alright right now. What it was. . . The doctor told me it was cartilage problems but it turns out that I actually, somehow got nerve damage in the back in my leg. The nerve that runs down the back of the leg that controls the back portion of your foot is actually damaged. And basically, the back part of my right foot has no sensation, carries no sensation whatsoever. It's completely dead so. . . I've been to the hospital and stuff and there's nothing I can do about it. I've just got to wait and see if it recovers. You know, but I'm not really worried because I've kind of gotten used to it now and *UNINTELLIGIBLE*

DemLeft: Yeah. Is it. . . Are you able to. . .?

Barney: It doesn't affect my mobility or my motor skills or whatever.

DemLeft: Right. That's cool.

Barney: I mean, I wobble about through life anyway so it doesn't doesn't really make any difference. (laughs)

DemLeft: (laughs) Did you guys do a tsunami benefit for Indonesia?

Barney: Yes.

DemLeft: Do you guys have a lot of fans in Indonesia?

Barney: Yeah. Yeah. We did that thing. It came together really quickly and it was really good.

DemLeft: How did you end up doing that?

Barney: Well, it's unfortunate enough that it happened during the production of the album as people were still getting the sleeve together and stuff like that so we just said, as soon as it happened, we were like, "well, what can we do?" And we thought first of doing a download thing. I mean simple. Who really buys download tracks, you know? Not that many people do. So we thought, right, let's make it something solid and to their credit, the record label turned it around. They got the sleeve together. They got the extra band to come on board. It worked very well actually.

DemLeft: How did you end up writing all of the lyrics this time around?

Barney: Uh. . . I was just on a roll.

DemLeft: (laughs) A lot to be inspired by.

Barney: Well, of course we've got the general theme of the album. I think the main theme for the album, although there are other topics, is that, like I said to you before, we're in an age where I think governments and their cronies, the companies that are propped up, the oil companies, et cetera, are so powerful. They are so powerful. It's almost like. . . I mean, we've got a track on there called "Climate Controllers." I was trying to use the image of. . . You know when you've got a greenhouse or something. You can basically, with the climate control, you could kill all the flowers if you want by just flicking the dial. And that's the point I'm trying to make, you know. It's so ridiculous, you know, the way they can affect the population because of the power they have. It's frightening. And, I mean, there is some other stuff on there, on the album. The track "Sold Short", which is another anti-fascist song, which we have a history of writing. But I tried to come at it from a different perspective. Recently, there has been some research work about where we stemmed from. Where we actually do originate from and it's come to light that all of us originate from Africa. And the Africans just sort of walked across the world literally, across the continents because they were very hardy explorers, you know. I'm basically making that context going, ok, you've got this Aryan thing with being the master race and you think you're a pure blood or something like that. Well, what if you discovered that you actually came from Africa? You're so pro-your-heritage and stuff, your exclusive white heritage. Where does that leave you? Posing the question really.

DemLeft: Are you coming to Los Angeles in the near future?

Barney: I presume we will. We're looking at September to come out.

DemLeft: Well, I appreciate it. I appreciate you taking the time to talk to me.

Barney: Excellent stuff.

DemLeft: Thanks so much.

Barney: No problem.

DemLeft: Hopefully I'll see you in September in LA.

Barney: Yeah man. Thanks for the cool questions.

DemLeft: I appreciate it.

Barney: Ok. All the best man.

DemLeft: Have a good one. You too.

Barney: Take it easy.

DemLeft: Bye.

Barney: Bye.

*NOTE: I edited and cut a bit out of what I recorded when I typed this out for a few reasons including for flow, length, and because of tape unintelligibility. All of the parts where it says *UNINTELLIGIBLE* are the result of my not being able to make out what Barney was saying due to my crappy tape recording of the conversation. Some other things that Greenway and I talked about were books and Katherine Ludwig, a writer who used to edit the heavy metal magazine Metal Maniacs and now writes essays and short stories. Barney mentioned that he has recently been reading some Gore Vidal and Homeland: Into a World of Hate by Nick Ryan amongst other things.

The official Napalm Death site is HERE
'The Code is Red. . . Long Live the Code' can be found HERE on the Century Media Records site.

NOTE: This interview was conducted before I changed the name of this site to Green Left Infoasis so questions are asked by DemLeft.