Latest / Ghost Cult Magazine Podcast / PODCAST: Episode 969 - Barney Greenway (Napalm Death) Talks Savage Imperial Death March with the Melvins

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PODCAST: Episode 969 - Barney Greenway (Napalm Death) Talks Savage Imperial Death March with the Melvins · Ghost Cult Magazine Podcast

• 0:00
  But when it comes to the art, the formation of the art, it has
• 0:03
  to be selfish. You have to satisfy yourself
• 0:06
  first, because if you, if you try and sort of manipulate it
• 0:11
  just to suit, if you like demographics, it's just going to
• 0:16
  be a pale imitation and what it should be, you know?
• 0:20
  So it has to be selfish, you know, I have no problem with
• 0:23
  that. It perhaps took me a few years
• 0:25
  to understand that, but I absolutely do now.
• 0:34
  This is Tom from Ghost Cult and I am really excited to be joined
• 0:39
  by Mark Barney Greenway of Napalm Death and recently Napalm
• 0:44
  Death, along with Melvin's released Savage Imperial Death
• 0:47
  March together on ipicac recordings.
• 0:49
  Thank you so much for taking the time.
• 0:51
  Yeah, no problem. No problem at all.
• 0:53
  Sorry about the technical gremlins, but you know, I guess
• 0:58
  everybody gets them at some point and it's always the
• 1:00
  absolute worst time to get it, you know, is generally when you
• 1:03
  got to do something important. Yeah, I mean, we are.
• 1:06
  This is the DIY underground, right?
• 1:08
  We wouldn't want to expect everything.
• 1:09
  To be fairpoint, yeah. So the first thing I wanted to
• 1:12
  ask you, this is a very incidental question, but to call
• 1:14
  you Barney feels very familiar when I've never met you before.
• 1:19
  What, what do people call you when they meet you for the first
• 1:21
  time? What do you want to be called?
• 1:22
  Uh. Generally that, you know, that's
• 1:24
  what people know me as. Really.
• 1:25
  Umm, but my obviously it's only really my, my mom and my
• 1:30
  brothers, you know, they call me, call me Mark, you know, so
• 1:34
  so yeah. I mean, it's it's, it's a
• 1:35
  nickname that I've had since I was a teenager, given to me by
• 1:41
  the drummer from a band called Doom Stick.
• 1:44
  Who the band people may be familiar with who, who have any
• 1:49
  knowledge of kind of the underground sort of punk scene
• 1:52
  or whatever. Yeah.
• 1:54
  So that's where it comes from. And I I've, I've struggled to
• 1:58
  shake it off ever since. Not that I've particularly
• 2:00
  wanted to, but you know, I've got no choice in the matter as
• 2:03
  as, as things generally go with this sort of thing.
• 2:05
  So. And is there is there like a
• 2:07
  specific story behind where Barney specifically came from?
• 2:11
  Exactly. And it's quite.
• 2:12
  It's probably quite humiliating, embarrassing, not humiliating
• 2:17
  necessarily, but so when I was very young, I had as as a lot of
• 2:22
  people do, I had a rather large capacity for, for alcohol.
• 2:26
  But the problem is I was always a very clumsy drunk.
• 2:30
  So I would, I could sort of lean on, say, a radiator on the wall
• 2:35
  with a feather touch and it would just come off the wall,
• 2:38
  you know? So, so it became like rubble,
• 2:41
  but as in the Flintstone character and Barney rubble,
• 2:44
  that's that's where it comes from, you know?
• 2:47
  I see. OK, that does actually make
• 2:48
  sense. I wouldn't.
• 2:49
  I wouldn't. I wouldn't have guessed it, but
• 2:51
  I but I get it now. You say?
• 2:52
  It would, I suppose, you know, but but, but yeah, that's,
• 2:56
  that's the, that's the sort of, it's it.
• 2:59
  It's probably a what you might call a name with fair,
• 3:02
  reasonably shameful origins, you know, so.
• 3:05
  Yeah, so I'm sure for a lot of people watching and listening to
• 3:09
  this, Napalm Death and Melvin's are two of the most enduringly
• 3:13
  beloved bands of the underground.
• 3:15
  I don't want to. I don't want to call you elder
• 3:17
  statesman because that somehow feels like it's suggesting that
• 3:20
  you're winding down. But yeah, when?
• 3:23
  Regal and not not very, very anything that I would ever
• 3:26
  probably wish to be associated with.
• 3:28
  But anyway, sorry, carry on. When, when did you first become
• 3:32
  aware of the Melvin's? What's your Melvin's origin
• 3:34
  story? Yeah.
• 3:35
  Yeah, I mean, this, it's a story I've told quite a few times.
• 3:39
  So like back in the day, in the early sort of origins of the UK
• 3:46
  underground scene generally in Birmingham, there was a very,
• 3:50
  very pivotal, famous venue called The Mermaid, which used
• 3:54
  to have bands on from, you know, all ends of the underground
• 3:58
  spectrum. You know, mainly punk bands,
• 4:00
  punk and hardcore bands, but you know, sort of metal bands as
• 4:04
  well occasionally. And and that there was a band
• 4:08
  called Cerebral Fix. I don't know if you're familiar
• 4:11
  with with that band at all. They were around on the scene at
• 4:15
  the time. And the drummer, Adrian was
• 4:17
  always a bit, and I use this word very loosely,
• 4:20
  entrepreneurial. So, so he made a decision to
• 4:25
  open a record shop in the centre of Birmingham, which did seem
• 4:29
  rather foolish at the time, bearing in mind that was he was
• 4:32
  competing with two very, very good independent sort of record
• 4:37
  shops that covered the whole spectrum of, you know, pong,
• 4:41
  hardcore, oy, reggae, metal, anything, everything, you know,
• 4:46
  So but yeah, he decided to do it anyway.
• 4:48
  And during one of my visits to his shop, when it first opened,
• 4:53
  it didn't last very long, incidentally.
• 4:56
  He said, right, I've got a couple of albums for you.
• 5:00
  He said it's not really the fast stuff that everybody's listening
• 5:03
  to right now, but, you know, I'm your friend and I think you'd
• 5:06
  really like both of these albums, you know.
• 5:09
  And I was like, OK, let me have a look.
• 5:11
  And one was called Mean Mum's Mean Man's Dream by a bank
• 5:15
  called Gore Dutch band, instrumental, sort of sludgy,
• 5:21
  quite repetitive sort of stuff. Really, really great stuff, you
• 5:24
  know. And the other one was clearly
• 5:27
  poetry. It's by the Melvin's.
• 5:29
  So, you know, the, the, the Melvin's album, that album had a
• 5:33
  very, very sort of, it was very contradictory sleeve, you know,
• 5:39
  the, the little girl and the little boy, you know, kind of
• 5:42
  walking along. So I thought, what is this?
• 5:44
  You know, and I took it home and I was just instantly hooked, you
• 5:48
  know, But aside, bearing in mind that pretty much not everything,
• 5:52
  but I would say 95% of the stuff I was listening to at the time
• 5:56
  was like Ragneck fast music, you know, And then then I heard this
• 6:01
  band that was very kind of grounded in the sort of sludgy,
• 6:06
  sort of, you know, very kind of spacious sound.
• 6:12
  And I just I was I was loved it instantly.
• 6:15
  And the titles were really off kilter enough beat, you know,
• 6:18
  and I really liked it because I couldn't it was one band that
• 6:21
  weren't sort of directly giving you like if you like political
• 6:26
  lyrics or anything like that. It was very it was very off
• 6:29
  kilter, you know, very sort of wacky to use that, to use that
• 6:37
  word. There might be a better one, but
• 6:38
  you know, that's what it felt like at the time.
• 6:40
  And yeah, I loved them straight away.
• 6:43
  I'll absolutely still love the album to this day.
• 6:46
  And as a consequence, when I joined Napalm, which was after
• 6:50
  that quite, it was maybe a year or so after that when one of the
• 6:55
  first gigs I did with Napalm was CBGB's in New York.
• 6:58
  And, and I remember Bleeker St. was the record shop.
• 7:05
  Bleeker Bob's was a big record shop on Bleeker Street in New
• 7:09
  York and I just went there and they had a like a ton of Melvin
• 7:13
  7 inches. Cause the Melvin should just
• 7:15
  throw stuff out, you know, all the time as they now you know.
• 7:19
  And yeah, I just bought all these obscure Melvin 7 inches,
• 7:23
  you know, even at that, I've still got them.
• 7:25
  You know, they're in my they're in my 7 inch collection, so.
• 7:28
  Yeah, they've done a lot of really cool stuff, really
• 7:31
  collectible stuff. Like I know that a lot of things
• 7:33
  with with AMREP like the top, the Tom Hazelmire stuff, like a
• 7:37
  lot of really cool looking covers as well.
• 7:40
  I mean, I'm a big fan of Amrep, you know, since way back when,
• 7:44
  you know, that that is a sort of label that I think sits very
• 7:47
  close to napalm in a lot of ways in terms of the.
• 7:50
  Yeah, the attitude towards not being, not being sort of afraid
• 7:55
  to make absolute noise. Yeah.
• 7:59
  You know, and I'm, I'm, I'm with that all the way, you know, I'm
• 8:01
  with that ethos always. And on that, on that topic of
• 8:05
  noise, because it's something that I'm getting more and more
• 8:07
  interested in the older that I get.
• 8:09
  And I I've had the the chance to meet and interview Buzz Osborne
• 8:13
  before and I've interviewed Dale Crover and I've actually
• 8:15
  interviewed Shane Embry as well. And I've talked with with Buzz
• 8:19
  and Dale about, you know, bands like Throbbing Gristle that
• 8:22
  they're really inspired by. And I've talked with Shane about
• 8:26
  like Coil and other industrial music and Cardiacs.
• 8:29
  So for you for like beyond the the punk and the hardcore and
• 8:33
  the the metal side of things, what was some other of this sort
• 8:36
  of like the weird avant-garde stuff that you really got
• 8:39
  affected by and inspired by? Young actually, I don't know
• 8:43
  whether you would call them and they're not a noise band
• 8:45
  necessarily, but there was a big crossover back in the day.
• 8:50
  If you listen to Pomp, you also listen to Hawkwind.
• 8:53
  You also listen to things like Gong, you know, Captain Beef
• 8:57
  Heart, the Cardiacs again. So all that kinds of stuff
• 9:00
  really was big for us as Swans, which I'm sure Shane probably
• 9:05
  mentioned to you because, I mean, it's a centre point for
• 9:08
  us, you know, we it has a big influence on the stuff that we
• 9:12
  do that's not like 1,000,000 miles an hour and and it always
• 9:15
  will be, you know. So that that kind of stuff
• 9:19
  really, you know, like, yeah, Throbbing Gristle, you know,
• 9:24
  White House stuff, what else? Probably like Bauha, you know,
• 9:32
  for me, like as I got to understand music a bit more,
• 9:37
  yeah, all kinds of stuff really. I mean, I could go on, you know,
• 9:40
  but all sorts. Yeah, and I, and I feel like in
• 9:45
  recent times, like talking about the Swans influence, I really,
• 9:49
  really liked, umm, Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism, the
• 9:52
  album you had back in 2020. And I forget which track it is,
• 9:54
  but you've got a particular track that really made me think
• 9:57
  of that kind of like that slave ship era Swans that like galley
• 10:02
  ship thing. They had kind of mid 80s was
• 10:03
  really heavy and just kind of like that, that sort of
• 10:06
  repetitive, brutal slow trudge to it.
• 10:10
  And I thought like, oh, this is really cool.
• 10:12
  I felt like you were you were going off in directions that
• 10:15
  maybe you didn't experiment with so much in the past.
• 10:18
  Do you feel like with Napalm Death that you kind of like
• 10:20
  became or you have become more experimental overtime?
• 10:23
  Actually, I think those elements have always been there.
• 10:26
  It was just an evolution of it. It was the next step, basically
• 10:29
  for us. I know the track.
• 10:31
  I think I know the track we're referring to as a belly full of
• 10:34
  salt and spleen. That's the one, Yeah.
• 10:36
  That's what I was thinking of. So, yeah, I mean, we've been
• 10:39
  building up to that really. I mean, if you go back to from
• 10:43
  enslavement to obliteration, if you go back to Harmony
• 10:46
  corruption, you know, there's stuff on there that's, you know,
• 10:49
  really very much in that direction.
• 10:52
  It's just over time we take steps, you know, because I think
• 10:56
  generally speaking, it's a thing for us to not make the same
• 10:59
  album twice, you know, that would be really easy and just a
• 11:02
  bit lame. So obviously we're always
• 11:05
  mindful that we've got to keep, we want to keep, you know, the
• 11:09
  breakneck side of the band that has to be in there, you know,
• 11:13
  but but that doesn't mean to say that we can't branch out into
• 11:17
  into other areas, you know, because extremity is not one
• 11:21
  thing. I think we've learned that, you
• 11:23
  know, down the years. We should have learned that by
• 11:25
  now. And I think that's what we're
• 11:27
  doing. I mean, look at look at Justin
• 11:29
  from God flesh, you know, all the things that he did down the
• 11:32
  years, you know, he didn't sort of tie himself down to one
• 11:35
  thing. He was, he was never afraid to
• 11:38
  go off and, you know, veer off in different directions.
• 11:41
  And why should he be afraid? Why should anybody be afraid,
• 11:43
  you know? Yeah.
• 11:45
  And I guess any, any direction that you end up going down and
• 11:47
  scenes that get built, whether you're consciously a part of
• 11:50
  them or they get built around you, people start to have
• 11:52
  expectations. And even just defying people's
• 11:54
  expectations in whatever way you do, that can be a challenging
• 11:58
  and that can be something that is kind of confronting to
• 12:02
  people. Whereas if you just kind of
• 12:03
  like, you know, if people are all into speed and you just give
• 12:05
  them faster and faster and faster in a sense that can just
• 12:08
  kind of get monotonous after a while if you're not doing
• 12:10
  something that challenges people.
• 12:12
  Well, I mean, ultimately, Tom art is a very selfish thing and
• 12:15
  it should be a very selfish thing.
• 12:17
  It's kind of the antithesis of if you like the ethos of Nate
• 12:22
  Palm death, you know, because our lyrics and the general sort
• 12:26
  of things we put on the table in that in that way are very much
• 12:30
  unselfish. I would, I would argue, you
• 12:33
  know, but when it comes to the art, the formation of the art,
• 12:36
  it has to be selfish. You have to satisfy yourself
• 12:40
  first, because if you if you try and sort of manipulate it just
• 12:46
  to suit if you like demographics, it's just going to
• 12:50
  be a pale imitation and what it should be, you know.
• 12:54
  So it has to be selfish, you know, I have no problem with
• 12:57
  that. It perhaps took me a few years
• 12:59
  to understand that, but I absolutely do now, you know.
• 13:02
  So whatever, whatever we do next as a band is first and foremost
• 13:08
  going to be what we as the constituent parts of Napalm
• 13:12
  Death, what we want to do. Yeah.
• 13:15
  Or we hope that life should I because obviously Brian but
• 13:22
  almost it be good just one. Little incidental thing.
• 13:36
  You, you slightly broke up there.
• 13:38
  I don't know if that's on your side or my side.
• 13:40
  Are you in headphones at the moment?
• 13:42
  I don't know if it's your sound card.
• 13:45
  Maybe that's better. All right, we'll see how it
• 13:49
  goes. So going back to the the
• 13:53
  Melvin's collaboration, specifically how it's still
• 13:56
  doing something weird, try saying something again now.
• 13:59
  You can start. Yeah, I've kind of lost you.
• 14:03
  You've gone, you've gone a bit of Dalek.
• 14:05
  At this point. OK.
• 14:14
  Yes, yes. Have you got those?
• 14:15
  Sorry. Ah, no worries.
• 14:17
  Yes, I have the sound back. We're all good.
• 14:19
  You know what, I've got a feeling it's the weather because
• 14:22
  the weather's taking a turn down here.
• 14:23
  And I one thing we do get, I live on the coast, you know, so
• 14:28
  when we get like sea storms, which we do very often, it
• 14:32
  really messes with the Internet here, you know, usually not
• 14:36
  during interview times, to be honest, but hey ho.
• 14:39
  I think we're all right now. So going back specifically to
• 14:42
  the Melbourne's collaboration, so you had this tour that you
• 14:44
  did together in 2016, which you called the the Savage Imperial
• 14:48
  Death March. So how did that tour come
• 14:53
  together in the first place? I mean, we were friends with the
• 14:56
  Melvins and like, really, it's just as simple as we, we went,
• 15:01
  we got our heads together with Buzz and we just said, oh, let's
• 15:04
  do a tour. And they were like, yeah, we
• 15:06
  should. We've been talking about it for
• 15:08
  a long time. Let's do it.
• 15:10
  So we did. It's really that simple, you
• 15:12
  know? And where did the name come?
• 15:14
  Any more than that, you know? Yeah.
• 15:16
  And and the name specifically, uh.
• 15:18
  Boss, Boss came up with that. Or it may have been Mackie who
• 15:22
  is, who does a lot of the art, who's who's married to Buzz, you
• 15:25
  know, and she does a lot of the art stuff.
• 15:28
  Really great artist, you know. So I don't know either of those,
• 15:32
  either of those guys came up with it, I think.
• 15:34
  Can't take any credit for that one, you know.
• 15:36
  And so and so you had another tour that you did together last
• 15:40
  year I think were both of them with also with Melt Banana.
• 15:43
  No, no, no. That last on was with the Hard
• 15:46
  ONS Australian band. Absolutely great, you know.
• 15:49
  And oh, Titans to Tachyon, like kind of a jazz sort of, not
• 15:58
  really a melt band, like a jazz rock band sort of thing.
• 16:03
  Who else was on that? The Hard ONS.
• 16:05
  Todd's Tachyon. Did Shane for some of the dates
• 16:09
  at least. Did Shane Embry actually do his
• 16:11
  Dark Sky burial? Of those sort of product too.
• 16:14
  Weed Eater, we're on it as well. If you're oh, weed eater, cool.
• 16:18
  As well, Yeah. Yeah.
• 16:19
  And so at what point did you decide, and how did you decide
• 16:23
  that you were going to actually do an album together?
• 16:26
  Again, it was something that was being spoken about for a while,
• 16:29
  and you know what it's like with these things.
• 16:31
  You kind of talk about it and it sort of disappears into the
• 16:34
  annals of time. But when he got somebody like
• 16:37
  Buzz, you know, who is like, I think he wouldn't mind me saying
• 16:41
  that he's fairly obsessive and he will like, he will hunt
• 16:44
  something down until he's got it, you know?
• 16:47
  So yeah, he just pushed for it. They did it, you know?
• 16:55
  Shane, John, Buzz and Dale basically got together and
• 17:01
  bashed out a load of stuff, you know?
• 17:03
  And so in terms of the the recording, were you actually
• 17:08
  together with them all at the same time?
• 17:10
  What did you get handed? Recordings and you continued
• 17:12
  afterwards. I actually didn't know they were
• 17:14
  in the studio, that I didn't realize.
• 17:16
  And then they told me kind of afterwards, Well, I'm fine with
• 17:19
  that. You know, I would rather they
• 17:21
  get on with it and then they give me the stuff and I will
• 17:24
  sort of sit down with it and see what I can do.
• 17:27
  Like when I got it, I had some vocals on and I just needed to
• 17:31
  compliment it. I didn't feel the need to sort
• 17:34
  of got it and, and like start afresh with anything really.
• 17:38
  I just, I think he just needed to compliment, you know, from
• 17:41
  what Buzz and Shane had done with the vocals, you know, so I
• 17:44
  was, I was quite happy, you know what was there?
• 17:47
  Very happy actually so. And So what was that like
• 17:49
  compared to when you're writing and recording for Napalm Death?
• 17:53
  What's it like to have that kind of dynamic where you handed this
• 17:56
  material and you're kind of augmenting it and adding sort of
• 17:59
  extra layers to it? You know, obviously because I'm
• 18:02
  not starting from the ground up, so it's always going to be
• 18:04
  easier, you know, you could apply that to anything really.
• 18:08
  And the other thing as well is that, you know, I saw it as a
• 18:11
  project. Obviously I wanted to treat it
• 18:13
  different to Nate Palm death. Yeah, Napalm Death has a certain
• 18:16
  lyrically has a certain way of expressing ideas.
• 18:19
  But with the with the napalm, the Melvin's thing, it was all
• 18:23
  about being off kilter and obtuse, much like I was talking
• 18:26
  about when I first got the Melvin's album.
• 18:28
  I I just wrote lyrics through a nonsense.
• 18:30
  But I must be honest, it's mostly it's all nonsense,
• 18:33
  actually. Well, I mean, there was.
• 18:36
  I was thinking I'd images in my head when I wrote them, but if
• 18:40
  you ask me now what I actually meant, I wouldn't be able to
• 18:43
  fucking tell it. I have no clue.
• 18:46
  And so, I mean, I guess you've already sort of alluded to this,
• 18:50
  but I feel like there has been, in different ways, a political
• 18:55
  component to Napalm Death throughout their whole history.
• 18:59
  How much would you say that that's been shaped by the
• 19:02
  external events? Like, you know, if we think
• 19:04
  about what's going on in the world at the moment, like, how
• 19:06
  much does sort of specific current events impact on the
• 19:10
  music and the lyrics of Napalm Death?
• 19:12
  Yeah, I mean, you could you could you could call it politics
• 19:15
  in one sense. But but I, as time goes on, you
• 19:17
  know, I become a little bit sort of unsure about that really,
• 19:21
  because really politics in and of itself, if it, it doesn't
• 19:27
  serve any purpose, if it doesn't liberate human beings, I don't
• 19:31
  think, or, or other sentient beings actually.
• 19:34
  And so, you know, whilst I am a person that grew up very much
• 19:38
  in, I know it's going to sound like a bit of a bloody
• 19:41
  stereotype, but I grew up very much in like the left wing sort
• 19:45
  of tradition, if you like, you know, that's my background.
• 19:48
  But, but I also realized that what really matters, it's human
• 19:53
  beings, you know, and, and other beings as well, because if, if
• 19:57
  those aren't served and just the politics is just, they're kind
• 20:00
  of hovering above everything, then it doesn't serve any
• 20:03
  purpose. Do you know what I mean?
• 20:04
  So I would say what Napalm is more about is, is about
• 20:09
  humanity, about understanding, in my opinion, what it is to be
• 20:14
  a human being, you know. So obviously that's a very wide
• 20:17
  parameters, you know, and sure, yeah, everything effects no
• 20:20
  palm. But The funny thing is, is that
• 20:23
  when people say, oh, you know, talking about current events,
• 20:26
  you know, isn't it like really bad right now?
• 20:29
  Yeah. But when you think back and you
• 20:31
  look at, you know, the transition of time, when was it
• 20:33
  ever not bad? You know, in the areas where it
• 20:36
  is bad, you know, well, it's always been like that.
• 20:38
  There's always been something or another, you know, that's really
• 20:42
  testing the testing the the validity even of human beings.
• 20:48
  Do you know what I mean? So yeah, absolutely.
• 20:51
  We are shaped by events. And actually, when I write, I
• 20:55
  always have current situation in mind because what I've met, I
• 21:00
  don't think it's, it achieves anything at this point
• 21:03
  necessarily to just make generic anti war songs, anti racism
• 21:09
  songs, because it's been done in the general sense like a million
• 21:14
  times. And you know, for me, for
• 21:16
  Napalm, it's just, it's not just there as a picture board, you
• 21:19
  know, it's there. I know it's AI know it's a
• 21:22
  little naive to think that, you know, a band like Napalm is
• 21:25
  going to change the world. But if we're not keeping up and
• 21:29
  reacting to events, then we're lagging behind.
• 21:32
  You know what I mean? We're not, we're not considering
• 21:35
  the, the, the, the conditions and the plight of human beings
• 21:39
  and other sentient beings as it is right now, you know, which is
• 21:43
  going to be different to like 1020 years ago.
• 21:45
  Do you know what I mean? So I'm very mindful of that, you
• 21:48
  know, that I just don't write generic catch all kind of
• 21:52
  protest songs if you like. Yeah.
• 21:55
  I mean, I guess that's, that's, it's, it's a difficult balance
• 21:57
  to find because as you say, you don't necessarily, you don't
• 22:00
  want to be too general, But at the same time, if you're too
• 22:02
  specific, then maybe what you do ends up being very specifically
• 22:06
  dated to A, to a time and an event that won't always resonate
• 22:10
  with people somewhere down the line.
• 22:11
  You're always going to be behind the curve a little bit, but
• 22:13
  there's not really much you can do about that.
• 22:16
  And in any way, the way I write my lyrics is not always literal.
• 22:20
  In fact, very often it's not literal.
• 22:23
  You know, I use a lot of language techniques, you know, I
• 22:25
  use try and use pathos. Not, not always particularly
• 22:30
  easy. You know, I'll always try and
• 22:32
  kind of couch it in, in sort of different, different language
• 22:36
  techniques. Sometimes I'll write from the
• 22:38
  third person, you know, So if I'm, if I'm criticizing a
• 22:41
  particular trait in a human being, I'll actually try and
• 22:45
  write through their eyes, you know what I mean?
• 22:47
  So I'm always, I'm almost writing about the perspective
• 22:50
  that I, I'm opposed to. Do you know what I mean?
• 22:53
  So I always there's many different ways to write things I
• 22:56
  think. You know, and in terms of the
• 22:58
  different ways that you've developed your lyric writing
• 23:01
  style or your creative writing style in general, has there been
• 23:04
  anything in particular that you would sort of single out and say
• 23:07
  those have been major inspirations and kind of whether
• 23:10
  stylistically or. Just kind of but that napalm
• 23:14
  still you're talking about. Yeah, the, yeah, the, the, the
• 23:17
  writing you do for Napalm. God, I mean, all I can really
• 23:21
  say I can't. I can't give you really anything
• 23:23
  specific other than to say the way that we've moved on as a
• 23:27
  band, especially the last couple of albums.
• 23:29
  Pretty. I know people always say that,
• 23:31
  but I really mean it in like throws of Joy and Apex that I
• 23:39
  personally think us are such perfect examples of of like the
• 23:45
  compounding of of many different influences and knitted together
• 23:51
  so well that it just I'm so pleased with those last two
• 23:56
  albums in particular. I really think, you know, Shane
• 24:00
  being the main writer, I think he absolutely fucking kicked it
• 24:03
  out of the park, you know what I mean?
• 24:06
  And yeah, and that obviously that allows me to really spread
• 24:10
  my wings. You know, if you've got if
• 24:12
  you've got music that's really vibrant, it makes it, it makes
• 24:15
  it a writing lyrics is never easy, but it does make it you
• 24:20
  have more of a smooth Rd. in, you know, if you have some
• 24:23
  really good, well, you know, some really good and and
• 24:27
  interesting stuff, you know that to to to build on top of, you
• 24:31
  know. Yeah.
• 24:32
  So do you have new Napalm Death, Napalm Death material that's in
• 24:39
  the works at the moment? I haven't done anything yet.
• 24:41
  I must be honest. And I kind of feel bad about
• 24:44
  that. But you know, I'm the sort of
• 24:46
  person I, I have to be at home and draw the blinds and turn off
• 24:51
  my phone and just sit and concentrate.
• 24:54
  I can't, I can't do it. I've tried to do it when we've
• 24:58
  been out on tour before and it just didn't work.
• 25:00
  It's just too many distractions, you know, I need to be
• 25:03
  absolutely not bothered by anything, basically.
• 25:06
  And I know that's really difficult in today's world, but
• 25:11
  I just have to isolate myself and write, you know, that's how
• 25:14
  I achieved my, I think my best results.
• 25:18
  You know, that's always subjective, you know?
• 25:20
  But yeah, I personally think, you know.
• 25:23
  And do you have kind of a regular writing practice that
• 25:25
  you do that you don't necessarily automatically attach
• 25:30
  to write writing lyrics? Like you just kind of have
• 25:33
  regular creative writing practice that you do a journal
• 25:35
  writing that you do. For itself, I mean, I used to,
• 25:39
  I, I, I worked in journalism like many years ago, but, but
• 25:46
  as, as a young kid, you know, going to school most, a lot of
• 25:50
  people, if you, especially if you're not particularly great
• 25:52
  with authority, you really can't be bothered, you know, but I
• 25:55
  loved school, you know, not necessarily the hierarchy, but I
• 25:59
  loved the lessons, you know, I love to like English, I love the
• 26:03
  express, you know, the learning, the different ways to, to
• 26:09
  demonstrate language and stuff. I, I think it, it just always
• 26:13
  fascinated me, you know, and I, I learning, learning how to
• 26:18
  write something in a, in a, in a, in a, in a very different way
• 26:22
  than what would be immediately obvious.
• 26:24
  Just, I just, it really touched me, you know, So I've brought
• 26:29
  those along with me, you know, those kind of those lessons
• 26:33
  learned and I've just applied them.
• 26:35
  You know, I, I did really well at school in English, you know,
• 26:38
  I, I, I passed with them like basically the top marks, you
• 26:42
  know, almost 100%, you know, because I just, I loved it, you
• 26:46
  know, I really did. So yeah, I mean, it's helped me.
• 26:51
  I didn't know it was ever going to help me because I never knew
• 26:53
  I was going to write lyrics at that point in time.
• 26:56
  But, you know, it's, it's served me pretty well, you know?
• 27:00
  Yeah. And so if I understand well,
• 27:03
  you're actually just about to go out on tour again to Japan, is
• 27:07
  that right? Yeah, we've got, we've got like
• 27:09
  a linked period really. I mean, we go to Japan and then
• 27:13
  we go straight from there to North America, Canada, the
• 27:19
  States and Canada, you know, sort of back-to-back.
• 27:22
  But Japan's going to be great because we're playing with
• 27:24
  Merspo, you know? Oh.
• 27:25
  Wow. OK, cool.
• 27:27
  I can't wait, you know, I know obviously love Mersbo.
• 27:31
  Never played with them though, you know, So it's, it's a burst
• 27:34
  for us in that, in that respect, you know.
• 27:36
  Yeah, that's super cool. Well, Barney, I'm going to let
• 27:39
  you get away, but thank you so much again for your time.
• 27:41
  It was great to chat with you. It's umm, yeah, I've been a huge
• 27:44
  fan for ages. So it's.
• 27:47
  It's. A thrill for me.
• 27:48
  But they never happened to me. It's just on this particular
• 27:51
  night, you know, I'll blame the weather, you know nothing else.
• 27:55
  You know, till good we can blame the weather.
• 27:56
  Yeah, yeah.