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Utilitarian, Napalm Death’s 14th album, is full of the kind of brutal grindcore angst you’d come to expect. Singer Mark “Barney” Greenway rages against the world over the course of 16 tracks that average just above two minutes each. Russ Russell is once again at the production helm and guides the trio—Mitch Harris performs all guitar duties—through the music. If anyone is looking for anything less than vocals that will hit you like a punch in the gut and guitars that will simply strangle the very breath out of you, you won’t find it here. There are bit of synth strings hidden here and there but they are mainly for atmosphere and Greenway does sing in a clean voice on occasion and if he does it’s because a song demands it. Here in a trans-Atlantic call from the UK to the U.S., the singer talks about Utilitarian and what has brought him here. Two minutes after he’s scheduled to call, the phone rings and the first words out of his mouth are “Apologies on a couple minutes late.” A man of metal with a heart of gold.
How aware were you of Napalm Death before you appeared on the Harmony Corruption album?
I was actually around the band before Scum was even recorded. I mean both me and Shane Embury used to knock around with the guys. I mean I saw Napalm a good couple of years before Scum even came out so yeah, I was friends with ‘em and kinda knew ‘em. And there were bands before Napalm like the general sort of music they were doing. There were fast sort of mainly hardcore bands from the U.S. and from Europe and Napalm was just like a continuation of that almost. So I was completely familiar with what they were doing.
Did you think you would carry on in the tradition of Scum and From Enslavement to Obliteration?
To be honest I didn’t have any preconceptions at all. I just wanted to get in and I knew what I could do with my voice. I liked that the ethos of the band was completely where I was at. Yeah, I just wanted to obviously do what I knew I could do without even thinking, “Yeah, I’ve gotta make my mark.” It wasn’t like that at all. I wanted to do what I knew and what I thought was the right thing to do.
Can you talk about what drew you to death metal and grindcore?
My heavy metal days were sort of fading away into the distance at that point. We were looking for the faster, heavier kind of things and so we sort of veered towards the more punkier end of the scene because that’s really where the chaotic, off-the-rails stuff was coming from. Me and Shane the bass player were quite similar in that respect. We were looking for the fast stuff, the more crazier thing all the time. I mean at one point obviously bands like Slayer were kind of really the ones that were doing the ultimate thing. But then there were other bands after that where to us kind of left Slayer in the dust a little bit. There was always that consistent search for faster, crazier music. I wanted bands that kind of spoke to me I guess in an ethical kind of way.
The great debate is whether Harmony Corruption was a death metal or a grindcore record. What are your feelings?
That’s what was said but you’ve got to remember if you really listen to the album, it’s still kind of along the same lines as what Napalm was before. I think it’s more classed as death metal because of the production value. You’ve got to look at it like this a little bit: From Enslavement to Obliteration had sort of been and gone, the Mentally Murdered EP had been and gone and I just think that Earache had an expectation of Napalm when I joined. Not that they didn’t before because there was a lot of buzz around the band when Lee Dorrian was in them. Like I said I was just kind of carrying things forward; I was just a different person. The thing is that when we came to do the third album, there were a number of options on the table in terms of recording. But when the record label turns ‘round to you and they’re actually the ones that say, “Oh, we want you to go to Florida for a month.” We’re like, “Uh…yes.”
Flying to producer Scott Burns’ studio in Tampa, Florida to record Harmony Corruption wouldn’t have been your first choice?
That’s the option we took. Now the studio we used, Morrisound, of course we were aware there were lots of these kind of new-generation death metal bands at the time were using that place. And what we thought was we could go there and get what was still effectively our own sound but get the real positives out of that studio. But unfortunately—and no one’s to blame for this and I’ve never pointed any fingers about this—Scott had done all these other bands and he kinda knew what his sound was. Unfortunately I don’t he fit for Napalm; I just don’t think it was the right sound. It was a bit too compressed and a little bit thin for my taste. But Scott did what he could to the best of his ability, which is great. It just didn’t work for Napalm and we came to realize that at a certain point. Again there’s no finger pointing and there’s no blame; it’s just the way it worked out.
Is that why fans might describe it as a death metal album?
So consequently Harmony Corruption people just automatically call it a death metal album. And OK, in one respect it does have some riffs on there that lean a little bit more toward that but still for a lot of the music it’s still along the same lines of what came before it. We’re kind of picking flies about genres and I’m actually doing now the very thing that I don’t like to do. I don’t like to really sort of dissect the genre argument because I think people waste so much time actually getting into really, really heated arguments about this stuff especially on Internet forums. I just think there’s better things to be worrying about.
You mentioned that the sound of Harmony Corruption was a bit thin. The guitars and vocals didn’t have the kind of presence they had on Utilitarian.
Yeah. I mean the important thing to mention now I think is that me as a music fan what I like is I like noise. I like noise. Part of the wane of appeal to me of a lot of the extreme bands nowadays is they rely so heavily on ProTools and everything that comes with that and consequently all the edges are polished off their albums. There’s no spontaneity to the sound of the album anymore and no organic nature to it. And I think you have to have that at least from my tastes in extreme music. An album just sounds so much better to me when it has that kind of spontaneous sound to it.
Did you think Harmony Corruption had those qualities?
You mentioned about perhaps the guitars being a little muddy and the vocals not poking through and that might sound negative to people. But to me if it’s that way because it has a certain noise ambience to it, I don’t see anything bad about muddiness. That is part of the ambience of an album to have it and I really don’t see anything negative about that.
That wasn’t meant as an insult—just an observation.
No, I’m not saying you do. I’m just making a strong point for muddiness. Because I feel that a lot of people that paid attention to that statement you just made, would think, “Well, mmm, that wouldn’t sound very good.” But it actually can be a very positive thing for an album.
A lot of things changed in 1992 when you did the Utopia Banished album: Colin Richardson is onboard producing and drummer Danny Herrera has replaced Mick Harris.
Colin was in Discharge and if you know anything about them, an English punk band, they were a big influence on Napalm Death. Colin did the Mentally Murdered EP, which came right before Harmony Corruption so we knew exactly what Colin could do. We wanted that wall of sound. I think that’s a very good term actually, which was of course pioneered by Phil Spector but perhaps in a different sense. And Danny was a different kind of drummer really to Micky Harris. It’s hard for me to pin it down in descriptive terms but he was and still remains a different kind of drummer. Umm, I don’t know it’s hard to describe—they’re just two different people. Danny was quite concise whereas Micky was a bit more chaotic in his approach. Two different approaches really.
In 2005 you do The Code Is Red…Long Live the Code with guitarist Jesse Pintado [who passed away in 2004]. Was it a different approach just working with the one guitarist, Mitch Harris?
Jesse didn’t actually play on Order Of the Leech either. His name just kid of appeared on there because it was like the tail end of him being in the band. We actually did expect him to play on the album but it’s just he never showed up [laughs.] Really that’s what it was like so it was actually Order Of the Leech as far as I recall where he wasn’t around. But I digress a little bit.
Did you think that Jess Pintado’s guitar had been a big part of Napalm Death’s sound?
I did kind of worry about what it would be like to lose the twin guitars. The thing is we’d already had quite a bit of experience ‘cause Jesse was doing some pretty rambling stuff at that point in terms of even being around. Mitch had to learn to cope with the guitars on his own. So we already knew in a live scenario that Mitch could do it. And of course we did sort of debate whether we should get another person. If it was gonna really like have a negative effect on the band then of course we would have got somebody. But we didn’t feel that we needed somebody else. That unit of the band had been together for so long inasmuch as we’re like pretty amiable people, we really sort of didn’t want to bring somebody new into the unit at that point. I know that might sound a bit strange to some people. Bands for a large part of their times together, things can get pretty tense at points. And we just felt that we didn’t wanna bring another person into the mix or whatever at that point and acclimatize him. We just didn’t feel like doin’ it to be honest. So it just kind of stayed as it was and I think in the long run it’s been borne out and we’ve been proven right by making that decision.
Would you ever add a second guitar player?
Of course there could always be room for another guitarist and I’m not saying there couldn’t be. But it’s just not on the table at this point.
On Smear Campaign you brought in Anneke Van Giersbergen to do some backup vocals on “In Deference.” Apparently this caused quite a stir with your hardcore fans because they thought you were going soft?
Sometimes people put two and two together and make six. You know what I mean? That was the whole thing with that operatic thing. I remember that point being made actually and I just kinda held my head in my hands and like shook my head. That was just a part on the album and actually the inspiration for that part—just for the record although I may have stated this before—was on a Celtic Frost album. They used a certain part, which we wanted to replicate but it was not at all anything like that. But you know what at the end of the day? Just put it this way: Do you honestly think us as four or five people—and I put this generally out there and I’m not pointing it at you—would want to do stuff that was so off-the-scale and didn’t have the impact anymore? Do people see us and think that we’d even want to do that?
There is a lot of provincial thinking in the world.
If that was the case why would we spend most of our lives doing this band? I mean seriously why would we bother? We’d just say fuck it and go and do something else if we got that bored with things. I mean we do experiment of course but we live and die by our own decisions. No question. We do experiment but we understand as a band after all this time that there is a core thrust of Napalm Death as a band both musically and lyrically and that has to be at the heart of the band. If we do other stuff in and around that, fine. I don’t have a problem with that—if people like it they do and if they don’t, they don’t.
Does it make you crazy when you hear all the things people say about the band?
I’m so thick-skinned at this point. I do respect people’s opinions of course even if they were to really rag on the band. I do certainly respect people’s opinions but I don’t lose sleep if people get overly negative about stuff. Because maybe not in the mid-‘90s but now I’m pretty certain that what I’m doing people like. I’m confident enough in myself to sort of know we’re doing what’s right for us as a band. People that follow the band, we totally respect their opinions and we’re always open to criticism.
At the end of the day if you want to bring in an operatic singer, then that’s what you have to do.
You also have a certain responsibility to yourself to put your neck on the line and do what you have to do and what is the right thing at the right time. If for whatever reason that then brings the ceiling down on you then so be it—you live and die by your own decisions. It took me a while to think in that direction. In the mid-‘90s I definitely wasn’t that confident but now I’m pretty confident about that really.
Which brings us to Utilitarian and the presence once again of producer Russ Russell. He is obviously a very important part of the Napalm sound.
Russ isn’t like a producer in that sense of the word. I mean he kind of trusts us that we know what we’re doing. I know that sounds really strange because bands sometimes like to be led by the hand or whatever but we just have a certain confidence in ourselves. That extends also to the record label; we don’t expect the record label [Century Media] to be telling us what to do. They’re there to put our albums out. Yes of course again, same thing—we will accept criticism or whatever and we will take in onboard but once we consider it and we think it’s strong we’ll carry on regardless.
How involved does Russ Russell get in the creative process?
I mean yes, OK, Russ might get me to rearrange a phrasing on a vocal here and there; we’ve definitely got stuff like that every now and again. But in the main Russ just doesn’t feel that he needs to do that with us. Yeah, he’s not that kind of producer. I don’t know, I mean every band needs to do what they need to do but if a producer came in and started rearranging all our songs, it’d kind of take a bit of the enthusiasm away for me to be honest.
“Circumspect,” the first song on the album is mainly an instrumental with keyboards and a brief lyric.
Yeah, the keyboards are there sort of just to enhance the atmosphere. Actually I didn’t see what went on that track so I can’t say for certain because I was not in the studio when the general atmospherics were put down on that track. So I couldn’t say for certain.
“Everyday Pox” has a halftime feel to it. When you’re doing songs at slower tempos, does it allow you to expand what the vocal will do because there’s more room for the lyrics?
Yeah, perhaps to an extent. When you’ve got slower tempos it’s only natural that you’ve got more space to work around. The way I write generally—and perhaps a better way to answer question—is I always like to cross myself. Traditionally what I didn’t always like about some extreme music is that it was always wrote in 4/4 time where the lyrics were always the same staccato kind of arrangement. There’s much more to it; you can actually write like a traditional lyricist or vocalist in another genre completely. You could take influence from that and that’s just traditional songwriting. It doesn’t mean you’re taking away from the extremity of what you do. You’re actually using techniques, which are gonna enhance what you do.
Writing across bars makes a lyric swing a bit more.
Yeah, I tend to write across riffs and stuff because sometimes you get far far different and far far more interesting results. Of course I do use the traditional 4/4 stylistic thing but I like to branch out a little bit and give things a little bit of flavor.
If somebody were sitting in the corner of the studio when you were recording “Leper Colony,” what would they see?
I’d say to Russ, “Give me loads of cable and let me run around.” And he’ll let me do it within reason. This is another really good thing about Russ—a lot of producers I’ve spoken to I’ll tell them, “Yeah, I’ll sing in the control room.” They’ll say, “Well, use headphones.” I say, “No.” They’re like, “Sorry?” I’m like, “No, I just manage off the studio monitors.” They’re like, “Ooh, can’t do that because it’ll bleed into the track.”
Russ Russell gives you a lot of freedom.
The thing with Russ is what he’ll do is he’ll let me try it first and then he’ll listen back to the take with the vocal over the top of it. And of course it could be a bleed that really messed with the track. And he’d be like, “Uh, we gotta rethink this a little bit.” But why not do it? Why not try and recreate that live feel? Sure you’re gonna get the best result if you can do that.
You can’t stand stationary and sing?
I can’t stand stuff on me when I’m singing—I kinda like to be figuratively speaking naked. I want a handheld mic and I want a flask of lemon tea and a bit of cable so I can sort of throw the mic around a little bit and that’s it. I have a music stand in the corner with the lyrics on it to refer to and that’s it. So that’s what I want.
Is there a quality you like to hear in your vocal when you listen back?
What I want with voice is presence; that’s really what I’m looking for. Overall presence. I want the voice to sound quite natural; I don’t like vocals swamped too much in effects. I mean yes, of course, we do use effects sometimes to get a certain tone that’s just not achievable with the natural voice. But ordinarily if I hear just a regular voice, I want to hear it in its general ambience. Going back to when we were talking about spontaneity and recording is sort of like being allowed to breathe. I want that space in my voice and I want it to sound as if I’m singing in a room where there’s just a mic hanging from the ceiling or something like that. That’s what I want to hear so I couldn’t really give you the technicalities of, “Put a bit more mid on Mick and a bit more low on that.” I just want to hear a natural voice that sounds as if it’s in a room.
Have you tried to push yourself as a singer on Utilitarian?
You know what, man? Honestly like I said earlier, we don’t make a checklist and I certainly don’t when I make an album. I really don’t do that; I try and go with the flow. I try and go with the spontaneity. Yes, there are other influences outside of the obvious ones within the band. A lot of those more ambient vocals you hear on the album are influenced by bands you wouldn’t even associate usually with grindcore metal or punk or whatever.
What types of bands?
Swans, My Bloody Valentine and Joy Division and all those kinds of post-punk bands. They have always been a big influence on Napalm but the difference being with this album is I applied them to the faster sections. Whereas before they’ve always seemed like they’ve exclusively had a home with the slower, more ambient stuff. But with this album I mainly applied ‘em to the faster end of things. I didn’t think it would work at first but it did. So pretty good results after all.
On “Fall On Their Swords” there’s a section that comes in around 1:30 with a really clean voice. Is that you?
That’s me, yeah, on that part. I’ve been able to do this stuff for a while and you just do it when it comes to you and when you think it’s appropriate or whatever.
As a native of Birmingham, England, were you aware of any of the other bands that came out of there?
Growing up, yeah, definitely. Judas Priest, Black Sabbath and a lot of reggae. It was local media and local culture was all talking about that stuff. I bought the actual Black Sabbath “Paranoid” single pretty much in the neighborhood that Black Sabbath are from.
That is very cool.
That’s where I bought it. How many people can say that? Not many [laughs.] It is what it is—of course Birmingham has a lot of musical heritage but really at the end of the day it’s kind of coincidental. It could have kind of happened anywhere really.
Napalm Death performed in Israel? What was that like?
Difficult ethically for me because I’ve always been a supporter of the call to boycotts because of the Palestinian situation, which I think is still an injustice and a travesty. On that occasion I really struggled with whether I should go or not but I also had to consider some other voices within the band. It was a difficult time for me on a personal level but by the same token I went there and I certainly didn’t hide behind a rock. I made my feelings quite well known and I met some people who are human rights people trying to make a difference with the Palestinian situation. Yeah, it wasn’t too bad in the end.
When you did the Leaders Not Followers: Part 2, were those bands like Sepultura, Agnostic Front, Siege and Dayglo Abortions whose songs you covered influences on Napalm?
Most of the bands that were on there were just bands that had had an influence in my formative years. Those were all bands from our formative years. I think for most people if they get quite heavily into music, they have a certain formative period. Where those bands that really struck a chord in that formative period tend not to leave them. Yes, they will go on and appreciate other things but those bands tend to stick with ‘em for life. My formative period was the early- to mid-‘80s when there was some fantastic extreme music in general and hardcore punk, metal and other stuff as well that was more leftfield. It was just a great fertile time.
What does Napalm Death have planned now?
We’ve got some dates coming up through Europe mainly. We’re doing the Maryland Deathfest in the States and yeah, the year is just kind of mapping itself out at the moment.
At the end of the day were you happy with Utilitarian?
Yeah, like I say there’s no master plan when we make Napalm albums since we do what feels right at the time. We’re not choreographed and we’re not that well planned when we go to make an album. The spontaneity is key but it’s all subjective and it’s also down to what people think of it out there that might have a passive interest.
Interview by Steven Rosen
Ultimate-Guitar.Com © 2012
