Napalm Death

Yellow Scene: The new album Apex Predator – Easy Meat is out. Any change in style?

Barney Greenway: As with any Napalm album, it’s fair to say that it’s a couple of steps forward from the last one. We’re not reinventing the wheel. But essentially, you could split Napalm into a lot of different elements, but I think the main parts are the really fast, chaotic stuff, and then the really ambient stuff. It’s a little bit further down the road. With the vocals, there’s a coupe of things that I’ve pushed a couple of steps on.

YS: What have you been listening to?

BG: To be honest mate, I’d love to tell you that I’ve got a list of 20 great albums to listen to, but honestly, and this sounds really shit coming from somebody who’s a music man, but I’ve not listened to anything in the last 12 months. I have listened to stuff, but it’s been old, classic stuff. I like classic rock, but like a lot of things it’s kind of overplayed. I’m a music fan. I like classic rock because of the great songwriting. A great song is a great song, no matter what. I’m as likely to listen to Throbbing Gristle or Swans or Minor Threat. There’s a 24-piece orchestra called Turtle Island that I like. I like a bit of everything. I’m a bit arty-farty in terms of tastes across the spectrum. To be honest, if somebody made a lot of white noise and put it on an album, and it sounded abrasive, I’d listen to that all day.

YS: Any particular memories of playing Denver?

BG: There’s one venue that looks like a miniature theater [we think he means the Gothic Theatre] – that was always a good gig. Of course, the Cephalic Carnage guys are from Denver who, as soon as you’re in town, are like a magnet to listen to some metal. They’re really good guys. There’s also a really great vegetarian and vegan restaurant there called the Water Course. I’ve had some cracking meals there.

YS: What can we expect from the set?

BG: It’s gonna be mixed, as it always is with Napalm. We’ll have a considerable number of new songs, as we’re doing a new album. Probably six or seven new songs, plus a real mix of stuff. We try to cover every album, but it’s really not possible. Even Napalm, with the number of songs we manage to cram into one of our sets, it is difficult to cover absolutely every album. We do our best because we understand that, whilst the sets got to satisfy us first and foremost, different people like different periods of Napalm. There’s no real rhyme or reason to it in a lot of cases. As much as you can’t please everybody all the time, we at least try.

YS: Anything happening musically in Birmingham?

BG: To be honest with you, somebody will probably come round my house and give me a kicking for this, but it’s been a bit off the boil for a little bit. There seems to be a hangover from times when venues were dropping out all over the place. I mean, there’s a couple of goods pubs here. The Actress & Bishop is one. But in the main, it’s a bit of a struggle.

YS: What’s next, after this tour?

BG: This year’s done and then the US tour starts next year. I’d imagine we have Europe after that, and then I know we’re going to India and also Australia so there’s quite a spread of places. It’ll be a good year, 2015, I think.