Interview with Barney Greenway of Napalm Death: The band’s name is very direct anti-war play on words

25/07/2022 Video Interviews Share

Minions! We were honored to once again interview Mr. Barney Greenway of Napalm Death, again at Exit festival, in Serbia. Unfortunately, our time was so limited, since Napalm Death were about to perform at Exit Festival’s main stage, so we only had 5 minutes for the interview.

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We started the discussion with the very first Napalm Death show in Belgrade, Serbia, during the 1996 Diatribes tour with At the Gates. Oddly enough, that was the very first metal show after the sanctions on Serbia were lifted. Barney Greenway commented on that: Oh yeah, we were talked about that. There’s quite a weird story behind that. So we, because of the situation between Serbia and Croatia, we said, look: if we’re gonna do one, we’re gonna do both. So we’re equal…so we went to Croatia first and then Serbia. But when we were in Croatia, some people not from the gig actually wrote some really horrible stuff about Serbians on the side of the bus. As we were coming in to Belgrade, we were like: what’s wrong with people? There was shouting, and waving their fists like that and when we looked at the bus there was this really sketchy, like weird stuff and I was like: sh*t, they could have thrown rocks at anything... I think, as human beings, most of us are anti-war, and anti-stupid nationalistic buls*it, you know...

Then, we talked whether Napalm Death has some new material done: “Not at the moment, ‘cause we…the album and the mini album came out in the space of a year so we haven’t even toured on those yet, so we need to do that first, I think”.

Then we talked about the ending of Enemy of the Music Business album, where Saša Janković, the album’s engineer was doing this very funny take, half in Serbian, half in English language. Barney commented on that: “Everybody is talking about it today, yeah! Yeah, it was an engineer that was working in the studio at the time, and we just said, just say something stupid and you know, that’s what he did”. And when asked whether the album title is still relevant after all these years, Barney Greenway added: “Well, if you wanna look at it in the sence that Napalm is a band that lives and dies by its own decisions, and like, nobody in the bigger music world can tell us really how we should be and what to do, then that’s your answer, I guess…

Barney also elaborated on the band’s name – Napalm Death: Well, I think people know what napalm is, which is a terrible defoliant. Defoliant means “to get rid of” but they started to use it in bombs, so it’s a very direct anti-war kind of play-on-words title.” When asked whether it has something to do with the Vietnam War, he added: “It has, but it means you can widen that against all war. I mean, you know, let me really state all war, not just selective wars, all wars.”

Since album Scum turned 35, we asked Barney a question behind the story of the infamous artwork, depicting multinational corporations – genocide of the starving nations, with piles of skulls topped with corporate logos of big corporations like McDonalds, Nestle, IBM, Ford, Coca Cola, Exxon, Union Carbide, to name a few. “It was meant to reflect the behaviour of corporate entitites in the world at that time. I mean, Nestle...you know...well yeah, the baby milk story, everybody knows that. Yeah, water as well...Same thing..many different things”. When asked to comment on McDonalds, he briefly added: “Well, let’s not speak about that. (Laughs) I have my own particular opinions on that”.

Then, I asked why the Birmingham metal scene was so powerful, with bands like Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Napalm Death, Benediction, and others coming out of the area. Barney commented: “You know what, I mean, I understand why people speak about that but, to me, I think there’s a danger of being overly romantic about that stuff. It just kind of happened, you know what I mean? So I don’t think there’s a magic in the air or whatever like that, it just is as it is, and it could have been any other city, you know, so that’s my answer. I’m sorry to burst people’s romantic bubble but that’s just how I see it.

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00:00 Start

00:40 1996 Napalm Death show in Belgrade, Serbia

01:58 New album?

02:13 Enemy of the Music Business funny outro

02:53 The band’s name

03:36 Scum artwork

04:18 Birmingham metal scene

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