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Interview
by SashaS
7-8-2003
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| Killing Joke at the door of resurrection |
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Ominous rover
Killing Joke’s rage: rock ranging
There are very few musicians, scrap that – people like Jaz Coleman, the frontman with Killing Joke. The band’s self-titled comeback album presents Coleman, bassist Youth and guitarist Geordie armed with Dave Grohl behind the drumkit to propel them to places rock – punk, metal, industrial, nu, shock, hardcore – hasn’t dared to descend in many a year. Killing Joke have the nous and urge to return music to its ways of perverting the course of rockstory! Therefore, ‘Killing Joke’…
“It’s the best album we’ve made,” Jaz half-states/half-seeks-validation, “you have to admit. [Scout!] We’ve been planning it for six years and it takes ages to do anything with this lot. And now, it is the right time for us because we seem to do well during the war years, ha, ha. I met Grohl in New Zealand, sang with Foo Fighters, we got on great and he loved every track and played on the whole album instead of just three tracks it was originally planned. He is the best drummer we ever had, it is as simple as that.”
He certainly provides you with Kevlar-like backing?
“You know, he is a fantastic drummer, he laid all the drum parts (for 10 tracks) in 2 and a half days! I really wanted to ask him, ‘How can you play guitar when you can play drums like that?’ But I understand his dual playing because I do it as well with my parallel career, with an orchestra and the Killing Joke.”
Noir forces
Jaz (born Jeremy) formed Killing Joke in 1979 and after one indie three-tracker moved to Island but their association with major industry has never been mellow because of their attitude, stance and imagery: dark, menacing, disturbing and nihilistic. Plus, the singer had some issues that led to his disappearance in Iceland in ‘82 due to an overwhelming Apocalypse-phobia. That was the first of many stop-starts in the band’s career that otherwise had little time to compromise its aesthetics and mores.
Coleman, partly raised in Egypt, is a strange cat who nonchalantly mentions that last March, “I did a gig for The International Body Of Physicists on Anti-Gravity and Super-Conductivity [how many rockers could possibly pronounce this?] at the Columbia University (New York) before going to record with Dave,” (Grohl in Los Angeles).
Has the working method changed over the years, have members matured into more tolerance?
“We get into a studio, we get locked into a state of hypnotism and when everyone is smiling, especially Geordie, everything is happening. Certain things have changed and I define them as being able to do with my voice what I couldn’t do 20 years ago, we play much better and know how to completely explode and the standard is higher. I’m not usually the one to get on the nostalgia path but I wish we sounded like this when we started!”
“And, although we all can produce, we needed Andy [Gill, ex-Gang Of Four guitarist] to be a referee!”
Lyrical content remains as impassioned as ever?
“There are only two subjects to write about in Rock’n’Roll, freedom and ‘F**k off’! Freedom is everything and without it, we are nothing. I couldn’t possibly live in England ever again and am seriously considering renouncing my British citizenship.”
Collpasing sunset
If ever a band came near to approximating the sound of Armageddon, apologies to Slayer or Slipknot and other doom-rockers, but the honour belongs to the Killing Joke. For Marilyn Manson, a shock info: back in 1980 Killing Joke were banned from appearing in Glasgow after a concert poster depicted Pope Pius XII appearing to be blessing two columns of Nazi brownshirts. Don’t intellectualise my chaos!
You’ve lived on a Polynesian island for a number of year; does the world appear to be getting dumber, more bizarre, and are you more critical?
“I’m very much more aware because I live in an eco-friendly structure but you can’t run away from anything. These things Killing Joke address directly and all the information is available. I also travel a lot and can’t ignore what I see.”
Away from Rock’n’Roll you are well-respected composer (even called “our new Mahler” by the eminent Klaus Tennstedt), who’s had residencies with Auckland and Prague orchestras; what different pleasures do you derive from this two creative forms?
“Working with orchestra is divided on composing and conducting and I’ve been doing a lot of the latter over the years. Your mind is so utterly awake and your body… remember, nothing is plugged in, it is all natural vibration of sound and that is an electric feeling! It scares the shit out of me and I realised that’s why I got into the classical music, because I was terrified! I found my way through it and it’s funny but I got offered a seat of a visiting professor at a university for two years, then changing the national anthem of New Zealand, that was funny, worked for the Queen at the Royal Opera House (staging own work) last year, that was extremely funny…”
“It’s been a great time and I did two albums with (Nigel) Kennedy, even worked with Sarah Brightman who was very brave, with a name like that, to work on an Arabic album. My orchestral music is more romantic and I’m trying to create a more desirable reality while Killing Joke is my catharsis.”
One mirrors utopia, the other dystopia; where do you stand personally?
“Both help me from going mental… It takes a lot to prise me from the place where I live. But, I need Killing Joke now.”
It is beneficial for the rock-kind to have Jaz and the lads relapse into kinesis with thought and feeling supported by the empirical data!
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After V2003 appearances Killing Joke go on a fall tour:
02 October – Civic, Wolverhampton
04 October – Garage, Glasgow
05 October – Cockpit, Leeds
06 October – University, Manchester
07 October – Rock City, Nottingham
10 October – Academy, Bristol
11 October – Astoria, London
SashaS
7-8-2003
Killing Joke’s album ‘Killing Joke’ is released 28 July 2003 on Zuma Recordings
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