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This morning, I received the following e-mail from reader Parker Werley:
“How does a band get to earn the proud badge of having -core in their genre?”
That’s a pretty simple question, but it’s also kind of thought provoking. So I thought maybe we could explore it here a little bit. Because, honestly, I’m not sure that I know what the answer is.
On April 11, I interviewed Napalm Death front man Barney Greenway when the grind god rolled through NYC on the second date of their tour with Kataklysm, Toxic Holocaust, Trap Them and Coliseum; on April 13, I interviewed Nile’s Karl Sanders. If that wasn’t fucking life affirming, I don’t know what is.
So: Barney Greenway and Napalm Death. Napalm practically invented grindcore (in fact, their former drummer Mick Harris literally coined the term) twenty-two years ago with their seminal debut, Scum; Greenway joined the band two years later and, save for a bried hiatus in the 90s, has been there ever since. The man is a fucking legend, and necessarily so: on stage, he’s just as ferocious as he ever was, and with the release of Napalm’s latest, the mind-fucking great Times Waits for No Slave (read my review here), the band has laid to rest any doubts that they’ll be slowing down any time soon. The fact that he turned out to be an incredibly nice, soft-spoken British chap only just barely calmed my nerves enough to actually remember all of my questions.
After the jump, get all of Greenway’s thoughts on why Napalm Death continues to be a relevant force in metal, the ins and outs of the band’s live show, the state of modern grindcore, and more.
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