Great Equalizers: Napalm Death

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MARK "BARNEY" GREENWAY is sometimes like Billy Bragg — just a lot louder.

The singer for British grindcore pioneers Napalm Death shouts down societal ills, but rather than placing his anger next to gentle pop, Greenway & Co. blast a brutal form of music that owes as much to '70s working-class punk as it does '90s extreme metal.

But Greenway has no desire to enter politics.

"Mainstream politics stinks, man, it really does," Greenway said in a thick Birmingham accent. "The power structures ... that are in place at the moment give the people in power more rights than you and me have, and how can that be right?"

It's not right, and that's why Napalm Death has soldiered on for 28 years, weathering a dizzying array of lineup changes — Greenway, 39, joined in 1990 — while maintaining a remarkably consistent vision.

"My approach is no different ... from when I was 19 when I joined Napalm," he said.

The quartet's last album, "Time Waits for No Slave" (Century Media), is another bracing broadside against injustice, and Greenway's lyrics are as furious as ever.

"When I apply myself to lyrics, I think really, really deeply, " said the son of a trade unionist. "I don't wish to sound pretentious, but I would like to be connected to my art."

Greenway's anything but pretentious, which is one of the reasons why fans still clamor for Napalm Death's latest blast beats: The band expresses the frustrations of everyday people who feel disenfranchised by money, power and greed. It's a Sisyphean task to keep rolling that ball of hate up that hill, but Greenway's the man for the job.

"I won't give up," he said. "Everyone gets dejected at points, demoralized. But I think at the end of the day, the ultimate aim for me, along with other people, is I want to live in a world that's peaceful and tolerant and a bit more equal. That's it right there, and if that's the end point, there's still a long way to go."

» Sonar, 407 E. Saratoga St., Baltimore; visit myspace.com/marylanddeathfest for lineup, times and tickets; Fri.-Sun., May 22-24; 410-783-7888.

» RELATED: "Supreme Brutality: Maryland Deathfest has grown to be a ritualistic event for extreme metalheads" {Express, May 2009]

BONUS Q&A

» EXPRESS: Do you wish more extreme metal bands sang about real-world politics rather than, say, dragons and Satan?
» GREENWAY: I'm not gonna sit here and play bat and ball with other bands for doing what they do because it's entirely up them. There is always a danger within the general genre of heavy music for people to sometimes look down on other bands because they do this or that, but, frankly, I have no opinion on them at all. Let them do what they do — more power to their elbow.

For me, I have to do what I need to do. I think the lyrics in many ways are an extension of me. The only thing I can say is that, obviously, someone writing about fantasy — dragons and stuff like that — it's not an extension of them; it's more obviously them picking up on certain themes that have a lot of times been quite stereotypical. Again, it's entirely up to them; I don't want to cast a judgment on them. But I just feel the need to do things in a certain way and be very involved with what I do. I don't wish to sound pretentious, but I would like to be connected to my art.

» EXPRESS: Are you ever surprised that Napalm has lasted this long and remained so relevant and passionate?
» GREENWAY: I think it's important to say, from my perspective, I don't associate age with things. I hate to resort to -isms, but ageism is the great travesty, really, that is not often addressed. We always tackle — rightly so — sexism and racism and stuff like that, but ageism is something that gets pushed to the background a little bit. I think it's really unfair in a lot of ways.

We all do it; we all sort of resort to the kind of train of thought because you're a bit older that this might be different, or that might be different. And, yes, it is in a sense that you may be of more refined views because you have been in a lot more situations, but I don't think we should necessarily connect creativity — or lack thereof — to age. I don't think there's any kind of distinction to be made there; I really don't. People might disagree with that, but to be honest, the sorts of things I'm doing now within the band and playing live, I could have quite easily done when I was 21. My approach is no different; my influences aren't really any different from when I was 19 when I joined Napalm.

I've always had difficulties understanding why people tie age to creativity or personal achievement within a band scenario. ... If [critics] see the band before they hear the band ... and they don't know much about the band, I think they're more inclined to make a negative judgment. If they see the band and go, "Bloody hell, they're in their mid-40s, mid-50s or whatever, what are they gonna have to offer?"

» EXPRESS: But do you see a time when Napalm might stop?
» GREENWAY: I couldn't put a time limit on it, really, partly because of what we've been talking about. This is a question that comes up quite regularly. It's gonna be circumstances that dictate. All of us in the band would like to think that if it does stop it's because we decided to do it, that it's not exterior forces or physical / people forces that force us to do it. That it's not any direct pressure from any music industry thing.

For me, it will be if I just run dry creatively and the gigs started to feel like a chore — just in terms of, well, you can't really be bothered — it's a natural thing, it does happen. Once it gets to that point, I'll just quit; I can't half do stuff. It would just be not really pleasurable to me to go through the motions.

Of course, there's personal circumstances. [Guitarist Mitch Harris'] family is growing; he's just had another baby with his wife. I'm not leading people down any paths, but when the family starts to widen like that, who knows how long Mitch is going to want to do it for?

For me, personally, I got really no circumstances right now that would prevent me from doing it. I do have a long-distance relationship, which can be quite difficult, but for the most part this one is working out.

» EXPRESS: But if Napalm did stop, would you ever consider running for office?
» GREENWAY: I don't know about that. ... Mainstream politics stinks, man, it really does. The power structures really bug me. I won't go into this too deeply because we'll be at this forever, but I think the structures that are in place at the moment give the people in power more rights than you and me have, and how can that be right?

Systems evolve and systems change, and maybe there's an argument that the whole worldwide system really needs to change so the people at the bottom of the scale right now really get more input, because it's just not happening and it needs to at some point if we want to maintain a peaceful, tolerant world — it's just got to.

So, in that sense, Napalm's not really — I'm probably playing cat among the pigeons right here — but is it really a political band at the end of the day? I don't know. I see it as an extension of the things I believe in, and the band does: humanitarianism and peace and tolerance. Is that politics? Maybe it is and maybe it isn't, I don't know.

But would I still be involved [in social issues] if the band were to go on pause? Well, yeah, because I was of that nature before I joined the band. It wasn't like I flipped a coin overnight and decided this was how I was gonna direct myself; I was that way, to be honest, since I was 6 or 7 years old. My dad was involved with trade unions, and I understand what I believe to be injustice. So, I will always be involved with something, because I can't really see me working for someone in a suit, making money for them, and getting really bored. [laughs]

» EXPRESS: How much of "Time Waits for No Slave" covers globalization and the threat of a one-government-style New World Order?
» GREENWAY: New World Order, not in the sense of what people would generally understand that term to be, you know, the conspiracy stuff. I didn't want to jump into that for this album. Not that I find it particularly a nonsense, to be honest; there's a lot of stuff I would like to see laid out on the table before I actually made up my mind about that sort of thing. But globalization is very solid, it's very real, you certainly can't question that, really. That was definitely a thing.

And globalization does come at the expense of a lot of people. This is what I was talking about earlier. The systems we have in place right now need to move on to somewhere else at some point if we don't want outright global civil war where people that have just had enough — because they've been deprived for so long — just rise up. And if that did happen, do you know how many people that would be? It would be quite a significant amount of people.

So, I don't see why we don't include everyone in the process, move toward more cooperation, and maybe then we wouldn't have people not learning and [then] using weapons against each other. Wars and stuff like that, state murder or terrorism, people express outrage about it, but generally speaking, it's accepted. It is. ... And if we're evolved as human beings, how can't we see that's not the way to solve things?

» EXPRESS: It's a big, big machine of evil you're raging against. Ever get tired of kicking against the pricks?
» GREENWAY: Perhaps at some points, yes. But my resolve is such, if I need to get something across, I won't give up. I don't wish to give up. I do feel that everyone gets dejected at points, demoralized. But I think at the end of the day, the ultimate aim for me, along with other people, is I want to live in a world that's peaceful and tolerant and a bit more equal. That's it, right here, and if that's the end point, there's still a long way to go. But I never get that demoralized where I just go "Fuck it" and go live in a bubble. I don't want to put myself on a pedestal, but I just generally care — and that's it.

Photos courtesy Century Media