Napalm Death
A chat with Mitch Harris.
by Jeremy Wernow
It's strange to think that Napalm Death has been around as long as
Metallica. Originally forming in late '81/ early '82 with absolutely noneof
the same members that they have now, Napalm Death have managed to stay
around and become one of the more successful bands in their genre. The group
went through a drastic line-up change in the mid-eighties, leaving onlyone
original member by the time their first album, Scum, was released in '87.
This was originally only available in the States as an import, and onlyto
people with access to stores with a good import section (I was not one of
those people).
Following the releases of From Enslavement to Obliteration and Mentally
Murdered, the band had another drastic line-up change and headed to ourarea
of the country to record their first domestic American release, Harmony
Corruption. Now in addition to Europe and Japan, they put an American
success under their belts. The line-up since then has been fairly
consistent; the only replacement being drummer Mick Harris (no relationto
Mitch, eat your heart out Duran Duran), who left to pursue interests in
Scorn. After adding current drummer "Danny Herrera" and poundingout many
more albums, EP's and side projects, the band found itself at the beginning
of 1996 with the release of not just another one of their many EP's butthe
release of a full length album, Diatribes, to accompany it. Just before
Christmas I received a call from Mitch Harris, guitarist since the Harmony
Corruption days, while he was visiting family in his original stomping
ground of Las Vegas.
Band Of The Past
me: Where are you calling from?
Mitch: Las Vegas.
me: Ah, out by Area 51!
Mitch: I'm totally into that whole trip, that whole field.
me: Have you always lived there?
Mitch: When I was ten, I moved here from Queens, New York
me: In the past few years you have toured in some places that you have never
been before. You played giant stadiums in Russia, you toured South Africa,
and played places in Canada that nobody ever played before.
Mitch: We found out why too. We wound up in Thunder Bay, Canada, it was
worth doing Canada to check it out. I have nothing bad to say about it but
you're better off playing less shows and traveling sometimes. As far as
Africa goes, I was honored, I never thought I would get to Africa in my
life! Who would think to play in Africa?
me: Is there much of a scene there?
Mitch: Yeah, it's weird, the white people have their own scene and the black
people are on their own trip. They don't fight, it's mellow but it's
separated. They have their own record companies, and shops that distribute
Earache and Roadrunner stuff. There were twelve hundred people in
Johannesburg, and three hundred in Durban, Fort Elizabeth and Capetown,all
cool shows. Russia was two nights with seven thousand people each nightin a
hockey stadium, which to me was surreal. With the type of music we playI
would never imagine that many people would turn up. At the time the barriers
were coming down and they're very interested in western culture. They are
totally into extreme music, they went from the Beatles and then they didn't
have anything, they were shut out. Then suddenly they're open again andthey
go for the craziest stuff they can find. The price was 25 cents to get in
and there was military security there; it was intense. The people were still
restricted, the craziest thing they could do was swing their coats around.
me: Was there a pit?
Mitch: No, the military wouldn't know what was going on, they would seeit
as a riot. Being American, we all grew up being bred that Russia was the
enemy. They had nuclear power, we were afraid of them, they were afraidof
us. I figured they were people, they were just as scared of us as we wereof
them, nobody wants a war, it's all the governments shit. So we got to go
there and see what it was really like. We talked to soldiers who were total
Napalm fans, we took pictures together and it was totally cool. They were
normal people just like us. When we were there, they were in a depression
like we had in the thirties. We went back once since and played a festival.
We could easily do 40 shows in Russia, but we kind of have to do a record.
There's still South America. There's still Australia and Japan. We've had
problems getting to places lately for one reason or another. Last recordwe
only did like a hundred shows.
Band Of The Present
me: Tell me about the new album, or actually I should say "albums",since
youre releasing a full length and an EP.
Mitch: Utopia Banished was just all out speed. To us, at the time, it was
the ultimate blast album. After that we were like "OK, what do we donow? We
want to do something different." So we experimented, we tried off-timedrum
beats, different song structures, more aggressive tempos rather then relying
on speed all the time. If we had done another Utopia Banished, there would
have been no where to go. Then we did Fear, Emptiness, Despair, that went
over real good I thought, there were some good songs on it. We looked at
everything and focused on new elements that were not on the last record.
This record is a big change but it's actually more of an evolution process
since we've been in the band. It's been tough to move on in a credible sort
of way, without losing the traditional elements but still doing something
new. Now there's a lot of dynamics to the sound, a better production,
there's different guitar lines going on. We never got into sampling andthat
whole trip, we just used the guitars for noise. We did some hypnotic slow
stuff, we did fast up-tempo stuff that breaks into unexpected parts. Welaid
down the basic song structure and tried to get the basic riff across, and
then arranged it so that by the time you hear the song, it sticks in your
head without being boring. We wanted a nice sound, pleasurable to the ear;I
think it worked real well on this album. Obviously we are going to haveto
do something different on the next album, now that we've seen what workson
this album, we can bring that into the next album as well as incorporating
new stuff, try to keep things fresh. Barney [Greenway, vocalist] wasn'tsure
what he was capable of doing, but he experimented and I thought he did a
good job. There's more to his voice then what everybody knows.
me: What have you been listening to lately that influenced you to writethe
music that you did on this album?
Mitch: What we've gotten into since we joined Napalm [Death]... I got into
Jane1s Addiction just before I joined. At one point I totally got into
Zeppelin again, I was real into Pink Floyd when I was a kid, then the metal
years came along and I grew out of it, then later I got back into it again.
I got into that and Cocteau Twins and Skinny Puppy, Ministry, Smashing
Pumpkins, I freaked on that, Quicksand. We've got our old influences like
Celtic Frost, and DRI, our style comes from there, but now we're just
learning how to develop different stuff into it. There's so much stuff out
there, that we can actually get an idea from Cocteau Twins, The Cranberries,
The Sundays, the mellow stuff, mix it in, and it works. It's hard to do,
it's taken us six years to do it. Slowly adding dynamics to it, it kindof
makes the heavier parts heavier though. Makes it have more of an impactwhen
things go up and down. We wrote like 18 songs for this album, we were all
sitting around waiting for Collin Richardson to finish what he was doing
because we really wanted to work with him. We kept waiting and writing,at
the end we had 18 songs and it was total confusion. We tried to put an order
for the album together, at the end we got frustrated and gave it to the
record company. We split it, whereas I wanted "Self Betrayal"and "Cold
Forgiveness" on the album. The mini album was basically to promotethe full
album, so that people can hear it, so they can know what we're doing andso
that they can know that we're different. For the price of the single they
can get seven songs and see what they're like. Actually it's supposed tobe
the price of a single but I went into the shop the other day and saw itfor
like nine bucks, so that went out the fucking window somehow. That was
basically just to let everyone know that there's a new album and that we're
going to tour.
me: Since you're in Las Vegas now, is it tough having band members in
England and the states?
Mitch: Actually we live in England; that was one of the conditions of
joining the band. I'm just home for vacation. It's no problem being in
England though. Sometimes it's a problem keeping us in the country,
immigration and all that shit. Jesse and I used to tape trade, all that
underground stuff. I sent my demo all around, for my old band Righteous
Pigs. We were both trading with Napalm Death, we were basically listeningto
the same stuff at the same time, so when we joined the band it wasn't
culture shock. Just two guys from the other side of the planet, and it
worked out. We're totally comfortable with the Napalm camp, and the music
has totally flourished., we know each others styles in and out. We spenda
lot of time on writing songs nowadays.
me: Recently I spoke with Lee Dorian of Cathedral, and he expressed a lotof happiness about not being on Columbia any more. What are your feelingsabout being strictly on Earache now?
Mitch: I had no problems being on or off Columbia; we were signed to Earache
and they licensed us to Columbia. We had more money to work with we didn't
have to worry about the budget. We came out of it OK. We did the record,
they put it out, they didn't try to tell us "don't do that, don't dothis".
Imagine a label like Columbia < there's five hundred or a thousand people
working for the label, and there's four people working on your record. It's
hard for them to get the records to the right shops, get their point across,
get it linked to the underground. The four people who worked on it knewwhat
they were doing, but how much can four people do? There's no hard feelings
between us or them. It obviously didn't live up to their sales expectations.
We parted ways, and we're back on Earache now, they1re more in touch with
the underground, and they1re doing a good job. It's actually less pressure
on us. [Earache] have no choice to put it out whether they like it or not.
They've always liked it though, but if they don't, fine, we're into it.What
do you think when you see a band on stage who sounds just like you?
Mitch: If that's what they're into then that's cool, influences are
influences. It just makes me want to veer away, but it's in your face,
especially when there are people out there who don't notice it's influenced
by what we've done < that frustrates me. When people at least give creditto
Napalm or what ever other band they are influenced by, then that's cool.
me: You tend to put out albums fairly quickly whereas bands like Metallica
put out albums every three or five years. How long, on average, does ittake
from when a song is written to when it's on an album and released?
Mitch: [Metallica is] in a position to do that. I don't think Rage against
the Machine is in a position to wait four years between albums, they haven't
built up enough of a following to do that. People are always into the next
thing, they get into the next trend real quick, things come and go, flavor
of the month, whatever. We have always been into doing what we are doingand
releasing it as quick as possible, but work at it and do a good job. That's
more important then putting out two albums a year. If we were to take four
years to do an album, there's so many bands out there we would probably
become a thing of the past; we try to be on top of it. We have songs that
have sat around for two and a half years before making it to a record, the
average is about a year. My favorite stuff is always the new stuff,
obviously; we've played the other shit a thousand times, it gets old. The
fresher it is the more psyched I am about it. The last couple of recordsmy
favorite songs have been the last ones we put on the record. Everyone'sgot
their own little way < Shane's already got six. By the time we go dothe
record he'll probably hate half of them. There's always stuff there, we
could do another record, but we want to concentrate on this one.
me: You can always save the other tracks for the Napalm Death Box Set. Now
that Napalm Death is (fairly) popular, what type of magazines do you talk
to? Zines, small magazines, major publications?
Mitch: I talked to a lot of zines, Jesse does, Shane does, Barney does,
which is good, they don't feel alienated from Earache. Earache is more in
touch with those people then Columbia is. A lot of people are actually
coming out of the woodwork that we didn't hear from on the last record,we
didn't hear what they thought. The underground plays a huge part in the
state of music in the country today, so we never turn a cold shoulder on
that.
me: What's weird is six guitar magazines picked up on this record. I
remember seeing something in Rolling Stone a while ago about grindcore with
Napalm Death.
Mitch: Yeah! I thought they were going to slag us off but, it was favorable.
Now there's bands like Metallica who are breaking new grounds for everybody.
I don't care what anybody says, they still sound like Metallica, and they
are breaking new grounds commercially. At the same time it's made people
appreciate what's heavier.
me: Are you going to do a video, and if you are, how do you plan on going
about promoting it in America seeing as how there is no national metal video
show any more?
Mitch: I don't know. We're doing a video for "Greed Killing."We didn't
spend much money on it, , seeing as how it's not really going into rotation.
We found a director with a good idea and said fine, go to it, we didn'twant
to rack our brains. We're pretty happy with it; it's definitely different
for Napalm. Our only two friends who play our videos in America are Beavis
and Butthead.
me: What did Beavis and Butthead say about your video? I know they weren't
very nice
Mitch: They trashed it, it was kind of funny. They said Barney sounds like
Godzilla, which is about right.
Band Of The Future
me: What's in the future for Napalm Death say a year, five years or ten
years down the line.
Mitch: We're going to tour until the end of summer then be back in the
studio by November.
me:You have song ideas already?
Mitch: Oh yeah, we held back on this album. By the time we get to the
studios the songs will be a year old. Now we know what worked for this
album, we have songs we didn't use. We have an idea or a concept of whatwe
want for that record, that's as far as I can see. When that's done we stop
and see what's been done so far, carry on from there, it's a one recordat a
time thing. I'd like to progress in a way that gets us to the year 2000,try
different things, innovate a bit, try to tour, get to places we've never
been before.
me: Is there anything else you wanted to say?
Mitch: Nope, just keep an open ear, and an open mind towards our new record.
Don't limit yourself to one type of music, there's something in all typesof
music.
Copyright ©: 1996 Jeremy Wernow, revised 11 - 29 - 96.
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