Canal 15: After so many years on the scene, and more than 10 albums what has kept you guys alive? Musically speaking!
Barney: I don’t know… obviously people can see what the elements of Napalm Death are by now, at least those who know the band; generally extreme music; fast music, fast hardcore, fast metal you know, and a few other influences. I think the important thing is that have always manage to somehow make each album discernable from the previous one, so no tow albums are the same, and think that for us is important, I mean is not life or death but is good that you can take two albums are tell that they are different; while remaining faithful to the influences that Napalm has you know.
Shane: Yeah I mean is exactly the same; we have the same approach every album, but because the recording techniques are different in each album, that makes it stand out. So many years ahead we have the same mentality in every record, and I think that some people have learn to appreciate that.
Barney: To be completely honest, sometimes is very difficult for us to analyze it, and off course is a question we get asked a lot. Because is been so long for us, and it may sound really obvious, but we just do what we feel is right, for us you know; and is not a very complicated though process, because we are so accustom what we do to what we like to do, but is difficult for us to analyze it to closely. Like Shane says, we go to each album with the same mentality, but somehow just that creativity is four people just make each album different, because in ourselves we are striving to do that, while we are not stepping away from what makes Napalm, Napalm is you know what I mean.

Leviatan: First welcome to the country! You guys are going to be just for today in Costa Rica if I’m not mistaken right? I just wanted to know what do you think, how do you see the country as far, knowing how little you have seen, and if you can compare it to any other Latin country you guys have visited before?
Barney: Is very difficult to paint a picture in one day; I mean to me it looks a lot like other places we have seen in south America and central America; it sort of have the same characteristics… to be totally honest I didn’t know a lot about Costa Rica before today, and I’ve always liked to think I know a lot about different places; but I didn’t really know much about Costa Rica, perhaps the only thing that I knew about Costa Rica was Paulo Wanchope to be honest, I didn’t really know too much. At least I didn’t make the mistake of saying it was on south America because I knew it was on central America, but I don’t think that particularly important you know. That’s the unfortunate thing about gigs like this, because well at least on Brazil you do 3 or 4 gigs, but with gigs like this you are never really gonna discover what a place is about; unfortunately I cant really tell you too much about it. All I have seen is the inside of the hotel, the restaurant, and some of the streets of the center, but that’s probably not a true reflection of Costa Rica, so its hard. But to speak about something, it has been friendly and that’s what matters you know.
Shane: The same

Six Degrees: Many of your fans think of you as the creators of a genre like Grindcore, how do you feel towards this, how would you describe your genre? Since you started playing as punk, and hardcore and then some people created a genre because of your influence how does that feel?
Shane: Well I don’t know, the band started as a punk band in the 80’s and that was with SCUM and that’s what we became, who we are a Grindcore band, some punk, hardcore and then some metal but that’s what we are a Grindcore band. We are pretty happy with that name with that label. People say that we created a certain style and that is very flattering to us and is nice to be part of that; but as a band of people we don’t think about it too much, still people said we create it and that’s cool its nice to be part of these scene, but we try to keep our feet on the ground and level headed with it, because if we don’t make a good album then that is not gonna make a difference you know.
Barney: There are probably too points, well first when you said that Grindcore was created by the people, the name that term was actually created by a person who was in Napalm Death, before he came up with it, nobody used it, that was Micky… our old drummer, Micky Harris. So that was pretty much invented within the band instead of somebody from the outside coming up with it. It is not like it really matters or anything but I just wanted to get things straight. Its great to belong to a scene, because the people are very supportive of bands and they help get things going, and there is more strength obviously on a group of bands than if you were just alone. Sometimes thing can be suffocating, because people take it upon themselves to put like scene rules and stuff like that, and that’s when in some cases it starts to get pretty stupid to be fair. And like Shane says yeah is great to be consider the forefathers of the genre; if you ask people that are in the bands, that have been around for a while, they don’t think about it too much, really the most important thing is to continue to be creative and make good albums, and be faithful to what you do, also to have some unique things, and yeah that’s the important thing.

Canal 15: Was it necessity for the band to touch political subjects on your latest album Smear Campaign? And Also I would like to know about your view on free trade commerce promoted by the US, because we have just approved CAFTA?
Barney: The problem with those free trade agreements is the fact that… (we got interrupted by a sound check on the main stage, nobody could hear anything…3 minutes later), Ok let me start at the beginning, I have always look at it using this analogy; If you go into the city, is all nice, is all neon and stuff like that, very often people that don’t go outside the cities; they don’t go outside the cities and see how some people are really affected, they are not the 20% that live inside the city and have the wealth to live inside the city; that’s the problem with free trade agreements, it helps probably 20% of the global population, the poverty gap increases; because free trade has a double meaning, it is not free, because free trade like that is never free, it enslaves a bigger percentage of the world population; I mean everyone knows that is getting worst. All free trade agreements what they do is, it stops big companies from paying small independent farmers, or producers a fair price for their goods. Basically it lets corporations stamp on the little people that need to survive. I mean there are some good initiatives, I think the fair trade movement is generally really good, but its too small in terms of the big multinational agreements, is insignificant, so that’s the real problem.
Canal 15: What do you think is the difference between the European economic model and the USA model, because for me the USA is a lost child as Great Britain… with no offense… so with your experience, what do you think is the difference between economic models implemented on countries like us and lets say the economic models implemented by the Europeans towards Africa?
Barney: Well the lines… they are not that different anymore, because most countries in Europe are aspiring towards that US model anyway, I mean you can see in any town in the world a McDonalds in every fucking street. That’s the unfortunate nature of the way things operate, is difficult to differentiate between the two, so I think is only just started, is going to continue that way so, not to be totally negative about it, but is hard to see were things in the future are going to be any different; everyone knows about… I mean is been hyped a lot and has become sort of a circus around, but the global movement at the moment, the environmental movement. The other thing with Al Gore and all that stuff… fair enough but, that is only gonna be as effective if the economic models… if someone actually stands up and goes “right this are the problem and this is what we are going to do to change that” otherwise is not a very good picture…if that makes any sense (laughs)
Canal 15: Well right now for Costa Rica there is no hope, we had some elections on the matter but we lost.
Barney: Well that’s the thing I don’t really know much about the situation in Costa Rica, is hard to make up… yeah I mean the problem of free trade is that it looks good on the surface, but it doesn’t help the majority of the people in the world who are still below the poverty line, who’s helping them? How’s a free trade agreement helping them? Is not!

Leviatan: Following that same line, not exactly talking about politics but, Napalm… well you have always been so outspoken politically and socially, has the band, do the rest of the band members feel this deeply and engaged in this sort of topics?
Now with this new album Smear campaign you guys directed your ideology towards religion, been very anti-religion, do you guys intend to keep following this line of social, and political rhetoric?
Barney: Well just commenting on the album since if Shane has something to say he can say it himself. In the way albums are with the subjects, people rightly or not always break it down on if it political or not, to me is irrelevant you know to me is common sense; is not even about politics because the word political or politics in a general sense… is fucking boring to be honest, mainstream politics is maybe that way because people are so cynical about politicians and politics and stuff, that’s because everyone sees the corruption and the fact that most politicians are in it for themselves you know.
The whole word politics is fucking irrelevant you know, so the way that I tackle the albums fair enough some of the topics might be consider political but at the end of the day to me is just common sense, I grew up as a person to make myself to just not accept what others told me to do, and that some people have more rights of existence than others, and that’s the way I was raised by my parents, and that’s the way my brothers are… my whole family is like that you know; is something that I have always felt strongly about, and off course when I joined Napalm it was just a perfect thing for me, to join a band like that.
Everyone in the band has their own perspective, and that’s absolutely fine, because that’s the nature of the human race, everyone’s got there own perspectives and that’s the way it should be.
Shane: Actually I have never been into politics at all, so from my point of view, is that of when I was growing up, my family, my friends they never saw anything got better, no matter what government was in, so therefore I never showed much of an interest, but at the same time you can see clearly that things are never perfect. Barney is the main focal point of the band lyrically but I think is important to believe that if you have the opportunity to say something you shouldn’t waste it, so that’s where Napalm is. If I were to write lyrics well they might not be like they are right now but they will be pretty similar; Napalm has always been a band about expressing ourselves in a positive way and as for the rest of the band might feel differently from each other, there is always a common theme, we have all been middle class, working class families; so I don’t know what to say more than you should question things and use the lyrics to express yourself.
Barney: To be totally honest all of us probably feel the same way on most subjects; I think everyone is different like I said before; people express themselves in different ways. There are always some things that Shane, Danny, Mitch or me are going to do in our life that are totally different or that the rest will never even consider doing and that’s because we are different people, and that’s it.
Shane: As a band lyrically we are always gonna challenge subjects that we feel personal about; I like a lot of bands that sing about… whatever, but with Napalm Death each album has to have a theme or a subject that we feel strongly about so every album has to challenge us and things like that you know.
Barney: Obviously we are gonna start working on a new album pretty soon, so I’ve been thinking about what is that going to be about, and if you take the albums as you suggested, political or not, then the next album might… is not for sure yet, but I have been kicking around is basing an album about reclamation of certain things you know, reclamation of yourself as a person, cause that’s something that for the last two years I have been sort of thinking about fairly, fairly deeply, start seen yourself as a human been and having the right to make yourself happy; to make yourself happy by yourself and not stomping on other people top achieve that; that’s something that is important to me. There are certain things that you can do with life to get to a certain point you know, going from A to B, you can do it in a certain way… how do I put this… you can either step on someone else to get there or you cannot do that and that might make it harder but you can get there at the end, and that’s the sort of way that I like to do things… if that makes any sense, so yeah that’s the way I have been thinking lately… off course it might turn out to be completely different (laughs).

Six Degrees: I will like you to comment on the following events in the USA; first the sort of new violent episodes on the Straight edge community (some kids get beat up in concerts); since you were straight edge. And here in Costa Rica a couple of months ago, Deicide was banned from playing in the capital and Cannibal Corpse was almost cancelled by religious protestors; I just wanted to hear what you though about this two incidents?
Barney: The first thing, the straight edge… well yes I was sort of straight edge if you take the definition of the term; but once I started do in it and people found out about it, I started to get questions and interviews and they were sort of pushing and glorifying the straight edge line; the thing is that after some time I sort of didn’t want to be associated with it, that’s why I never talked about it in interviews, because I certainly appreciate the point the fact of making yourself happy, I appreciate the fact that you decide what you want to do in life, I mean that’s great go for it, but it’s a personal choice. Is not for people that have created a movement around it to dictate and use intimidation and violence against other people to promote what is essentially a lifestyle, I mean is fucking crazy to even think about people getting beaten up and even killed in concerts; to me is just fucking stupid… I think there are no other words to put that you know.
I’m not straight edge anymore, purely because I make a choice, I had a drinking problem when I was younger, and it was pretty rough, it wasn’t good times… I mean I had some good times while I was do in it (laughs) and Shane knows about some of them. But the rest of the times when I had to look inside myself I was pretty fucking miserable, and so I didn’t want to go through that again you know, but I got to a point were I knew that I could have a drink or a couple of drinks and it wouldn’t be a problem you know, and that’s it end of story.
Straight edge all well and good, do it if you want, but to enforce and brutalize and intimidate people is fucking ridiculous you know, stupid. Obviously Ian Mackaye sort of coin the whole fraise, I read some interviews with him and I think he didn’t know the sort of mob it was gonna turn into.
It only became a fashion because kids could have the x on the back of the hand and that was the whole point at first. There are some aspects of straight edge that I totally disagree with; they have something against abortion you know? They call abortion murder but then they go and kill someone and I mean that’s not straight edge, and on the abortion topic I’m pro choice always have been you know, so that’s why is so ridiculous to me you know.
And regarding the other question, I believe that more than the religious point of view is the comedy you know, the promoter was telling us on the bus that some people on the media actually believed that those guys were cannibals, is like going from point A to point B without actually thinking or bothering to do any research, and more so speaking about journalist. But back to the previous topic is pretty much about the same, censorship, intimidation…. You know fuck off!
The religious thing, it relates to our last album, I certainly had experiences in my life, my mom went to a religious school, when she was younger and so I was borne in a family that half didn’t care and half was religious, and so I was sort of drawn into it, and more so during so weak points in my life; but eventually a couple of years ago I came to realize it was nothing but a crop of shit you know. Religion which ever way you look at it, and by that I mean which ever religion you look at, is nonsense man, because there is no concrete evidence at this point, of any religious events or any miracle or religious apparitions or anything like that, there is no proof. When you take that and consider that religion has such a powerful role in the global state of affairs, how ridiculous is that; probably most of the world statistically are non believers, most of them just don’t accept it. Yet a huge religious control is all over the world and its very dangerous, it can still drives us to the point of a world war, because fate makes people believe that they are superior to other people of other fates, because they believe that they are right and other fates are either not right or simply irrelevant. So as a principle people are gonna fight over this. My point with Smear Campaign is that, haven’t we come to the point that sort of open our eyes and realize that this stuff is sort of nonsense, and we shouldn’t let it affect the way people get a lot with each other on the world; I’m absolutely convinced that if that was the way there would be a lot more tolerance, a lot more understanding, and a lot more people trying to understand other people; if we didn’t had this religious control you know.

We run out of time so the press conference had to be cut short, still thanks Kontakt and Napalm for having us, and to the other media representatives that made some pretty good questions.

Live review

---

Katharzys
Katharzys was in charge of waking up the audience, at least those of us that could still walk since some guys were already drunk out of their minds to even realize that there was music playing; anyway, the local death act gave the solid performance they always give, fast, technical, death metal, nothing more nothing less, they even used the opportunity to present their new EP “The Beginning Of Desolation” and play one of the new tracks on that record, it sounded like a very good step forward for the band, with more hooks and memorable segments that helped the global technical death approach that characterizes them, they also played their more memorable songs like “Tower of flames” a good crowd pleaser. There were just some few technical mishapennigs with Monestel’s bass, and some adjustments where made in some monitors and the show continued. A little over 30 minutes Katharzys warm up the audience, and created the first mosh pits of the night.

Corpus Necromantum
This death band with a black attitude climb stage in their usual style, cover with fake blood and no shirts, they really got the crowd interested and moshing as the first riff began to corrode the atmosphere, if there is something you must say about this guys is just how much entertainment they bring to the stage, spiting fire and showing a pigs head while the drummer spits fake blood (I hope it was fake!) at the crowd, really the new school of what a metal show should look like, still I’m not very happing with them throwing that severed head at the crowd, but hey 95% of the guys playing soccer with it didn’t seem to mind, so I guess I’ll have to let it pass.

Corpus is solid, not musically surprising, and not like they even try to be, they just play straight up death/black, so musically they have never really cared about writing new and exiting music, but what they lack in musicianship creativity they complement with a great and exiting live show. So another 30 minutes with bigger, bloodier mosh pits and the people where ready for Napalm Death.

Napalm Death

As usual every main act begins with many false intros, or at least that’s what you think when suddenly out of the dark you see a figure that might resemble the band that you have been expecting all night, but it just turns out to be the sound engineer fixing last minute details, well that happened on a couple of occasions, and after a relatively short period of time the band climb on stage, the people went mad, and as the first song rush through the air the entire place rumble, Napalm Death had arrived!

Barney moved and sang as frenetic as he looks on all the videos, Mitch remained sort of isolated from the mayhem and immerse himself in a sort of trance that helped him relate more with the killer riffs coming out of his guitar, while Shane got close to Barney for support; as usual is hard to really make up what the drummer, in this case Danny was doing…well not exactly what he was doing because the thunder and ballistic speed of his feet got everybody headbanging from beginning to end.

Sadly for me I couldn’t really enjoy those few initial moments, I can’t even remember what the first song was, as I fought my way through the security pit right in front of the stage just to take some pictures of the origin of all the mayhem around me. A few spans, then some more just to emulate the real pro photographers around me, just in case I didn’t get an angle that they with more experience had found out to be the best in this sort of situations, but of all the angles, the best pictures came from the faces of the people in the front row, the expression of passion, relieve and for a lack of a better word “happiness” singing and screaming along side a band that for their expression was more than just music.

Of all the classics from more than 12 full length albums, the ones that hit the audience more than others were, Breed to Breath and the three short tracks from their first historic release Scum; during the entire show the mosh pit was kept alive at moments consuming the entire audience. Barney as he showed in the press conference was always engaged with the people, speaking in Spanish…sometimes in bad Spanish but speaking to the people, thanking everyone from been there and making us remember that behind Napalm Death’s music there is an idea, a philosophy as he explain in English when he introduced a few songs from their latest album “Smear camping”, they even played their shortest song ever “You Suffer” after which Barney said “cuidado, cuidado” (watch it, watch it!) I mean that 3 seconds “track” really got some people exited.

“Nazi punks fuck off” got a big intro from Barney as he explain the origins of the song, and was more than welcome from the few old school punk fans that had joined us that night; there was even a “blooper moment” when a failed attempted to introduce a song when terrible with the sound, and the coordination, making Barney moved around for a couple of seconds without knowing what had just happen and Mitch indicating Danny to just keep going, and so they did; even the pros get into trouble from time to time, but their experience was shown in how they manage the situation and how they got out of it.

The sound was good, sometimes just sometimes the guitar was a bit drown out a bit by Barneys vocals volume, but nothing that could affect the overall feeling of the songs; the lights were a big plus, nothing to fancy just enough to emphasize the bands presence on stage.

Overall a very good show, one of the best ones I have ever attended in San José, the guys from Kontakt were very professional, dedicated, serious and friendly about their roles; the security measures were good and alert at all moments; so all is left is for me to thank Eddy from Kontakt for the opportunity to cover the event, great job man, keep it up, next time we might get lucky and have Ariel Chaves during the press conference!