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At last... Godflesh play Ireland. From their indie-debut on Swordfish records in '88, this band have set fire to the rock rulebook many times over, pop pickers, creating a brutality yet humanity which touches many genres, but panders to none. Originally lumped in with the flourishing UK Grindcore scene in the late 80's, they clearly shed that incorrect categorisation as their evolution accelerated exponentially. Anyhows, enough of my crap. Onwards!
Fitted Kitchens had a quick yarn with main man Justin K Broadrick after their recent Belfast show.
You've spent the past 10 years on Earache... a label that, way back in early 90's, was THE home in UK of extreme Death/ Grind Metal... I first heard Godflesh ('Streetcleaner') via the 'Grindcrusher' compilation. Were you happy with the label 'perception' from fans? I remember reading Kerrang interview years ago, when you were on tour with Napalm Death and Nocturnus in the States, and you stated you hated that tour, that the audiences couldn't understand what you were doing...
 "I hated it at the time, but now I'm really glad Streetcleaner worked. When we released our first album on a tiny independent label, Swordfish, we sold like 3000 and we were blown away, like "Wow, that's fucking amazing", we were stunned. And then with Earache and Streetcleaner, suddenly we sold 20000 records. We never expected to sell any records to anyone. I thought our sound was so extreme that no one would ever listen to it"
You've always had an 'industrial' tag. Though looking at press, you'd think that the genre has suddenly sprung up in the last decade, when in fact it's been evolving since the 70's. There seems to be a 'year zero' approach with some journalists, who see beginning with Ministry et al. So there you are, you've been plugging away since the 80's (being influenced by the likes of Throbbing Gristle, early Killing Joke etc)... and all of a sudden, there's bands like Fear factory about five years later, and the press wets its panties at this 'new' style. Annoyed?
"Yeah, sort of. I mean, I know Fear Factory as friends. They loved 'Head of David' when I was in that band when I was 17 years old in 1987. They do definitely know their history inside out, and I respect them for that and Burton is a fantastic guy, a real fan, completely obsessed with the band. Initially, when I first heard Fear Factory I just thought 'well, there you go, take Godflesh, take Napalm Death, put it together, market it professionally' and you fucking sell a million records, which we don't sell anything near. Most of the bands who've taken anything from our sound, we've sold nowhere near their records.. They've all taken a bit, sold a million records, and we don't!" he laughs
Do they at least acknowledge it?
"Mmm... Fear Factory do, to some extent. I know Korn have taken stuff from us, but they don't acknowledge it, coz they were just hatched from an egg, 'no one influenced Korn', that's their attitude. But bands like Coal Chamber admit it, some of those Nu Metal bands, System of a Down, people like that... these are bands that have supported Godflesh in the past in America and, you know, we always come back to England and six months later these bands are fucking huge! And then they don't come to you then, they're not saying "well, why don't you come back out with us"."
In a way, they might acknowledge you simply to 'name drop' and give themselves a bit of credibility...
"Yeah, exactly, an underground sort of credibility. A lot of bands don't like to acknowledge it, they say they've come from nowhere, nothing. I've always been really honest about what influenced Godflesh"
The most striking aspect of your music is the whole vibe of alienation and anxiety that permeates the sound... it's not like the self-pitying 'oh I'm so angry/ abused' tirades of the likes of Grunge or more lately Korn... it's a more organic, genuine sense of claustrophobia and implosion...
 "It's really implosive, yeah, that's the point I think... traditionally, a lot of rock bands aim at crushing everyone around them, whereas we feel really crushed ourselves, do you know what I mean? It's like the devastation is actually us being devastated by everything, not like we're dealing it out. It's really highly introverted stuff, we know that ourselves, and that's why we're not some huge band. It's very idiosyncratic... I don't think what we do is that marketable really"
From your show tonight, it's evident that there's no overblown bombast in the Godflesh equation... your shows aren't the usual 'frontman/ entertainer' type, it's more of a collective experience...
"Exactly. It's not Iron Maiden, it's not your Nu Metal either, it's not Korn, it's not Coal Chamber, y'know what I mean, it's none of these things"
It seems to me that Godflesh's music is too often incorrectly described as cold and inhuman in music press... it's more 'real' than that...
"It is music of suffering, but we're utilising it coz we feel that we're in that position. It's not like we feel like "Hey, we're so strong, we're going to kill everyone"... it's the antithesis if that. It's much more confused as well, not as direct, and that makes our music much more 'human' really"
An intriguing aspect to Godflesh is your fanbase.. despite such extreme sound, you're all things to all people. The Metal crowd says 'Godflesh are Metal', but techno-crowd could relate to it, there's even a bit of hip-hop, and that rubs off in that Godflesh actually has a broader appeal than might seem to be the. You've got to the stage now where you're doing interviews for technical guitar magazines, you've got Ted from Prong/ The Swans (check out their awesome 'The Great Annihilator' - Ed) on drums, the patronage of John Peel etc... ie Godflesh is undoubtedly something of a connoisseurs' band.
Justin agrees "I think it is, it's more that than a popular band, that's for sure, we really just hit people who have a very specific taste in what they want. We weed out people... people don't get into Godflesh if they're very narrow-minded, I've noticed. It basically takes a bit of an open-attitude to generally everything. I rarely meet anyone who's a total racist or a total jerk, most people feel on many levels. I guess it's just not that macho really... it's the confusion that any man really feels I think, as much as it is being asexual it is. Obviously, being a man I write lyrics in that context, but it is naturally confused"
That's a pretty honest answer; most bands tend to be very cautious (though not necessarily dishonest... more 'reserved') when it comes to expressing their motives. Little wonder that genuine introspection is greeted with 'wow' when encountered...
"Yeah, exactly. People obviously think that there's a lot of mystique in creating something really fantastical, whereas I think that what we deal with is very realistic basically. Obviously, reality is really fantastical anyway in its most extreme sense. We heighten reality... I mean, it's really hard for us just to tell a story... my lyrics are really quite primitive, as you pointed out yourself. It's really direct, really. Even if it seems confused, it's really direct"
"Really, we are a rock band, I don't say Metal, but we are a rock band... because it is about guitar, it is about components, but we're probably one of the most surreal rock bands I think that have existed. Even though we're popular... heavy music is not generally played by people like us, generally. I think that's a really good thing"
But when you say 'people like us', what d you actually mean?
"Because we're just like hypersensitive human beings, do you know what I mean? There's no ambition to what we do... the only ambition is to succeed in sound, and that's it. And it's something that goes beyond words... as soon as it goes beyond words, I'm interested in it. As soon as something becomes illiteral, I'm really interested. Because when it goes beyond analysis, that for me is magic, special. You can't literalise it any more... it's hitting you at every level, in your head, body, everything. We're really trying to make music for head and body."
"I'd say it was drug music... that doesn't mean you have to take drugs, but that the music works like a drug. And that's really important to me... everything acts like drugs to me; if music works in the same fashion it's really got something beyond analysis."
It's perhaps no coincidence that Godflesh's name corresponds to 'God's Flesh', a native American Indian term for the hallucinogenic peyote. Shame the interview was so brief, but cheers Justin! So there we have it... Godflesh... Fucked-up music. Sorted guys.
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