Napalm Death – Shane Embury

There are bands that really don’t need an introduction and Napalm Death is certainly one of them. With a reputation for putting out some of the most gruesome and brutal grindcore known to man kind, the British/American four piece from are returning to our shores after four years along with fellow UK metallers Carcass in support of their latest record Apex Predator. Metal Obsession caught up with bassist Shane Embury to talk about all things Napalm Death. 

After exchanging pleasantries, we got talking about the upcoming tour . “Everything’s going really well! Just sitting down doing all the interviews. Things have been pretty busy with the tours and the new album. We went on tour in the States in January with bands like Iron Reagan, Voivod which was really cool and now we’re getting ready for Australia. We have toured with Carcass before in 1989 – we did a thing called the Grindcrusher tour in England, then 1992 we did a two month tour of America together.  I know the guys pretty well especially Bill who was the old Napalm guitarist so it should be a lot of fun!”

Having played a few shows around the country back in 2010, they’re pretty excited about coming back along with Carcass! ” It was cool when we got asked whether we wanted to do the tour with Carcass who also had plans to do a few shows, so it all just worked out that way. We enjoyed our time in Australia, had some great shows there, people have been great. Lots of memories so lots of fun times to look forward to for sure. ”

January saw the release of Napalm Death’s newest album, ‘Apex Predator – Easy Meat’, one that is sure to burn holes through many ear drums. ” Response has been very good. The last few albums – each one seems to be gaining kinder words, newer fans so that’s very flattering for us because we feel quite privileged to be in a position where people like us and what we do. Of course I’m sure there’s the odd bad review but it is hard to find to be honest. We went on a five week tour with Voivod recently and the response to the new material live was really good so overall it’s been great, the kind of feedback we’ve been getting for the new album. What’s cool though is even after so many years you keep on pinching yourself when people say good things because you really never know what to expect, so it’s always a bonus.  We’re very happy that things are moving forward constantly.”

One of my favourite things about this band are definitely the subjects that they base their music on such as evolution, politics etc and the gripping title ‘Apex Predator – Easy Meat’ really appealed to me when the album was announced. Shane talked about what the idea was behind this release. ” There are many aspects to each song on the record, some of the concepts deal with disposable technology, the race that we’re in with the newest fastest things and discard the whole fact that the companies behind it all are just people in sweatshops getting paid nothing at all and living in real shit holes – just not getting food and basic amenities in life that we all deserve. It’s not so much a concept record but certain lyrics do deal with certain aspects like that . I mean slavery is said to have disappeared years ago but that never happened because it’s still very much there. People are still getting exploited it’s just that corporations have sort of changed their game they’ve changed their ideas remarking their whole approach to try and cover up what’s happening so really what Apex Predator refers to is the fact that humans are easy meat in this day. If you look closely at the album cover it’s basically a meat package, it’s like a tablet, the whole thing was inspired by industrial artists from New York. ”

Shane also talked about the writing process of this album, how it was approached this time around and what ND try to convey with their albums both musically and lyrically. “It was different in the fact that we recorded the album in three different stages in the course of over ten months I guess  because usually we don’t do that.  We were trying to capture – well, with the drums really, we didn’t want it to sound uniform on every track so that was the initial process. Also with the songs I had some ideas but we just went in and tried to work things out, get some spontaneous ideas. It wasn’t like I sat at home and knew exactly how I wanted each track to sound. We started with this riff and then from there we’d see where it goes. Lyrically there are many subjects over many records. We’re not trying to preach or anything but we’re trying to point raise questions, raise observations for people to listen to us to see if it interests them. Some people have become vegan or vegetarian from listening to us – through some of barneys beliefs or that their ideas have changed towards the world because they’ve heard or read something by us. We try to raise ideas and see how people react to them. Bands can write about whatever they want but we’ve always believed that we’re there for a purpose.”

Speaking of reactions, the band has been involved in the ongoing drug trafficking case in support of two Australians who were caught trying to smuggle heroin into Indonesia, appealing to Napalm Death fan and metalhead President Joko Widodo to spare their lives and Shane talked about how it’s impacted the band. ” It’s a controversial subject you know, it would obviously be of course, when it comes to something like capital punishment but it doesn’t stop there because it spirals off into sub-genres of what is right and what is wrong. I think it’s comes down to moral thought and we all felt that we should get involved because it was really something that if we turned a blind eye to it, it would be the wrong thing to do and I think that’s as far as you can go.”

Has it been getting the band a lot of negative attention though? ” The thing is if you’re going to put in a finger then you’ve got to be prepared to take some shit (I had to shove a sock in my mouth so I didn’t laugh). So yeah on Facebook, there’s been posts from various people who supported these guys and then there’s of course been the criticism. But the real issue at hand here is taking someone’s life because there are choices. I think  if you’re going to point fingers you have to take the criticism that comes with it.”

Chatting about a few more things, it was very inspiring to talk to Shane , and he did have one last message to Aussie fans and what they can expect from the double crusher of a tour from Napalm Death and Carcass. ” It’s definitely going to be fun with our old mates from Carcass – a double header, lots of good times to look forward. Hoping to see everyone out there at our shows in April! See you soon!”

Napalm Death and Carcass will be joined by Extortion and horde of our very own metal bands in support so I’d advice you to get off your arse and mosh at one of these shows!

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