(taken from the Maximum Rock N' Roll #237 February 2003 issue)
THE MAIN FACTORS WERE NICK'S ORIGINALITY, MY POLITICS, AND THE FACT THAT ALL THREE OF US COULD MAKE QUITE A SOUND WHEN WE PLAYED. THE "CULT" ASPECT IS ALSO A REFLECTION OF THE FACT THAT THERE WAS SOMETHING ABOUT OUR SOUND THAT WAS RARELY COMMERCIAL. - GRANT, BASSIST
No band from the anarcho punk scene has projected an image of mystery and mania like Rudimentary Peni. From the first note of "Media Person" to their most recent music, they've never released any music that's short of completely unique: from musical approach, to the lyrics, to the bizarre and beautiful imagery that they're associated with.
Founding member, bassist, and (despite what many people think) writer of at least fifty percent of the band's material, Grant was just fifteen when the band came together. Having been exposed to punk like many in the country, he was sent on a course that would change the rest of his life.
Grant, "As a teenager in Britain in 1977, it was impossible to avoid it. The impact of the Sex Pistols, The Clash, etc. was considerable at that time, and the media was full of it."
Meeting Nick Blinko through a friend, the two hit it off and decided to play music together. For drum duties, Nick brought in his old friend and band mate, Jon.
Grant, "I met Nick through a friend, and we "clicked" immediately. Jon and Nick had been at school together. Jon and Nick had played together in the Magits. Jon had also played for a band called Soft Drinks."
The Magits had been Nick's first serious band, releasing music in 1980. Having lost interest in that approach, Rudimentary Peni would start up within a year of the Magits demise.
Grant, "The Magits only put out one record. At that time, they were Nick and a friend of his. They were an avant-garde synthesizer band. They put the record out themselves as the first release on Outer Himalayan Records."
The Magits Fully Coherent 7" is a dark, almost gothic sounding band. With little relation to what they would be producing in Rudimentary Peni the following year, the record does give some insight to the haunting imagery that would become part of their identity. A second EP titled A Pawn in the Game was also recorded but never released.
Having seen Crass in 1979, Nick was well aware of them by the time Rudimentary Peni started playing and recording. But it was Grant who developed a general interest in the anarcho scene, which led to the band's connection to the Wapping Centre.
Grant, "In 1979 I bought The Feeding of the 5000 and at a similar time Nick saw them live. We didn't really get into the scene until the winter of 1981 and the opening of the Autonomy Centre in East London. It was really me who was more into that scene, than the others."
Moving away from the more drastic experimental ideas of the Magits, Rudimentary Peni's musical approach was more deeply rooted in what was happening with punk at the time.
Grant, "Yes. Inspiration came from the first Damned album, and also a song called "The Bitch" by Slaughter and the Dogs, also the first two Discharge EPs and the first Wire album. There were many other influences, these were the main ones, at least in the early days."
Selecting the band name was a seemingly random gesture determined by Grant's biology class.
Grant, "When I was at school studying biology, we were told that in the fetal stage the clitoris is a rudimentary penis. Then we had to dissect rabbit's testicles, at which point I fainted. For any deeper explanation you'd have to ask Freud."
Writing from the hip, the band's initial live set would determine the order of songs released on record. It was a direct process, not leaving room for disposable material.
Grant, "The early set was essentially the first EP plus some of the songs that eventually appeared on Farce. Songs called "Museum" and "Your Tribe" also come from the early days, and found their way onto later albums, though in a highly altered state. Not much got left behind."
Despite the common belief that Nick Blinko was the sole songwriter in the band, from the start, most of the music was a collaborative effort.
Grant, "In the early years, song writing was generally a combined effort, with one providing the lyrics and another providing the riff. For example, "Media Person" was Nick's lyrics and my riff. Most of the lyrics on the first EP were Nick's, apart from "Blind Dogs" which was entirely written by me. The lyrics to "B Ward" were to some extent a co-write between Nick and myself. Who writes what has varied tremendously over the years, however."
Throughout the band's existence, they didn't play many gigs. Even their first few gigs seemed random and varied.
Grant, "The first gig was a nerve-racking local affair. The second gig was a music competition, and we came in joint last. The third gig was in London with Flux of Pink Indians and the Subhumans. After that we did a series of gigs, mostly at anarcho-type venues in London, and these were some of the better ones. Gigs were extremely intense to do, so we didn't do that many."
All the while the band was practicing and moving forward, Nick would also be working on his artwork that would become so popular.
Grant, "He would spend up to eight hours a day on art, and then we would practice songs in the evening. I would suggest that the artwork was inspired by Nick's sensitivity and his melancholy."
With the band taking shape, they soon embarked on recording their first EP but not without recording demo tapes first.
Grant, "Yes, and these early recordings are crap."
The band's first venture into the studio was the low budget excitement that characterizes so many great debut records.
Grant, "Thrilling and nerve-racking. The studio was a shit-hole, and that was all we could afford. When Nick came to do the vocals, I remember the hippy dude engineer turning to me in horror and saying, "he's just bawling into the mike"."
The band recorded most of their live set in order, or at least as much as would fit on a 7" record. Having finished the recording, Blinko finished the project with some of the most original cover art seen at that point. It's strange and unnerving line drawing cover on the one hand depicted alienation and decay with the image of a strange human-like form still developing in the womb. It's inhuman qualities make it's sequestered joy entirely otherworldly.
Grant, "I thought it was great, and perfectly suited. Great artwork. Crap recording quality. Great vocals."
Rather than even considering looking for a record label to release the EP, the band decided to put it out on Outer Himalayan, the name used to release the Magits EP.
Grant, "That's what bands did back then. It was a cheap, if rather limited, way of getting your stuff out there. As already stated, the label name was pre-existing, and was perhaps funny, avant-garde and perhaps transcendent."
The resulting record was as original as the cover art. Twelve songs crammed onto a little 7" record, the self-titled debut is a concise and perfectly arranged series of explosions shaped by fluid bass playing and tight drumming. The un-self-conscious approach to vocals lent itself to some totally unique sounds and expressions ranging from deep gutteral tones to top of the range belts. The range of dementedly enjoyable vocals enhanced the also unique lyrical approach.
Grant, "Don't really know where Nick got that early stuff from. I do remember him having a lot of arty books though, and reading things like Blake and Sylvia Plath."
The erupting bass line followed by the scream of feedback starts the record diving headlong into what may be one of the greatest introductions to a band of all time, "Media Person."
Are you green to feel blue?
Is your vision purely golden?
Is your humor black or olden?
Do you find you're getting yellow?
Though you know you're in the red, dread, red.
I'm your media friend
Transparent so close friend
I'm your media friend
Around the clock religion
With the lyrics spat out like machine gun fire, the song could be interpreted as both Nietzschean and existential. Though often inadvertently cross referencing pop and avant-garde ideas, the lyrics were hardly vague, but rather coming from a clearly different perspective. If there ever were hints in the words of the first EP that they were ideologically aligned with Crass and the anarcho scene (other than the obvious gigs shared) it would be in the song "Blind Dogs."
Grant, "I had political leanings before the relationship with Crass, as shown by "Blind Dogs." We always fought shy of calling ourselves an anarcho band though my idealism didn't extend quite that far."
The unseeing eyes of the blinded pupils
Unseeing guidance, the lead of the blind dogs
Token gestures from life long investors
Questions only for those who question
A vicious circle of passive acceptance
Passive acceptance of a vicious circle
Prevention by convention of infantile dissention
Creates a self-sufficient form of self oppression
Despite what problems the band may have had with the production values on the first EP, it remains (along with the bands first full length) one of the most impressive and unique documents to come, albeit inadvertently, from the UK anarcho scene. There were so many ways to be initially affected by this record. Whether it's the unique approach to songwriting, the mystifying artwork or simply, the relentlessness of the songs, the record definitely made Rudimentary Peni a band to watch out for. People around the world were now showing interest and friends also expressed excitement over the EP.
Grant, "Yes. People on the scene who we played it to, generally said it was brilliant and excellent."
But with all this interest coming from all corners, the above ground music media were completely oblivious.
Grant, "No reviews in the music press, but we never sent them a copy any way."
The band never would completely see the scope of their progress, nor were they that interested. In their entire history, they never really toured to promote anything, the release of their debut EP was followed only by a smattering of gigs.
Around the time of the record's release, Grant had by then become much more interested in Crass. When a friend decided to go up to their house for an interview, Grant tagged along bringing a copy of the freshly released Rudimentary Peni document.
Grant, "I went down to Crass' house in the summer of 1981 with someone who was interviewing them. I took along a copy of the first EP, and on hearing it Penny Rimbaud offered us the chance to do a 7" on the Crass label. We decided to do the second EP on the Crass label partly because I was heavily into Crass at the time, and partly because we knew it was a chance to reach a wider audience without being ripped off by a shitty "indie" label."
This new connection with Crass brought the band soon into the studio again but this time under more appropriate circumstances. Like most of the Crass Records recordings, the Farce EP was recorded at Southern Studios with Penny Rimbaud producing and John Loder twisting the knobs.
Grant, "For me, it was the most exhilarating recording experience that I've had. However, Penny's production style did tend to inhibit Nick's vocal performance. As someone who was 17 at the time, I remember thinking that Penny seemed a lot more easy to be around than many other "older" dudes."
Farce was a perfect eleven songs of raw punk rock that sated most people's appetites created by the band's debut. With only a slight shift in the group's songwriting dynamic ("Slightly more than half the lyrics were mine, whilst riffs came from both me and Nick", Grant) the group was still heading forward with a much more conducing studio environment. While the vocals were quite a bit different than any other Rudimentary Peni release, the overall sound certainly benefited from a more sympathetic ear at the controls.
Grant, "Penny assisted with studio production and mixing. I think Crass did the layout of the artwork, but they did not seek to alter or censor anything that we did. Their only requirement was that the front cover should have that recognizable circular stenciled effect."
With the influence of Grant's lyric writing more than Crass' presence, there are a few more direct attacks in the lyrics against an oppressive society, the most obvious being in the first track on side one, "Sacrifice," another moment of sheer brilliance with a simple guitar riff launching the whole record.
God is nothing more than an obsessive lie
When Sunday school children are brainwashed into line
And presented with as truth what's really just a lie
Another child's self-belief is sacrificed
In the eyes of the lord men are his servants
In the eyes of the lord women are men's servants
In the eyes of the lord we're authority's servants
In the eyes of the lord everyone's a servant
But possibly the most telling song on the record is one of truly existential despair called "Zero Again." Whereas the other songs on the record to differing degrees could be interpreted in some outward, sometimes political context, "Zero Again" was clearly about a more personal despair.
The end of the line where zero's the sign
A hole in your mind deaf, dumb and blind
Nothing to cry not even an eye
Zero again the end of no end
A vacant space lacks a familiar face
An unknown face finds a vacant space
The memory killed by a hole soon filled
Zero again there remain no remains
Death has begun
And Jesus loves no one
With this second release, even more people were starting to take notice. Again without the benefit of a tour, the band was noticing interest from people who had never even seen them play live.
Grant, "The audience liked it and the music press described it as "surprisingly good." It climbed the indie chart, which the first EP did not, and we got a lot of appreciative mail."
Under the wing of Crass and with their distribution, the band were more and more a part of the growing anarcho scene that Grant had been interested in since the development of the Wapping Anarchist Centre.
Grant, "We liked the Mob, Rubella Ballet and the Erratics. Above all, however, I thought the Sinyx were awesome, and on a good night they could kick all our butts. I still think their style and chord structures are some of the best that punk has to offer inspired simplicity."
To be free from the necessity of touring, and also to keep the band from being their life's framework, the three members still continued to have outside lives.
Grant, "Some worked, some did art, and I was at school."
But it was in the middle of this success that the band suffered one of its worst setbacks and personal tragedies when Grant was diagnosed with cancer. The news came while writing songs for what would be their debut full-length.
Grant, "It was cancer. I fought hard and survived. That's all I can say really, except that I've never been able to shake off the sense of mortality since."
Despite playing down the seriousness of the situation, Grant and Nick's songwriting must have been affected by the situation. While some songs remained from the early days, others were made during Grant's fight.
Grant, "Whilst writing some of it, I was going through the fight for survival, at least one of the songs on that album was written by me whilst sitting in a cancer ward wired up to a drip. Other tracks go back to the Farce era, such as "Inside" and "Dutchmen"."
By the time the band were in the studio recording the record, they decided to call it quits for the first time. Not knowing that this would become almost cyclical for them, it was not a happy time.
Grant, "By this time the band had split up, so it was all a bit of a downer. About two months earlier I had just recovered from cancer, and so was no longer quite the naive youth of the previous year. It was quite interesting and rewarding to do, but no longer exhilarating. Doing our own production enabled Nick to return to a less restricted vocal style."
With this in mind, the two main songwriters were matched in their lyrics in terms of dark themes and perfect musical accompaniment. One of the great aspects of Rudimentary Peni's delivery, especially on their first album, is their combining existential horror with barely contained anger. Most other punk bands of the time were clearly working in one direction or the other. Rudimentary Peni's unique approach was largely due to the unexpected high-energy approach to what would otherwise seem like depressed landscapes of futility.
The resulting album was called Death Church ("Don't know. That was Nick's idea," Grant) and was the most complete expression of the band as an egalitarian unit.
Grant, "It was the usual mixture of Nick and I. Of all the things we have recorded, I would say that Death Church is the most democratic, in the sense that it does not come across as being more Nick's project or mine. People think that they can detect which songs were written by me and which were written by Nick, but when tested they often get it wrong, which is interesting."
Death Church is certainly one of the most unique (and most popular) records associated with the anarcho punk scene. The songwriting somehow seems completely unique and interesting, while at the same time concise and almost minimal. Recorded and mixed in a mere four days, the record gives no hint at cheap production values as the recorded tracks even stand up today.
Unusually haunting, minimalist imagery runs through much of the lyrics starting with the opening mantra of "1/4 Dead."
3/4 of the world are starving
The rest are dead
Overdosed on insensitivity
Nail varnished to crosses
The lyrics are often completely given to the imagistic with its navigation in the paranoid and alienated.
The black cloud gathers and smothers my brain
As I cry another tear in the struggle of pain
Another hurdle to clear is it all the same?
Is the conquest of pain my only aim?
As you walk out of the Valium of death
A sad feeling limps around your brain
Funny farmer sowing seeds of discontent
Pumping nerve gas around unfeeling veins
War junkies perish in the wreckage of their brains
Mindwarp earthlings seek to change our path
Stench crawling over the snow
Bilious bodies terrorized by fast food sugar demons
Unhappy nuclear bomb doubt families
Meltdown in the melting tin pot boilers
Another crutch splinters and snaps
Time to heal the split atoms now
Happy Farm
Other lyrics saw the band taking more direct approaches to political oriented songs while maintaining their unique approach.
I tell you about the animals
How they suffer how they die
You try to hide your guilty doubt
From me with an appeasing smile
You never want responsibility
For this murderous cruelty
The wasteful piles of blood soaked bodies
You won't let your conscience see
Blasphemy squad
Thriving on hate
In the warfare state
Like piss in a pod
1902 inside a British concentration camp
Where 20,000 Dutchmen including children die
Do you feel any pity for these murdered men and women
Who died at the hands of the British Empire
Victims they may have been
But innocent they were not
They were murderers just the same
With their own code of hate
The initial pressing of the record would also include an insert further explaining some of the more issue oriented lyrics as well as info on the Autonomy Centre that Grant was involved with and contact info for feminist and vegan organizations.
Grant, "Yes. For me music had become to some extent a vehicle for political sentiments, so the two were not separate. I think Nick and Jon just thought the political thing was a load of crap really, and found my ranting and raving both funny and insufferable."
The record was released to great commercial and critical success. To this day, it's considered by many to be a classic record above and beyond the context of punk rock much less the anarchist scene.
Grant, "The music press liked it, and it made it to number one in the indie chart in the summer of 1983. I think some fans found it rather heavy going, which is how it was meant to be."
But even with that success, the band had decided to split before even recording Death Church. Surviving more than just a brush with death forced Grant to reevaluate what he was doing and the band dissolved.
Over the next few years, Grant and Nick wouldn't even see each other. During that time, Nick contributed artwork to records by Part 1, Icons of Filth, and eventually Septic Death. It was also at this point that Nick would write the bulk of his semi-autobiographical novel, Primal Screamer. Written in the third person from the perspective of an analyst observing Nick, the content runs from the completely insular, to the outrageous and hilarious.
Grant, "It is a strange mixture of fact, fantasy and fiction. Some of it, I liked. Some of it was too surreal for me. That book written in the mid 1980s during a five year period when we were not in contact at all."
The only one of the three making music was drummer Jon who played with the band Snakecore, who no known releases.
By 1987, even Crass had been split up for a few years. As a result, they were deleting much of their 7" catalog and it was suggested that the two Rudimentary Peni EPs be kept in print as a single full-length record. Initially released on Crass' Corpus Christi imprint, the full-length reissue was essentially even to those with the original records for the impressive Blinko cover art.
Grant, "Southern had taken over distribution of our first EP even before "Farce" was recorded, so there was always a lot of flexibility under the Southern umbrella. It was only ever our intention to do one record on Crass in order to reach a wider audience before reclaiming full control over production. Some bands have expressed mixed feelings about working with Crass records, but I have nothing but praise and gratitude for what they did for us. They were a help and certainly not a hinderance in my opinion."
With the band members back in touch, Rudimentary Peni would surprise the world by ending the decade releasing their second full length LP, Cacophony. Shocking alone that the band were back together (though their shroud of mystery made many in the States unaware of their split up in the first place), the record was even more eclectic musically and content-wise.
Straight ahead punk riffs were countered by totally non-linear lyric writing. Repetition as a device was challenged by fast tempos. Non-musical interludes took the listener out of the standard "rock band" context.
Lyrically, Nick was mostly responsible this time around displaying his fascination with HP Lovecraft. In fact, most of the lyrics on the record are either in reference to Lovecraft's writing or in some way biographical.
Tis better in ignorance to dwell
Than to go screaming into the abyss worse than hell
But all these messages have been in vain
From the little glass bottle to
The call of Cthulhu
Howard Phillips Lovecraft
Heaven knows had a talent for writing
Which was of no mean proportion
Only what he did with his talent was a shame
And a caution and an eldritch horror
If he had only gotten the hell out of his Auntie's attic
And obtained a job with the
Federal Writers Project of the WPA
He could have turned out guidebooks
That would have been classics and
Joys to read, forever
If only briefly, there is even a reference to Grant's illness from almost a decade previous.
Cancer of the colon and rectum
A very common form of cancer
Which can often be cured by surgical removal
Provided it is caught early enough
Hmmmm
Carcinoma of the intestines chronic nephritis
Grant, "The entire album was written and rehearsed within three months. The lyrics were essentially Nick's, whilst a lot of riffs and ideas were contributed by me. I had got into Beethoven, Handel, etc. by that point."
Hindsight gives the main riff-writer a more critical opinion on the merits of the record.
Grant, "I've never really seen it that way. It's a strange record in terms of its overall sound, but its structures are really quite conventional. Perhaps it's the presence of classical elements that makes you describe it in the way that you have. I personally think the first half of it is quite impressive at times, whereas the second half sucks."
More freedom in the studio only meant more mania as it was a grim time for Grant. The atmosphere resulted in some especially unsettling vocal performances by Nick further removed from any singer heard before.
Grant, "It was cold. I was in the middle of a relationship break-up and the coldness of the studio just served to emphasize the grimness for me. Nick's vocal performances were genuinely rather unsettling at times."
In the process of making a record that was even more conceptual than their previous recordings, the effort to create a cerebral effect didn't necessarily make a record at all accessible.
Grant, "I think it was Kerrrang magazine who loved it, but called it "commercial suicide." They were right about that. Of everything we've done, Cacophony has been the worst seller."
An absolutely fascinating record, it's possible that the perceived discordance of the record could have provided some sort of indication as to the problems Nick would have in the years to come.
Grant, "There was something rather deliberately arty about it. If Farce can be said to bear the stamp of my personality, then Cacophony can be said to represent more of Nick's approach to what we do."
Though the band had no plans after the release of Cacophony (the band hadn't even planned on playing live again), any even distant possibilities would take a backseat as Nick was diagnosed as delusional resulting in him being "detained under Section Three of the 1983 Mental Health Act."
Understandably hesitant to say much to Nick's illness, suffice it to say that it did play a big part in what would eventually be the band's next record, at this point his delusions are under control.
Grant, "Nothing to add on at this point, except to say that I have known Nick for over 20 years, and throughout that period he has been one of the most perceptive people I have ever encountered, particularly when it comes to the question of human motivations."
During the beginning of Nick's illness and the band's second split, Grant and Jon were contacted by Steve Albini about a possible recording project. While Grant and Jon's parts were recorded, the session remains incomplete with the tapes still in Albini's possession.
By the mid-90's, Nick had decided to start writing about his delusions wanting to "profit artistically" from those experiences in particular believing he was a Pope, hence the 1995 LP, Pope Adrian 37th.
Grant, "Pope Adrian was the only ever English Pope, who lived many hundreds of years ago and came from the village where Nick lives. To be a Pope at that time was the equivalent of being a Roman or Chinese emperor, or in the present day, the president of the US, i.e. a politcally significant dude. The whole concept was bound up with delusions that Nick had suffered during a breakdown. There does seem to be a tendency to have certain themes with each records, though this was not always the intention."
The music was a more accessible path of riff heavy punk with some of the musical ideas going back before the start of the band.
Grant, "It was just another session. I don't have many particular memories of it, except that Jon said at the end of the session that he didn't think any of the songs were that good. The riffs were written over a long period of time. In fact, one of the riffs went back as far as the early Magits days."
This venture into the studio would be the least popular amongst band members despite the fascinating subject matter. The band mostly felt like the musical material wasn't up to snuff. In many ways, it was a huge departure from Cacophony as it brought the band back to more straightforward hardcore punk. Some reviewers even referred to the songs as metal influenced as absurd as that seems now.
Grant, "Jon and I thought the record was crap, as did Southern Studios. None of us wanted to release it, except Nick, so in the interests of open-mindedness we opted to release it anyway. I personally still think its crap, but it sells better than Cacophony explain that if you can! It's worth remembering of course that at the time of the release, every record we've done has been considered crap by somebody or other."
If anything, the music is an oversimplification of the band. Lyrically, it's still propelling with nothing but curious ramblings and dramatics.
It's such a shame the Pope with no name
She doesn't know what she's called
Closure confusion it's so sad
Delusions of grandeur she must be mad
One day my head will grow
Into a mighty Papal dome shape
I shall awake old mitre man
For the first time ever, the band decided to tour to support the record. With slight financial incentives, the band toured the UK ending in what would be their final live performances ever.
Grant, "Some of the gigs were the pits. One in particular was one of the worst we ever did. Others were OK, whilst the gig we did in Derby had an incredible atmosphere, with people screaming stuff at us like "You're fucking brilliant!" Some people who turned up late at that gig and missed our set trashed the place. One of the other gigs suffered a power failure moments before we went on. Chaos ensued, and the management was so disgusted with our fans that they banned us from ever playing there again. We thought we would try gigging again, partly to promote the record, but also because it had become economically viable, unlike the early days when it would usually end up costing us money."
Unhappy with the record they were supporting, the band seemed to go back into another six-year hibernation. But with a new interest in songwriting, Grant decided to get the band going again, more active now than since their earliest days. While not expecting to ever play live again, the band has released a relatively steady stream of music. 1998 brought the EP, Echoes of Anguish.
Grant, "I think we were so pissed off with aforementioned indifference that we lost enthusiasm again for a long while. Echoes of Anguish was my project, entirely written by me. I decided it was time to take the band and give it a kick up its fat middle-aged backside. As part of that, I decided to write small amounts of material over a period of at least two years, if not more, and to weed out the crap, so that what found its way onto the record was only the very best I could write at that time."
Getting back to their early style, the recording this time was very quick.
Grant, "It was good. A kind of controlled intensity. We had a different engineer, who did a good job, and we took about three days in total to record and mix it. It was a response, in the sense that it was an attempt to get back to basics study some of the more progressive aspects of Death Church and Farce, and attempt to improve on them. In other words, it was more of a reference to our own stuff than anything else."
With a return to the style of their Farce era material, the lyrics are also a return to what most people think of when they think of Rudimentary Peni's style.
What is it that burns
Through every cell
And every fibre of being?
Divine decay
Pure and infernal
The flame of insanity
Grant, "The bleak message is my attempt to describe as accurately as possible the reality of human existence, i.e. the fact that it is suffering covered with a thin veneer of lies."
In 2001, the band released the follow-up to Echoes of Anguish titled The Underclass.
Grant, "It was an attempt to study some of the more progressive aspects of Echoes of Anguish, and attempt to improve upon them. We had already planned to do another EP after Echoes. It was just a matter of taking a couple of years to do the best we could. Again, The Underclass is the best thing we've done to date."
Having said that, the band to this day feels no affinity with the current generation of anarcho punks. In fact, the band no longer holds importance with politics as being part of their identity.
Grant, "Nick and Jon never did. I no longer see music as a serious vehicle for political discussion. I have also come to feel that when there is a tension between the desires of the individual and the wider agenda of social justice, the individual must give way. Real revolutionary politics is Lenin or Mao, not rock music. I would concede, however, that music sometimes can start the process of a person's politicization. However, it cannot complete it."
The band functions without any connection to the anarcho scene today.
Grant, "None whatsoever. All that matters is to improve the songs, describe reality, and try to give a bit of depth to the lyrics. You could also argue that the existence of this band does at least amount to a few misfits finding some sort of public voice."
That's not to say that they at all relate to any other music that goes by the name "punk" these days.
Grant, "90s punk is crap. It has soft jangly bits in it to make it easy for the listeners. Either that or it sounds like heavy metal. The last decent punk record was The Sinyx Black Death EP from 1982. Although the vocals on much of this record are too soft, the track called "Zulu" goes some way to capturing that band's greatness. In other words, we didn't relate to the 90s scene. We just did what we wanted to do."
As I write this, the band is recording a new record tentatively titled Archaic. Nick is back to contributing to the songwriting and the band have a positive attitude about it. With the band pushing forward, Grant isn't ultimately too interested in going down memory lane.
I WAS 15 WHEN THE BAND STARTED, AND 18 WHEN WE RECORDED DEATH CHURCH, SO FOR ME THAT WHOLE PERIOD IS TIED UP WITH THE BLEAK, INTENSE AND DEPRESSING TEENAGE THING (AS OPPOSED TO THE BLEAK, INTENSE AND DEPRESSING MIDDLE AGE THING!) IN MY OPINION, CACOPHONY AND POPE ADRIAN WERE A MISTAKE OR A DIVERSION. WE DON'T BOTHER TO CONSIDER AUDIENCE TRENDS OR WHATEVER, AND WE'RE ALWAYS CONSIDERED BY PEOPLE ON THE SCENE TO BE A BUNCH OF UNCOOL WEIRDOES ANYWAY. I TRY NOT TO THINK OF THE RECORDS IN TERMS OF WHEN THEY CAME OUT, BECAUSE NOSTALGIC ASSOCIATIONS WILL MEAN NOTHING TO FUTURE GENERATIONS, AS EXEMPLIFIED BY FANS WHO WERE TOO YOUNG TO REMEMBER THE RELEASE OF DEATH CHURCH, AND TO WHOM THE EARLY 80S ANARCHO SCENE MEANS NOTHING. - GRANT
