by Oliver Sheppard
It was the kind of nervousness you get before a big job interview. Killing Joke frontman Jaz Coleman was spending the morning taking phone interviews from music journalists in advance of the October 30th US release of Killing Jokeโs fifteenth album, the apocalyptic MMXII, on Spinefarm Records. Killing Joke had become one of my all time favorite bands over the past few years, and โI spoke with Jaz Coleman on the phone todayโ was not something I imagined Iโd ever be able to truthfully say to anyone any time soon.
I was a little intimidated, partly because of the reputation Jaz’s volatile temper had earned him. In the 1980s, Killing Joke had an absolutely adversarial attitude towards the music press; there is an infamous incident of Jaz dumping a briefcase of maggots onto the desk of a writer at Melody Maker. But Jaz was in a good mood, gracious with his time, and able to converse easily and at length on a broad number of topics. His hearty, trademark laugh — Hahaha! — was never far off.
Dial into conference line; an assistant answers, tells Jaz my name and what site I write for.
Me: “Hello?”
Jaz Coleman: โHullo, Oliver! How are you? Where are you calling from?โ
Me: โIโm down in Texas, in America.โ
Jaz: โAh, Texas! People in Texas are always so nice every time I talk to them. Why is that?โ
Me: “Could be the traditional Southern upbringing we all getโฆ.โ
Jaz: โWell, go ahead and fire away. You can ask me about anything youโd like to know about the band, the album, or whatever’s on your mind.โ
Me: โAlrighty, cool. I heard MMXII some months ago. I do like the albumโ โ
Jaz: โ–thank you–โ
Me: โโand especially the song on it, โColony Collapse.โ Is there a theme to the whole album? The title is MMXII, so a lot of people, knowing Killing Joke, will assume itโs about the idea that the earth is going to end this year.โ
Jaz: โI donโt think the world is definitely going to end this year. There are things happening that we should be concerned with, but I donโt really put much trust in ancient calendars. I find them interesting. The song โColony Collapseโ is about the rise of nanotechnology and the danger there is in that. You know, you have these scientists โ and I donโt really like scientists โ working on nanobots, microscopic robots that can be programmed to do whatever they like. The lyrics in the song about โgrey gooโ โ thatโs what we could all become if nanobots start altering life at the microscopic level, which is what they are supposed to do. The scientist Eric Drexler wrote about this, and a lot of scientists talk about nanobots unintentionally doing things that could really mess up the planet, but I donโt think it would be unintentional. Scientists have tremendous power to unleash evil. Theyโve shown before they have no problem doing it, so I think nanotechnology could be used intentionally for evil reasons. Almost any sort of scientific advance like this is used to harm people or the environment even though initially theyโll always say itโs to benefit everyone.โ

Me: โI guess you do have examples of scientists like Dr. Mengele and that sort of thing.โ
Jaz: โThatโs one example. Of course, the Americans were doing much worse stuff than Dr. Mengele during World War II. Hahaha! And in the end, anyway, America took all the knowledge gained from Nazi scientists and used it for themselves, no matter how the Nazis acquired it. So we have to keep our eye on scientists and what the scientific community is doing. So much of the technology they produce usually ends up being bad for us and the environment. My brother is a scientist, a physicist over in America, so I know a lot about what goes on among them. Heโs a good person, but over and over scientists have shown that they invent things that canโt be trusted. Surveillance technology, nuclear weaponsโฆ.โ
Me: โYou did a musical project with him [Jazโs brother, physicist Piers Coleman], didnโt you? A symphonic, orchestral thing?โ
Jaz: โYes, we did. Music of the Quantumโฆ.โ
Me: โThe first song on MMXII, โPole Shift.โ Thatโs a song about the theory that the earthโs magnetic poles are shifting, and something could happen like the earthโs gravitational fields would be reversed, causing us all to dieโฆ?โ
Jaz: โThatโs one idea thatโs out there. โPole Shiftโ is about that and also the differences people have with each other, when their views polarize and lead to violence. The earth is changing all the time. Weโre tumbling through space on this planet and a million different things could happen to us at any moment. The magnetic north pole is shifting in a southeasterly direction; thereโs a lot of research that shows this, but no one wants to talk about it. The axis of the earth is going northwest. Every time there is a serious earthquake, like the one last year in Japan, the earthโs axis shifts anyway. This is the kind of thing that could cause a serious global catastrophe. It may be that we have to develop underground cities to live in, as the ancients were already starting to do. There are already large underground cities in lots of places, like Derinkuyu, an underground city in Turkey, that they built because they knew we would need some sort of protection from this type of catastrophe. And there is a huge underground city in Egypt that they recently found, Avaris, that is 3,500 years old. But, will anything happen by the end of 2012? I donโt know, but people should know the information about the shifting poles and the related information thatโs out there. If they do dramatically shift thereโs not much we could do about it, really.โ
Me: โThereโs a commercial by a US investment firm, TD Ameritrade, that actually shows a cartoon of the pole shift event happening in one of their advertisements.โ
Jaz: โOh, there is? Hahaha!โ

Me: โI heard rumors you all were planning a show on December 21 in case the earth does end. Is that true? Will you be doing anything special on that day?โ
Jaz: โOh, I donโt know about a show on December 21. Me, Iโll probably just be enjoying myself, fishing in New Zealand.โ
Me: โIs the band getting along well โ you, Big Paul, Youth?โ
Jaz: โYes, weโre doing great. Weโre all getting along fine. If you can you believe that! Haha!โ
Me: โSo hopefully youโre also writing new material, then, maybe something for 2013?โ
Jaz: โIโm always working on new material, but yes, weโre hoping to do another album next year. We had finished MMXII over a year ago โฆ letโs see โฆ November, October โฆ itโs been over a year since we wrote and recorded MMXII. Next year weโll be recording a new album over in Argentina. Weโre still working on getting that all together.โ
Me: โThe previous two albums, Hosannas from the Basements of Hell and Absolute Dissent, those were relatively harder, more aggressive albums. MMXII sounds a little more polished. Was this a concerted, deliberate plan, to make a slightly more polished album?โ
Jaz: โNo, we never plan things out like that. Whenever we start making new music we donโt plan it out too much. We donโt know how itโs going to sound in the end; we just get together and start playing, and however it turns out is how it turns out. We donโt go in thinking โLetโs do this kind of record.โ It just happens when we get together, and it ends up different each time we do it. Itโs always a new experience. I finished writing the lyrics by autumn last year and I did put a lot of thought into those. But musically we just play, and it comes out from all of us spontaneously, without much planning. It comes from beneath the level of our consciousness, on a primal level. I didnโt hear the finished album until late last year, and when I first heard it I thought, โThis is fucking incredible!โ It always comes out differently and itโs always a surprise to me when we come up with songs, how they end up sounding when weโre done. Itโs not anything we plan out too much. I donโt think that should ever be a part of how we make music โ it wouldnโt end up as powerful as it is.โ
Me: โSpeaking of the end of the world, do you have a favorite between Obama and Romney? Itโs all thatโs on TV over here right now.โ
Jaz: โWelllllโฆ.. The world is really nervous about the election. It is a big decision, but I donโt think any president can really do anything that affects much for the better. I think early on someone like Obama probably thinks he can get into office and change things, but whoever gets elected gets access to the JFK file, so they see what happens to them if they get too out of line. I mean, there are forces that do not want the president to do something he isnโt supposed to do. They call themโฆ now they call them โlobbyistsโ or โspecial interests,โ but those words donโt really describe who the true rulers are. Itโs more sinister than just โlobbyists.โ Politicians are just the servants of people that are really in control. Rulers like the Federal Reserve, which thereโs nothing โfederalโ about, by the way! There are powerful forces who do not want things to be too shaken up or else theyโd lose their influence, and they want to keep their influence at all costs. Of course, in general, I would say if you want more social programs, you vote for Obama, and if you want the military to be stronger, you vote for Romney. I mean, I do have an interest in this, and I think I should, even though I donโt live over there.โ
Me: โYeah, I saw this feature in the New York Times recently that showed people in cafes in China and other places, foreigners across the world, watching the US debates between Romney and Obama.โ
Jaz: โYes, and they have every right to watch it. They damn well should be paying attention. We live in the era of Pax Americana now, you know. You canโt get away from America, no matter where you live. What the US does affects everyone on the planet. Back after 9/11, you had people like Cheney and Rumsfeld imposing their foreign policy โ and American foreign policy is really complicated, it would take too long to talk about it all โ they ruined whatever moral credibility America had anywhere. They were starting wars under the most flimsy excuses, going wherever they wanted, enriching themselves and their oil industry friends, and on top of that developing new ways of torture and violating everyoneโs civil liberties everywhere. Waterboarding and secreting people away into torture chambers. Hundreds of thousands of people in Iraq, the Middle East, and elsewhere have died because of this, so people will care a lot about who gets elected in America because they know it is going to affect them in some way or another. Europe has lost a lot of its moral authority now, too. One of the things that happened in 2003 that I thought was a good development was you had countries like Germany and France who were actually saying, โNo,โ to America. โNo, you cannot do this,โ about the Iraq invasion. I thought that was a good sign. Usually you just have people like Tony Blair or Jack Straw who go along with whatever America wants.โ
Me: โWas the song โEuropean Super Stateโ about this in any way?โ
Jaz: โEurope can be a counterweight to American power if it ever got its act together and decided it really wanted to. In Killing Joke weโve always wanted a true humanity, a truly peaceful, united society of people coming together across the earth. People should be liberated to live their lives with as much freedom as they want. Killing Jokeโs music has always been about liberating people. The American constitution is about liberty. If you look at rock and roll, the history of rock and roll, it coincided along with a lot of liberating movements โ things like the Civil Rights movements or the womenโs movement. A lot of rock and roll channels sexual energy, and sexual energy is liberating. You had things like contraception becoming more widely available and the sexual revolution happening right after rock and roll happened. Music is a key to unleashing these forces that liberate. You know, there were people like Wilhelm Reich who showed that sexual repression is directly tied to fascism and political repression. When you liberate yourself sexually, you open up the heart chakra and the sacral chakra, and it enables you to become a freer and more loving person. That has to happen if people are going to live in a world that is really free and peaceful, where people care about each other.โ

Me: โAbout Wilhelm Reich โ I always wondered, is the song โTabazanโ off Nighttime about that at all?โ
Jaz: โNoโฆ โTabazanโ was written before I had read much Reich.โ
Me: โWell, as a fan, can I request you put โTabazanโ back into the setlist?โ
Jaz: โUh, well โฆ weโll see about that! Hahaha!โ
Me: โSo you are a big fan of Wilhelm Reich?โ
Jaz: โYeah. Out of his stuff you can get some really ‘off’ ideas, like the stuff about group masturbation to collectively release orgasmic energy. Hahaha! But I think in the long run his stuff about sexual energy being a vital component of human liberation is right. Rock and roll is part of that. Itโs all tied in together. Before rock and roll, we started having some advances in womenโs liberation here in England — like, we have these things called Marie Stopes clinics that were started by this womenโs equality reformer, Marie Stopes. They give out contraceptives and provide abortions, and it was a big step forward to women gaining equality. Except, Marie Stopes was also in with the eugenics movement, and apparently she liked Hitler. So, thereโs that. Hahaha!โ
Me: โThat sounds a lot like Planned Parenthood and Margaret Sanger over here.โ
Jaz: โBut after rock and roll happened you rapidly saw womenโs equality come into its own, and punk helped push that forward even more. Music and sex are mostly about the channeling of life forces โ the more you can do that, the more liberatory a society inevitably becomes. Things were already going that direction, and music helps unleash these forces in ways that helps society open up and become more free. We are always trying to tap into and unleash these forces whenever we make music.”

Me: โA few years ago you used to talk about wanting to build sustainable eco-villages and green communities, as a kind of way forward for the future. Is that something you still believe in?โ
Jaz: โYes, I absolutely believe in that. I visit and live between a lot of eco-villages โ thereโs one near Argentina I go to a lot, in fact. We need an absolutely green future on Earth if we want to survive on the planet. We have to do this because we have only until about 2040 until the planet is dead and unable to sustain life. We have to start building these communities and planning now if we want to survive.โ
Me: โAre you a vegetarian or anything like that?โ
Jaz: โNo, Iโm not. I have looked at the research that says itโs more beneficial to the environment for people to consume less meat, though. Iโve read the stuff about it taking less land and resources to feed people who are vegetarians, so I do think itโs something people should look into. I think people should reserve the times they do eat meat. Eating meat should be something you save for feast days and other sacred occasions.โ
Me: โSome people would probably never forgive me if I didnโt ask about this, soโฆ A couple of months ago on the internet there was a message attributed to you about The Cult and some shows you were supposed to play with them and The Missionโฆ. I think you probably know what I am talking aboutโฆ. Is there anything you would like to say about this incident?โ
Jaz: โYes, I know what youโre talking about. Iโll be perfectly clear about this. We were supposed to play these shows with The Cult and The Mission, and it was an idea I never liked. It was this retro package of bands; Killing Joke have never been a retro band. It was really embarrassing because for one thing we were listed as the third band for this show in a venue we had already sold out all by ourselves before this. It made no sense to me, and especially playing with The Cult โ we have nothing in common with them. Theyโve been playing cock rock for a long time now. I mean, I donโt want to say anything bad about Ian or anything, but they act like rock stars. Weโre not rock stars. I donโt have any regrets about ‘the incident,’ and I stand by what I said.โ
Jaz’s assistant cuts in and announces time is up.
Jaz: Sorry, Oliver. We’re trying to do as many interviews as we can this morning. This is how it goes. Cheers, mate.
Me: Thanks, Jaz. Have a good day.
MMXII is Killing Joke’s fifteenth studio LP, the second since 2010’s Absolute Dissent with the original band lineup. It comes out in the United States on Tuesday, October 30th on Spine Farm Records.
