Because every original member of pioneering extreme metal band Napalm Death has been gone for decades, replaced by newer ones, it is possible to look at them as grindcore’s most successful franchise. The band began life in West Midlands, England, in 1981, and cycled through multiple lineup changes before settling on vocalist Mark “Barney” Greenway, who joined in 1989 after a stint in almost-equally-beloved death metal band Benediction.
The band’s new album, “Apex Predator — Easy Meat,” is unstintingly brutal and unapologetically political. Greenway, whose band headlines Reggies Rock Club on Tuesday night on a bill that includes Voivod and Iron Reagan, got on the phone to talk politics, heavy metal cruise ships and the mystical inner life of bands.
Edited highlights from that conversation follow:
On the band’s recent participation in the 70,000 Tons of Metal cruise:
If you picture the traditional image of retirees on a boat, then transfer that to heavy metal folk, that’s about it. It’s a lot of bands playing, and all the usual stuff, like huge buffets. Huge, ridiculous buffets. … I thought it was going to be a bit tacky, but it was really good fun. I’d be lying if I said otherwise, you know?
On whether the ADDED1 FOR H&T band’s early history of the band is lost with its founding members gone:
I was there when it was going on. I was a friend of the band. I used to roadie for the band, which was just lifting things that looked heavy, and drinking. When the first album was being recorded, I was around.
On the mystical inner life of bands:
I almost talk about Napalm in the third person, like when our band will have discussions about things, it won’t be about what we need, it’ll be about what Napalm needs. That might be strange to some people, but all of us are pretty protective of it. We’re probably more protective of the bands than we are of ourselves. … What people don’t see is that bands are very complex relationships.
On that time he was kicked out of the band:
It was very brief, it was a fraction of the rest of our time. It’s part of the history of the band, so yeah, I wasn’t in Napalm Death for six months. It serves as a learning tool, possibly. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. It’s human nature, the life cycle of a very complex animal.
On why Napalm Death isn’t necessarily a metal band:
That’s too general a term, really, for me. It has elements of so many other things, from punk to no wave, and possibly many other things, too, because there are many elements of Napalm. It’s always given us a lot of mileage in what we can do.
Or a political one:
I wouldn’t call it political awareness, either. I’d call it a recognition of humanity. That’s what we try to do in the band. You could say I was a person of the left and I wouldn’t deny that, but the object of Napalm, for me, is to try to get people to understand what humanity actually means, and what you don’t do, you know, what you shouldn’t do.
On whether left-wing bands flourish during Republican administrations:
It’s consistently the same, to be honest. The Bush years were very fertile, as were the Reagan years, but the focus isn’t necessarily on U.S. presidents. For example, the situation with religious extremism — it is very, very dangerous to have somebody set governments with that kind of moral authority, to bring it into the civic forum and try to manipulate people in that way. It’s totalitarianism, that’s what it is.
On whether he worries that the band’s focus on political issues will one day make ADDED1 its their albums seem dated:
You can look at Napalm’s back catalog as a number of historical issues at the time. That’s not a problem. … You do what you do at the time, and then you just roll with it.
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When: 7 p.m. Tuesday
Where: Reggies Rock Club, 2105 S. State St.
Tickets: $20-$25 (17+); 312-949-0120 or ticketfly.com
