Interview: The Napalm Death vocalist talks about his political development, dynamics with bands and fans, and having dialogue with people we disagree with

Can you talk about your political background? Any people, events, or texts that influenced you?

It’s difficult to give one person because the collective was always important to me, I think collectives are vital for people to flourish as human beings, so I never want to put people on a pedestal. But I would say that obviously Crass was really big for me, because at a time when there was a massive stigma around things like women’s sexual health or Britain’s “adventures” throughout the world, I absolutely admired that they were never afraid to speak out.

I am a person of the left, my family were trade unionists, I was a trade union rep for a while, my brothers were, my dad was, so that’s where I came from. But in the context of the left I had questions, I didn’t think it was right to verbally support regimes that suppressed people, because I could see some of the regimes of the “left” around the world, and to me they were almost as bad as the regimes on the right. So I think Crass underlined that, one of the phrases that they had was “left or right it’s all shite”, I’m paraphrasing a little bit, but that started me questioning things that I’d never previously thought about, being very entrenched in being a person of the left.

Then it was the Falklands War – I was coming towards the end of my secondary school in Birmingham, I was very aware of it, the schoolkids would turn up waving Union Jacks and stuff, and to me from whichever perspective you tried to look at it, it was colonialism, and I could never, ever tie myself to any brand of colonialism. But the intimidation of people that spoke out against it at that time, you could get punched in the face as quickly as you’d said something. I just got shoved, but you almost had to be very brave to really stand up and speak. More so then than now, patriotism was extremely important to quite a lot of people, even if they didn’t understand the context of what was going on, the default position was “oh you must stand behind the troops”. Well of course, anyone who goes into uniform, and acts upon the wishes of the State – we don’t want them to get killed, you know? Same on the Argentinian side, even though it was a fascist regime.

There’s one book in particular that really did something for me, and I never knew about it, it just arrived one day inmy hands: Days of War, Nights of Love by CrimethInc., that book to me was incredible. I’d read lots and lots of books and pamphlets before, but this one phrased it in such a down-to-earth, simple way, and it brought humour into it and humour is essential if we’re gonna liberate ourselves as human beings.

Where would you draw the line in terms of bands Napalm might refuse to perform with? On the flipside, is there actually a moment where it’s okay to party with someone who doesn’t share your values?

We’ve always either jumped off bills, or given the promoter a choice, whether it’s with openly fascist bands or with fascist tendencies, we’ve done that every time. I can make that choice, I don’t have to play that gig, or Napalm as a collective doesn’t have to play that gig. So yeah we have done that. But that doesn’t mean to say that I’m not going to play on a bill with a band that has someone that’s, just for example, a Trump supporter.

What’s the point of that? Because at some point you have to understand that if we’re going to move forward as human beings we actually have to talk, and have dialogue, and be around people that we don’t necessarily agree with. I think sometimes the left struggles with that concept, it just shuts everybody out. But freedom for everybody, not just for me, not just for you – it means everybody, even people that we don’t agree with.

Any music or art scene is just a microcosm of what’s out there in the rest of the world. People might try to tell you otherwise, but it’s no different. So in daily life we’re going to have to deal with things that we don’t particularly like, we’re gonna have to bite our tongue a little bit, and it’s the same in the music scene. I have played and will play with bands where I don’t share the views of those people, but it doesn’t mean I shouldn’t play with them, and of course there are different degrees. There are people who have conservative viewpoints far removed from mine, but I actually like them as people. I don’t hate them as people, I don’t exclude them; we diverge – but that shouldn’t stop you from connecting with your fellow human beings.

If bands and fans have a responsibility to challenge oppression in practice, what does that look like?

Napalm does, of course, we’ve never not done that, because it’s important to do it. At the end of the day we’re a purveyor of art, so the way we do that we include it in our lyrics, we include in our art, when we play gigs we speak about it on stage, we’re never afraid to do that. If you’ve ever seen any live stuff of Napalm Death you will see that, and that’s any gig, doesn’t matter where we are in the world, it’s consistent. So that’s really all I can say to that, unfortunately I don’t have a magic machine that can change everything, but we do what we are able and capable of doing. Because let’s be honest, not everybody in the world, if we are going to move to a point where we have true freedom, not everybody can do everything. Some people are capable of some things, others can do others. For me what I do in my life and what I do with my art, I do as I see fit and as I can do.

Many people in the mainstream have heard of Napalm Death, but they probably never get past that to the lyrics. Do you feel like with your best efforts you still end up being a commodity?

When I go to metal festivals where Napalm get asked to play I will meet a lot of people who are on the same wavelength as us.  Just because their music doesn’t translate into that wider effect it doesn’t mean it’s less relevant. It’s almost accidental sometimes, that a lot of bands where their lyrics don’t get talked about but the desire and the will are definitely there.

It’s obviously not the bands’ fault, but yeah it’s difficult … sometimes I get frustrated because the things that Napalm does that you would hope would have an impact in a certain direction and it just doesn’t, you know. Sometimes you’re just at the hands of fate (and I use this word very loosely), what you do is you put your stuff out there, and sometimes it can be a glorious accident that what you did achieves the effect that you wanted, and actually I would say 90 times out of 100 you’re not going to achieve what you wanted, you know.

But on the other occasion you do. People that don’t know bands from the inside out, probably their minds would be blown by the amount of stuff that just kind of sails down the river, that never gets talked about, and the moments that do hit home are few and far between, so it can be tricky like that.

Animal liberation was always a thing for me, that’s frustrating to me because we’re not getting far enough, even though people talk about “a nation of animal lovers” we’re still now really not significantly further down the line in giving liberation to sentient beings, ending the misery of the abattoir. So that frustrates me, because in the end, the reason we do this is not because it makes us feel good, and this is my perspective, yes you have to take pleasure from something but I don’t do it to put myself on a pedestal, I do it because of artistic satisfaction, artistic achievement, and also that we achieve results in terms of general liberation. So needless to say, Napalm has been going since 1981, have we achieved the things that we might necessarily wish to see in the world?

No we haven’t, of course we haven’t, but we’re gonna keep pluggin’ away for as long as we are, and that’s it really. I do get frustrated but you can’t stay frustrated for too long because that’s not gonna help you in the end, you have to move past it and start on the next thing.

You often speak against violence, how do you feel about anarchists joining military formations to resist the Russian invasion of Ukraine?

I believe in non-violent anarchism, I think violence is never the answer, and I underline that because how are we going to move forward if we just keep doing the same thing that the old regimes have made us believe are legitimate to do so, to commit State sponsored murder against other people? I just think that’s something we have to completely eradicate.

I can’t give you the absolute answer about how, it would be naive to even try and do that, but I think we have to move towards that point of consciousness. And I would be surprised if Russian anarchists were fighting for the Russian military, because the sort of policies that Putin has been pushing in the last 10 years have no basis in human dignity, human rights; discrimination against trans people, gay people, people who are murdered in Russia. I’m sure there’s other places too, even in the UK, but the intimidation, the threats, the violence over there is another level. And on the Ukrainian side of course we know about these very ultra-nationalist, fascist groups that seem to mingle in a very strange way with the rest of the population, when you were seeing in Maidan Square ten years ago the fascist groups … so it’s a very difficult one.

Finally, what’s the future for Napalm? Will we see you on a 50-year tour in a few years?

I will continue, not speaking for the other guys you know, I will continue to the point where I feel that what Napalm offers live and on record is creative and interesting and exciting. If it starts to feel not that anymore I just wouldn’t do it. Honestly I don’t do things for gain, for prestige, for any of that stuff; yes it’s nice that people appreciate the band and stuff, but for me it’s more about those other achievements and if that at any point becomes compromised then I just wouldn’t do it. I don’t want to inflict a 50% version of Napalm Death on people, that undermines everything we’ve done for the last forty years.

Artistic integrity is really important to us on all levels of the band basically. You know that it’s become even more of a thing these days that bands will have VIP elements to their tours, they’ll charge people extra money for some crappy fuckin’ five minutes with them, and Napalm is completely opposed to that. What’s problematic about it for me is you’re enforcing the dynamic that people are able to buy your time, buy this added significance and I don’t like that, it leaves a really fucking bad taste in my mouth, so we don’t do it. It makes me feel really uncomfortable, like a show pony, turning up in a room somewhere that people have paid all this extra money to get the Willy Wonka gold ticket, it makes my skin crawl. On a personal level I just find that stuff really uncomfortable, the whole concept of people being more important than others. For me it goes to my historic thoughts about the monarchy, which needless to say I think should be dissolved completely, I still don’t get it, how they still have this place on the pedestal like higher than all of us, and I just think it’s absolutely ridiculous.

This interview first appeared in the Winter 2026 27 issue of Freedom anarchist journal.